Applied Nanotech drops SED lawsuit against Canon

FT reports the way for SED TVs has finally been cleared as Applied Nanotech lost a patent lawsuit that delayed progress on this technology for more than three years:

Nasdaq-listed Applied Nanotech, which had sued the Japanese company for illegally sublicensing its patents, told the Financial Times that it had decided not to appeal to the US Supreme Court. "It would probably be a futile effort," said Douglas Baker, Applied Nanotech's chief financial officer.

Canon can now press ahead with televisions based on surface-conduction electron-emitter displays, or SED. Such TVs can produce the wide viewing angle and deep colours of a traditional cathode-ray television, but are as thin as a liquid-crystal or plasma display.

SED is a rival technology to organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, a system backed by Sony and Samsung, and could shake up the huge market for televisions and monitors. Canon showed SED prototypes in 2006, but has yet to prove that it can mass produce televisions at a competitive price.

Canon claims they have a new SED production process that is cost competitive with LCD displays, but the firm doesn't plan to introduce these panels yet because of the slump in television prices due to the economic crisis.