Nippon Steel Corporation has dropped its lawsuits over electrical steel sheet patents against Toyota Motor Corporation brought in 2021, resulting in these cases being closed.

Electrical steels (earlier post) are special steels optimized for specific magnetic properties, including a small hysteresis area for low power loss per cycle, low core loss and high permeability.

Toyota had been the target of three patent infringement lawsuits by Nippon Steel, alleging patent infringement related to electrical steel sheets used in electric vehicle motors and manufactured by Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.

For the next two years, the court heard arguments over the possibility of patent rights being infringed. On 2 November, Nippon Steel began waiving all claims related to the three lawsuits.

A “waiver of claim” is a termination of the litigation initiated by the plaintiff and has the same effect as a final judgment. This closes the lawsuits between Nippon Steel and Toyota regarding electrical steel sheets.