White LED patent status

Five Nichia, Osram, Toyoda, Gosei, Cree and Lumileds almost took control of the white LED industry, this patent intensive, can be said to be due to the heavy minefields, stationed in this field and other businesses worried, prohibitive, nonetheless, many companies still strive to take in this area occupies a foothold in place. The wide and rapid application of white LED, as well as major companies in the field of investment, patent infringement, cross licensing and other legal affairs continue to occur.

Since September 2005, the white light in the field of LED licensing and patent disputes (the main intellectual property rights) diagram

After a long period of patent disputes, the five companies have chosen to "cross each other" to settle conflicts and disputes (pictured above). As a result, the LED industry is quiet. But in this field or want to enter the field of other businesses, the day seems to be more difficult.

The scope of the license covers all aspects of the fixed light emitting transistor technology, but the most important and most significant technology in this area is the use of phosphor powder to convert blue and ultraviolet light into white light technology. As a result, the company does not need to effectively their own various patents and arguing with each other, but will focus on whether there is a violation of their patents, and their technology licensing other than the company.

Worse, these agreements do not help much to clarify the location of IP, determine which patents are valid, and which have priority. Read the patent literature can be found in a series of patents with the United States repeated or even conflict with the existence of patent documents. At present, the tort law has been promulgated, although some of the appeal of the infringement, but another part of the people dismissed such appeals. So far, the law on the validity of patents is still very limited.

In many practical cases, the subject of patent protection is not very clear. At that time, there was not even a truly effective patent for the protection of white LED light-emitting principle. In 1970, the United States patent protection screen to convert color is no exception, in 1991 Nichia by the use of phosphor to turn blue LED into white light patent applications in the United States patent application was rejected. As to the reasons for the refusal, I do not know whether it was because the United States Patent Office has accepted the same patent.

Compare the number of patents, it is not difficult to see that the protection has focused on the use of phosphor (before the cross Nichia Osram company agreed to sign an appeal to a Japanese patent infringement was rejected, refused to reason is that Osram does not use garnet phosphor). Therefore, after the patent began to expand the scope of protection, so that the contents of the protection of more and more widely but also more and more unclear.

White LED US patent status

If Nichia is the first white LED to commercial in 1996, then the history of white LED can be said to be very complex. In the United States, the patent situation is as follows:

The Baer lab uses a single or multiple phosphor for the phosphor screen, which is protected by the United States patent (3691482) and the principle of wavelength conversion. The patent is January 17, 1970.

Nichia in November 25, 1991 as "the use of fluorescent powder in the resin and used for molding the method for a Japanese patent, the technology has been released on June 18, 1993, but was rejected for applications in June 23, 1998 and in December 2, 1999, Nichia withdraw this application.

Cree has a 6600175 ownership of the patent (the patent was initially authorized to AMTI), the date of acceptance is March 26, 1996, the date of authorization is July 29, 2003. The patent claims to protect a "single LED by reducing the frequency conversion of white light emitting devices," and the patent is trying to protect all relevant technologies and processes. But the patent mentioned is just outside of excitation light source white phosphor, did not seem to cover usually blue LED on yellow phosphor excitation, Nichia referred to the blue LED excitation on the yellow phosphor in the patent, but not on the paper, there is no discussion of technology based on garnet phosphor.

Osram 6245259 in the United States patent patent application in August 29, 2000, authorized date is in June 12, 2001, but before June 26, 1997, he has won international patent protection. Since then, there has been a problem of patent overlap. The original patent describes the blue, green and ultraviolet LED with cerium, terbium, or garnet phosphors. This is not mentioned in the previous Nichia white light LED and Nichia patent applications in japan. The focus of this technical protection seems to be on the phosphor size (below 5 microns in size).

HP (Agilent) 5847507 patent date is July 14, 1997, the date of authorization is December 8, 1998. The patent is described in relation to the existing Nichia products and the focus of protection is the principle of luminescence of phosphors, which covers a wide range of various types of phosphor.

In the application of white LED first Nichia patent 5998925 in the United States was authorized in December 7, 1999, it is the date of acceptance in July 29, 1997, it was later integrated into the Nichia patent 6069440 and 6614179. As expected, the patent relates to the