Nano Gets No More Damages from Canon in Panel Suit

May 5, 2007

A U.S. court rules Canon does not have to pay additional damages to Nano-Proprietary over the violation of a patent license used to develop a new kind of flat-panel display.

The jury, in a verdict on Thursday, decided the Texas-based technology firm was due no further compensation beyond what it had already received because it was hard to assess damages when the product had not yet been launched, Nano said in a statement.

The lawsuit, brought by Nano-Proprietary, had delayed Canon's ambition to challenge makers such as Samsung Electronics in a competitive $84 billion flat-panel TV market.

The court had ruled earlier that Nano was entitled to scrap its original license deal that allowed Canon to use Nano's display technology, after the Japanese electronics maker tried to share the license with its partner Toshiba Corp.

The judgment also allowed Nano to keep the $5.5 million purchase price of the license.

"While we are disappointed by the jury's verdict, we need to keep in mind that we already had the most important victory in the case when the Court validated our termination of Canon's license as a result of their material breach of the contract," said Nano's Chief Executive Tom Bijou in a press release.

Canon said in a press release it planned to appeal against the previous judgment that it had breached the license deal.

Copyright 2007 by Ziff Davis Media, Distributed by United Press International