Universal Display (OLED) Risk Analysis

There are a number of other companies and organizations that have been issued patents and are filing patent applications relating to OLED technologies and materials, including, without limitation, Kodak (substantially all of whose OLED assets were sold to a group of LG companies in 2009), CDT (acquired by Sumitomo in 2007), Canon, Inc., Semiconductor Energy Laboratories Co., Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation. In addition, some of our customers such as SDC and LG Display have been issued patents and are filing patent applications relating to OLED technologies and materials. As a result, there may be issued patents or pending patent applications of third parties that would be infringed by the use of our OLED technologies or materials, thus subjecting our customers to possible suits for patent infringement in the future. Such lawsuits could result in our customers being liable for damages or require our customers to obtain additional licenses that could increase the cost of their products. This, in turn, could have an adverse effect on our customers' sales and thus our royalties or material sales revenues, or cause our customers to seek to renegotiate our royalty rates or pricing. In addition, we have agreed to indemnify customers purchasing our OLED materials for commercial usage against certain claims of patent infringement by third parties, as a result of which we may incur substantial legal costs in connection with defending these customers from such claims. Our licensees may also seek to avoid paying future royalties by attempting to have our patents declared invalid and unenforceable by a court. Our licensees may be more likely to file such declaratory actions in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc. (2007), in which the Court found that a licensee need not refuse to pay royalties and commit material breach of the license agreement before bringing an action to declare a licensed U. S. patent invalid and unenforceable. In addition, we may be required, from time-to-time, to assert our intellectual property rights by instituting legal proceedings against others. We cannot be assured that we will be successful in enforcing our patents in any lawsuits we may commence. Defendants in any litigation we may commence to enforce our patents may attempt to establish that our patents are invalid or are unenforceable. Thus, any patent litigation we commence could lead to a determination that one or more of our patents are invalid or unenforceable. If a third party succeeds in invalidating one or more of our patents, that party and others could compete more effectively against us. Our ability to derive licensing revenues from products or technologies covered by these patents would also be adversely affected. Whether our customers are defending the assertion of third-party intellectual property rights against their businesses arising as a result of the use of our technology, or we are asserting our own intellectual property rights against others, such litigation can be complex, costly, protracted and highly disruptive to our or our customers' business operations by diverting the attention and energies of management and key technical personnel. As a result, the pendency or adverse outcome of any intellectual property litigation to which we or our customers are subject could disrupt business operations, require the incurrence of substantial costs and subject us or our customers to significant liabilities, each of which could severely harm our business. Costs associated with these actions are likely to increase as AMOLED products using our PHOLED and other OLED technologies and materials continue to enter the consumer marketplace. Plaintiffs in intellectual property cases often seek injunctive relief in addition to money damages. Any intellectual property litigation commenced against our customers may force them to take actions that could be harmful to their businesses and thus to revenues, including the halting of sales of products that incorporate or otherwise use our technology or materials. Furthermore, the measure of damages in intellectual property litigation can be complex and is often subjective or uncertain. If our customers were to be found liable for infringement of proprietary rights of a third party, the amount of damages they might have to pay could be substantial and is difficult to predict. Decreased sales of our customers' products incorporating our technology or materials would have an adverse effect on our royalty revenues under existing licenses and material sales under our existing sales agreements. Were this to occur, it would likely harm our ability to (i) obtain new licensees which would have an adverse effect on the terms of the royalty arrangements we could enter into with any new licensees, and (ii) sell our UniversalPHOLED materials to existing and new customers. Moreover, to the extent any third party claims are directed specifically to materials supplied by us to our customers, we may be required to incur significant costs associated with the defense of such claims and potential damages associated with such claims that may be awarded against our customers. As is commonplace in technology companies, we employ individuals who were previously employed at other technology companies. To the extent our employees are involved in research areas that are similar to those areas in which they were involved at their former employers, we may be subject to claims that such employees or we have, inadvertently or otherwise, used or disclosed the alleged trade secrets or other proprietary information of the former employers. Litigation may be necessary to defend against such claims. The costs associated with these actions or the loss of rights critical to our or our customers' businesses could negatively impact our revenues or cause our business to fail.