Geman chemical, pharmaceutical and life sciences company Merck KGaA has agreed to collaborate with Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Each company is a leading market player and has a long history of developing OLED materials as well as owning a variety of related patents.

As part of the cooperation, which Merck said will provide greater freedom for both to develop high-performance materials, each company would have the right to use the other’s OLED material-related patents in certain areas and under specified conditions.

Along with the obvious goal of avoiding patent litigation, the German company said the collaboration will help to accelerate the generation of new high-performance materials that have higher efficiency and a longer lifetime, for example, with both parties exploiting undeveloped areas of OLED materials with different knowledge and experience.

The two leading players expect to continue discussions to expand the collaboration to include other areas in the future.