Kodak Licenses Samsung NEC Mobile Display to Manufacture OLED Displays; SNMD to Make Displays for Mobile Phones

Business Wire, Feb 26, 2003

Business Editors

ROCHESTER, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 2003

Eastman Kodak Company granted a royalty-bearing license of its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display to Samsung NEC Mobile Display Co., Ltd. (SNMD).

The license also includes SNMD's parent companies.

Under this agreement, Kodak has granted SNMD a non-exclusive right to use Kodak display patents, which include OLED manufacturing processes and device structures. SNMD plans to manufacture and sell passive-matrix OLED displays for applications that include mobile phones.

"The interest of companies like Samsung, NEC, and their SNMD subsidiary validates not only our OLED technology but its importance as a new business with whole new markets for Kodak and the display industry," said Bernard Masson, senior vice president, Eastman Kodak Company, and president, Display Group. "We look forward to seeing our technology in the innovative products these companies are known for."

About OLED Technology

OLED displays comprise self-luminous pixels, requiring no backlights used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs). So they offer design and performance advantages, including clearer images, crisper video, and thinner designs in digital cameras, mobile phones, PDAs and other devices. Additional benefits over conventional technologies include higher contrast for superb readability in most lighting conditions, faster response time to support streaming video, and industry-leading (165 degree) viewing angle for superior ergonomics. In addition to the joint manufacturing venture for AM OLED panels with Sanyo, Kodak licenses OLED technology to more than one dozen display and device manufacturers worldwide. For further information on Kodak displays and licensees, go to http://www.kodak.com/go/display/.> About SNMD

SNMD is a major participant in the development and manufacture of OLED display devices and is a joint venture of two of the world's leading electronics manufacturers, Samsung SDI and NEC. Recently SNMD succeeded in becoming the first company in the world to mass-produce full-color passive-matrix OLED display devices for mobile phones.

About Kodak and Infoimaging

Kodak is the leader in helping people take, share, enhance, preserve, print and enjoy pictures - for memories, for information, for entertainment. The company is a major participant in infoimaging - a $385 billion industry composed of devices (digital cameras and PDAs), infrastructure (online networks and delivery systems for images) and services & media (software, film and paper enabling people to access, analyze and print images). Kodak harnesses its technology, market reach and a host of industry partnerships to provide innovative products and services for customers who need the information-rich content that images contain. The company, with sales last year of $12.8 billion, is organized into four major businesses: Photography, providing consumers, professionals and cinematographers with digital and traditional products and services; Commercial Imaging, offering image capture, output and storage products and services to businesses and government; Components, delivering flat-panel displays, optics and sensors to original equipment manufacturers; and Health, supplying the healthcare industry with traditional and digital image capture and output products and services.

(Note: Kodak is a trademark of Eastman Kodak Company.)

Editor's Note: For additional information about Kodak, visit our web site on the Internet at: www.kodak.com