Darmstadt, Germany, November 7, 2016 – Merck, a leading science and technology company, on 7, announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd that allows each party to use the other party’s OLED material-related patents in certain areas.
In the remarkably fast-expanding OLED market, Merck and Idemitsu are both leading OLED material companies and have continued to supply a variety of highperformance OLED materials to customers. Each company has a long history of developing OLED materials and owns a variety of patents related to OLED materials.
Under this collaborative relationship, each company will be allowed to develop, manufacture and sell OLED materials in certain areas of the other company’s material-related patents under specified conditions. This will help to accelerate the generation of new high-performance materials (higher efficiency, longer life-time, etc.), by allowing both parties to exploit undeveloped areas of OLED materials with different knowledge and experience.
The companies expect to continue discussions to expand the collaboration to include other areas in the future.
The OLED market is expected to grow further in the field of display and lighting technology. Through this collaborative agreement, both leading companies will have greater freedom to develop high-performance materials and strive for further expansion of the OLED market.
The Idemitsu Group carries out core business centered on fuel oils and basic chemicals on a global asis. In addition, it pursues a diverse range of businesses, including functional materials businesses that encompass lubricants and performance chemicals as well as such electronic materials as OLED. These businesses have advanced the core technologies cultivated in the core businesses. Also, the Group undertakes resource businesses that include oil exploration and production as well as coal, uranium and geothermal resource development. Idemitsu had sales of about ¥3,570 billion in FY2015 and 9,203 employees as of the end of the FY. Idemitsu shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Tokyo (5019).
