A German court ordered that advertising for some QLED TV products by China's TCL be halted, saying the ads are misleading. Samsung Electronics filed a lawsuit in Apr. last year with the Munich I Regional Court in Germany against TCL's German unit to stop false advertising of QLED TVs.
According to the industry on the 5th, the German court ruled that TCL's German unit violated the Unfair Competition Act by advertising some products, including its QLED870 series, as QLED TVs, and ordered the company to stop the ads.
The court found that consumers purchasing QLED TVs expected quantum dot (QD) technology to improve the TV's color reproduction, but the quantum dot diffuser used in the TCL model in question does not actually contribute to improving color reproduction.
It ruled that advertising the product as a QLED TV despite a structure that does not improve color expression constitutes an unfair transaction that misleads consumers.
QLED TVs use quantum dot technology, which renders colors precisely, to improve brightness and color expression compared with conventional light-emitting diode (LED) TVs. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) defines QLED TVs as products that enhance color reproduction by applying a quantum dot film between the blue-light backlight and the panel.
TCL has advertised the product as a QLED TV, saying it applied a minute amount of quantum dots to the diffuser.
Under the ruling, TCL's German unit is barred in Germany from advertising or selling not only the models subject to the lawsuit but also other products that use the same technology as QLED TVs.