International legal practice Osborne Clarke has successfully advised Dialight plc, a London-listed manufacturing company that develops and supplies industrial LED lighting solutions, in renegotiations of its LED patent licence agreement with Signify, a multinational lighting and patent licensing corporation.
Dialight originally entered into an onerous licence agreement in 2014 under previous management. It operates in the niche hazardous lighting market and has always maintained an inhouse engineering research and development function – developing its own technology and patent portfolio. The task for the in-house legal team, working with a multi-skilled team of external lawyers, patent agents and technology providers, was to re-negotiate those terms.
Osborne Clarke's team representing Dialight was led by patent specialist partner Tim Harris who was supported by Sian Edmonds. "This is an excellent outcome for our client, Dialight, as it provides both certainty and the freedom to operate within Signify's patent portfolio under significantly improved terms. With this resolution, Dialight can now concentrate on its core mission of innovation in the LED space." said Tim.
Their contribution underlined the commercial ethos that makes Osborne Clarke a stand-out legal partner.
Dialight's General Council, Richard Allan, commented: "It was a real pleasure working with Tim and his team. Whilst providing invaluable legal, technical and commercial support on an extremely cost-effective basis, they also seamlessly integrated into a multi-functional team and executed on the demanding legal aspects of the process. Put simply, it was a case-study in how to drive very significant commercial value by using a range of legal levers as part of a wider negotiation strategy. Their contribution underlined the commercial ethos that makes Osborne Clarke a stand-out legal partner."
Dialight is a global leader in long-lasting LED lighting technology for industrial applications. With over a million fixtures installed worldwide, Dialight’s class-leading technology reduces energy use, cost and environmental impact.
Formerly Phillips Lighting, Signify is a Dutch multinational and world leader in lighting for professionals and consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. The company's patent licensing programme – EnabLED - has over 5,000 patents and over 1,400 licensees.
Osborne Clarke’s international IP team act for leading consumer, retail, technology and media companies and regularly advise on high value and business-critical IP strategies and litigation.
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