GrafTech Obtains Favorable Judgment in Patent Infringement Litigation

LAKEWOOD, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GrafTech International Holdings Inc.’s Engineered Solutions natural graphite business, a leading producer of electronic thermal management solutions under its eGRAF® brand name, has settled its litigation with JTProfound Technology Co. Ltd. and its principal, Jing-Wen Tzeng. The settlement includes entry of a Consent Judgment in favor of GrafTech, finding that GrafTech's five patents involved in the case are all valid and enforceable, and that three of the patents were infringed by the defendants. The judgment also provides for a permanent injunction barring the defendants from selling infringing natural graphite sheet products to third parties in the US for thermal dissipation applications without GrafTech's prior approval, as well as monetary damages.

“We have a focused strategy to ensure that our intellectual property rights in the area of graphite thermal management products are respected.”

The ability to effectively dissipate heat from heat-generating components without harming adjacent components is critical to the development of ever-smaller, thinner, and lighter electronic devices like cell phones, laptop computers, and flat panel televisions. GrafTech pioneered the use of sheets of compressed particles of exfoliated graphite to solve this problem and created the market for the use of this material for electronic thermal management. GrafTech has a portfolio of patents protecting this technology globally.

“GrafTech is committed to aggressively enforcing its intellectual property rights relating to technology that we invented, perfected, and commercialized,” stated Brad Reis, GrafTech’s Director of Intellectual Property. “We have a focused strategy to ensure that our intellectual property rights in the area of graphite thermal management products are respected.”

GrafTech International’s natural graphite business is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and providers of high quality natural graphite products. We also manufacture thermal management, fuel cell and other natural graphite products for the electronics, transportation, and other markets. For additional information visit our website at www.graftech.com. Except for historical information, the matters contained or discussed in this release are forward-looking statements and are based on management's current expectations. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include: our ability to effectively enforce our intellectual property rights, changes in the markets and demand for our products, competitive pressures, competing technologies, and changes in economic conditions. We have no obligation to update any of the information in this release.