Press release

Realfiction announces exclusive license agreement for super-fast liquid crystal technology for next-gen ECHO holographic 3D displays

Realfiction Holding AB (“Realfiction” and the “Company”) announces it has entered a commercial license agreement with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (“HKUST”) that secures Realfiction the exclusive rights to use HKUST’s patented and super-fast ferroelectric liquid crystal (“FLC”) technology in future production of 3D displays larger than 9-inches.

Realfiction recently exhibited at Display Week 2023 its next-gen 2-inch microLED ECHO proof-of-concept display that is enabled by its proprietary driving system and powered by FLC technology from its collaboration partner HKUST. With the commercial license agreement in place, Realfiction has the exclusive rights to use the FLC technology for the lifetime of the patents for application in 3D displays larger than 9-inches (approximately until 2041).

“The response we received from booth visitors during Display Week 2023 was amazing, and we now continue communication with relevant parties”, says Peter Simonsen, co-founder of Realfiction and continues “Securing the exclusive license with HKUST prior to attending Display Week 2023 was important to ensure that we have the intellectual property rights required to produce large, immersive social multiuser 3D microLED displays.”

The combination of Realfiction’s underlying directional pixel technology in the patent-pending driving system and super-fast FLC technology unlocks the holy grail of 3D by enabling multiuser glasses-free viewing without any loss of resolution and is set to enable many sought-after use cases for the display industry. Realfiction’s invention has the potential of empowering the display industry with a real alternative to the competition from AR/VR glasses that are limited to one-user scenarios.

“Since I saw the Giant Screen 3D film “Into the Deep” more than 20 years ago, I have been fascinated by the hyper realistic experience of stereoscopic 3D,” says Steen Iversen, Realfiction’s Director of Advanced Display Technology and continues “This initiated my line of work in the 3D industry with 3D for cinema, tv and planetarium domes. I quickly realized that eliminating the 3D glasses was key to making 3D a mainstream experience and I have since then been dreaming of inventing a technology to make this happen. When I met with the founders of Realfiction we quickly realized that we shared this dream. I was happy to join the Company in 2019 where we started Project ECHO with the ambition of creating social and immersive 3D experiences. We now have a great team in Copenhagen and Taipei working on Project ECHO, and we secured an exclusive license for super-fast FLC technology, thus enabling us to create true multiuser 3D displays also with microLED. I am confident, that the combined technology can become the future standard for glasses-free 3D displays delivering a holographic experience to audiences around the world, and our team looks very much forward to presenting our 17-inch HD ECHO display later this year.”

Please also refer to the news from the HKUST Office of Knowledge Transfer website here https://okt.hkust.edu.hk/.

This project is supported by Innovation Fund Denmark.

About Realfiction Holding AB
Founded in Denmark in 2008, Realfiction is a leading innovator and provider of Mixed Reality solutions and services, a market estimated to reach USD 80 billion by 2025. Realfiction continues to invent technologies within Mixed Reality, with an intention to disrupt the industry by pursuing the vision of converting science fiction into real fiction. Realfiction Holding AB’s share is publicly traded on Nasdaq Stockholm First North under the symbol “REALFI”. The share’s ISIN code is SE0009920994.

About Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (https://hkust.edu.hk/) is a world-class research intensive university that focuses on science, technology and business as well as humanities and social science. HKUST offers an international campus, and a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy to nurture well-rounded graduates with global vision, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking. Over 80% of our research work were rated “Internationally excellent” or “world leading” in the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 of Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee. HKUST is ranked 2nd in Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2023, and its graduates were ranked 30th worldwide and among the best from universities from Asia in Global Employability University Ranking and Survey 2022. As of early 2023, HKUST members have founded 1,645 active start-ups, including 9 Unicorns and 11 exits (IPO or M&A), generating economic impact worth over HK$400billion. InvestHK cited QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 to demonstrate the performance of five world’s top 100 local universities in several innovation-centric areas, among which HKUST ranked top in four engineering and materials science subjects.

About ECHO
The ECHO pixel technology can direct light from flat screen displays in different directions, allowing each individual viewer to not only see an image which is different from what others see, but also to experience full 3D depth in that image. The main differentiators between this technology and others in the market or currently under development are that it does not require the use of glasses, that it is a multi-user system, that the resolution can be ultra-high and that it is not limited to any known standard nor size, that the required image processing is well within the capacity of current standard equipment, and that it can be mass-produced at a low cost. In addition to hardware, strong progress is also being made on the software side, including our Holowize 3D film conversion technology to enable a wealth of exciting content for the whole family. Finally, Realfiction has a global patent strategy to ensure that the ECHO directional pixel technology is properly safeguarded to enable the Company in signing collaboration or licensing agreements with commercial partners who want to include the technology in their display products. Several of the patent applications have progressed to the national phase, with the first notice of allowance received in April 2023 for a US ECHO patent related to the OLED technology.