US court dismisses suit against Samsung by ex-patent chief

A US court rejected a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co. by a former intellectual property chief of the company and banned the plaintiff from re-litigating the case, paving the way for the South Korean tech giant to win other patent suits, according to sources.

The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has recently dismissed the suit against Samsung filed by a patent management company Synergy IP Pte and a patentee Statern Tekiya LLC over wireless earphone and voice recognition intellectual property, said industry sources in Seoul on Thursday.

The court said it did not need to judge whether patents were infringed as the lawsuit itself could not be established, according to the sources.

Neither the court, Samsung, Synergy IP nor Statern were available for comments.

FORMER SAMSUNG’S FIGHTER AGAINST APPLE

Samsung, the world’s top smartphone maker, and Synergy IP have been in legal battles since 2021.

Synergy IP was founded by Ahn Seung-ho, who had led Samsung's seven-year patent fight with Apple Inc., in 2020. Ahn oversaw patents for various technologies such as voice recognition when he served as the head of Samsung’s intellectual property center for a decade before leaving the company.

He sued his ex-employer in 2021, claiming Samsung violated 10 patents owned by Statern, a US earphone and audio equipment maker, for the Bixby, Samsung’s virtual assistant, the Galaxy Buds, its wireless Bluetooth earbuds, and others.

Synergy IP and Statern filed four more patent suits in 2022.

ILLEGAL METHOD

The court said Ahn stole Samsung’s confidential information on Statern with the company’s intellectual property official, his former subordinate, for the patent infringement lawsuit, according to the sources.

Chief District Judge Rodney Gilstrap said the information was the most important document for the suit’s outcome as it has Samsung’s strategy for the lawsuit, the sources said.

The court said Ahn caused irreparable damage to Samsung by exploiting the company’s confidential information and the US attorney violated his duty of good faith as a lawyer as he used internal information to proceed with the lawsuit in his favor, according to the sources.

Ahn became licensed to practice law in the US after studying law with support from Samsung when he worked for the company.

The decision is expected to help Samsung in another legal battle against Statern, which filed a separate suit over four wireless audio technologies alone in July 2023, the sources said.

Write to Chae-Yeon Kim at why29@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.