The status quo and countermeasures of Chinese LED patents

Text / Gaogong LED Editor Zeng Hongping

In recent years, with the development of China's LED lighting industry and the rapid improvement of solid-state lighting technology, the value chain of the LED industry will also be extended from manufacturing to various application fields, and the huge impact on social development is increasingly evident. At the same time, the LED industry's problems in technology, patents, standards, and application areas are also emerging. Global semiconductor patent disputes continue, and the trend of disputes has developed to the mainland of China and is increasing. In this context, how is the current status of LED patents in China, how can we better avoid patent risks and apply prevention strategies. Let's talk about it today:

First, the status quo of China's LED patents

 

Only 10% of global LED patents  

 

At present, the core technologies of the LED lighting industry are mostly controlled by foreign companies. Enterprises from the United States, Japan and Europe not only occupy most of the market share, but also own 80%-90% of original invention patents in the upstream area of ​​the LED lighting industry chain.

The Guangdong Provincial Intellectual Property Office and the Guangdong Provincial Information Industry Department jointly held a flat panel display and LED industry patent situation analysis report meeting, and released the "flat-panel display industry patent situation analysis report" and "LED industry patent situation analysis report." It is reported that among the relevant patent countries for LED applications, Japan accounts for 27.9% of the world, while China only accounts for 9.34%.

LED industry cluster accounts for three-quarters of the country

The regional distribution of China's LED industry is concentrated, and seven regional industrial clusters have been formed, namely Shanghai, Nanchang, Xiamen, Dalian, Shenzhen, Yangzhou and Shijiazhuang. The top six patent applications in China are Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Xiamen, which have collected more than 75% of the country's applications.

Most of the patents are concentrated in the middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain.

Since the LED industry has a relatively long industrial chain, including upstream, midstream, downstream and applied products, the technical characteristics and capital characteristics of each field are quite different, so there is also a certain imbalance in development. According to the survey of the High-tech LED Industry Research Center, as of the end of 2008, China had a total of 26,071 LED-related patent applications, of which nearly 50% were in the midstream and downstream packaging and application. In terms of the extension and chip of the upstream industry, the proportion of patents is relatively small due to the late start of research and production in China.

High-tech LED survey shows that packaging is the main research and development and application field in China, and the number of patent applications accounts for 39% of the total. Others are applied technology, epitaxial technology, chip technology, white light technology and substrate technology. The related patents mainly involve LEDs. Preparation method and equipment.

Lack of core technology patents

 

Upstream core patents are mainly concentrated in large companies such as Nichia Chemical (Japan), Osram (Germany), Kerry (USA), General Electric (USA), Toyota Synthetic (Japan) and Samsung (Korea), such as chip substrate manufacturing. The mainstream technology of sapphire substrate technology and silicon carbide substrate technology, due to the demanding technology and process level, is currently only controlled by Japan Nichia Corporation and the US Cree company, most of the sapphire substrate technology used in Japan is used in Japan. However, it is necessary to pay a large amount of patent fees to Japan and Japan.

At present, domestic applications are mostly peripheral patents, and core patents are lacking. In particular, patents such as white light, high-power LED lamp heat balance, and long-lasting and efficient fluorescent powder have been monopolized by Europe, the United States, and Japan, hindering industrial development. China must break through the foreign patents for white LEDs and make breakthroughs in the realization of technical routes or key materials. And while pursuing the number of patents, Chinese enterprises should pay more attention to the quality of patents, especially in the important fields. In the future, enterprises will have greater significance in market share negotiations.

China LED patents have risk status

 

More than half of the core patents of companies with core patents are authorized in China, and the scope of protection of peripheral patents applied for in domestic patents falls within the scope of foreign patent protection. Therefore, domestic enterprises have great patent risks. These companies use their core patents to adopt a horizontal (simultaneous access to multiple countries) and vertical (continuous improvement of design, follow-up applications) expansion methods, and a rigorous patent network is deployed worldwide. For the latecomers of the LED industry in China and South Korea, although the LED industry has already had a certain scale, its development in the patent technology has been greatly restricted by patents. This situation is most prominent in Taiwan.

In China, only a few companies have bypassed or broken through the containment of domestic core patents in a certain technical detail. For example, Beijing R&D rare earth has individual patents on phosphors that bypass the core patents through changes in technical characteristics; Technically, it has independent intellectual property rights, but there are still large risks in other technology branches.

 

Second, change the status quo and countermeasures to avoid risks

 

Accelerate the cultivation of China's LED independent innovation system

Guide the LED industry from the national level, give support to the underlying industries and research institutions, and encourage them to research and develop in the fields of new materials and processes such as GaN-based LEDs, single-chip white light, and high-efficiency white phosphors on silicon substrates. Innovation. Support and clarify the company's dominant position in the LED industry. Relevant departments pay attention to the propensity of patents of foreign companies, strengthen and promote the layout of patents in the field of LED in China, break the existing situation of “a plate of scattered sand and separate politics”, focus on key development, solve key technologies in the LED industry chain, and master independent property rights. Core technology and patents.

Strengthen cooperation between industry, universities and research institutes

In the field of LED, some domestic research institutions, such as the Institute of Semiconductors, the Institute of Physics, Zhejiang University, and Tsinghua University, all have certain research and development capabilities, while some enterprises have strong processing and manufacturing capabilities. Combine technology and capital, research and development capabilities and production capacity, strengthen cooperation with research institutes, develop more core technologies and patents, and promote the transfer of innovations from scientific research institutions to enterprises, effectively avoiding intellectual property risks and promoting The upgrade of China's LED industry.

Encourage companies to apply for more peripheral patents

By encouraging companies to apply for patents, the government can effectively protect and utilize domestic patented technologies. At the same time, Chinese enterprises should strengthen imitation and technological innovation on the base of digesting and absorbing foreign advanced technology, take the road of technological growth of Japanese and Korean companies, improve their technical effects by improving the core patents of competitors, and apply for improved patents. This is an effective way to change the status quo and avoid patent risks.

Value-oriented research and systems

Further accelerate the research and development of China's LED lighting products performance, testing, energy efficiency and other standards and related specifications, establish and improve product testing platform. Carry out energy-saving certification for LED lighting products, appropriately raise the threshold for foreign products to enter the domestic market, exchange foreign core patent technologies with standard specifications, and reduce patent fees.

Encourage domestic companies to purchase foreign patents

 

In view of the fact that most of the core patents in the LED field are in the hands of foreign companies, government departments should encourage enterprises to seize the opportunity to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with foreign companies and enterprises in Taiwan, and purchase core patents of competitors. At present, it is a favorable period for purchasing foreign patents. On the one hand, the development scale of LED enterprises in China is relatively small, which has not attracted the attention of foreign companies, and the possibility of patent litigation is small. On the other hand, the residual temperature of financial crisis can be used to reduce Patent purchase price.

Establish an industry early warning mechanism for intellectual property rights

Establish an early warning and emergency response mechanism for intellectual property in the LED lighting industry in China, and give full play to the role of industry associations. Study and analyze relevant patent information in this field, issue early warning information, and formulate and implement response plans. It will help governments, enterprises and research institutions to keep abreast of the intellectual property competition situation, prepare in advance to deal with the upcoming competitive threats, and properly handle the intellectual property disputes that have already occurred.

The expiration of core patents is an opportunity

In the next 2-3 years, a number of core patents in the 1990s will expire. For the industry, this may be an opportunity for the current pattern to change. Because the LED-related patents that have been proposed since 1990 will gradually reach the effective patent term of 20 years from 2010, a significant part of this involves important white LEDs.

Phosphor material is an effective way to break through the professional barrier of white light

Because the phosphor material is one of the key materials that affect the main indicators of white light LED luminous efficiency, service life, color rendering index, light color temperature and other light sources. Due to the diversity of chemical elements and the diversity of chemical reactions, the use of new phosphor materials will become a more realistic road for China's white LED industry to break through foreign patent barriers in the short-term failure of patent manufacturing technology to break patent barriers. Osram has used TAG instead of YAG to effectively circumvent Nichia's patent restrictions and win the IPR litigation with Nichia, becoming a successful case of breaking through the patent barriers of Nichia.

Conclusion

In recent years, the number of patents for LEDs in China has risen rapidly, and the number of LED patents of foreign holders has risen rapidly. The LED patent technology of Chinese LED holders is imperfect, basically focusing on lower profits, LEDs. Midstream and downstream industrial chains such as packaging and LED applications. The number of epitaxial growth and chip manufacturing patents is small, and most of them are controlled by foreigners. For the latecomers of the LED industry in China and South Korea, although the LED industry has already had a certain scale, its development has been greatly restricted by patents due to its passive use in patent technology.

China's LED technology started late, and it is in a relatively passive situation in LED patents. The development situation is not optimistic. As the scale of the company continues to expand, it may be involved in patent disputes due to the attention of major international companies. It is generally expected that there will be no large-scale lawsuits against Chinese enterprises within two years, but in the long run, domestic enterprises have great concerns. With the expansion of domestic LED export scale and the reduction of patent litigation in Taiwan and South Korea, it is not possible to exclude the possibility of large companies such as Nichia transferring patent litigation to mainland Chinese enterprises.

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