How to avoid the risk of infringement by domestic LED companies due to insufficient quality and quantity of patents

The current lighting industry is facing a revolution, LED has become one of the fastest growing lighting technologies with its excellent performance and broad application prospects. Innovation is the most important driving force for realizing industrial development. Strengthening the independent innovation capability of the LED lighting industry, accelerating the pace of technological innovation, and enhancing the core competitiveness of China's LED lighting industry has become a serious challenge before us.

Lack of core patents faces risk of infringement

Insufficient patent reserves will make Chinese enterprises lose their initiative in market competition.


Judging from the competitive layout of the international LED lighting industry, the United States, East Asia and Western Europe are currently at the forefront. The high-end product market is occupied by a small number of international companies, and the layout of the entire industry is gradually taking shape. The core patent technology of the LED industry is mainly in the hands of large companies such as Nichia and Philips. At present, some large foreign companies are not only in the number of patents, but also occupy an absolute advantage in quality.

Zhang Zhicheng, director of the Protection and Coordination Department of the State Intellectual Property Office, told the reporter that according to the patent strength and comprehensive market analysis, Nichia, Philips and Seoul Semiconductor have become leading manufacturers. Toshiba and Sharp can be classified as technology manufacturers. Most of China's enterprises only Manufacturers that can be classified as having potential for development face the same risk of intellectual property infringement as other emerging companies. Zhang Zhicheng emphasized that most of China's LED companies, whether they are patent reserves or copyrights for cooperation, are very inadequate and cannot pose any threat to other large enterprises.

On the one hand, the number of LED patents submitted by domestic applications is relatively small, and the number of external applications is relatively small. According to Zhang Zhicheng, patent applications in related fields submitted by applicants from mainland China accounted for only 20%, applications in Taiwan accounted for 38%, and foreign applications accounted for 44%. The proportion of total applications in mainland China is still not comparable to the proportion of applications in Taiwan.

On the other hand, among the patent applications for LEDs in China, the number of invention patent applications accounted for 31.5%, and the others were mostly utility model and design applications; the patent applications applied and packaged in China accounted for 80% and 11% of the total applications, respectively. There is a lack of basic patents and core patents for epitaxial technology and chip manufacturing in the upstream of the industry. Zhang Zhicheng said that the lack of patent reserves will make it difficult for Chinese companies to take the initiative in the product market competition. The current situation is already very serious.

Ye Zhican, director of intellectual property at Shanghai Silicon Intellectual Property Exchange Center, said that from the perspective of the patent situation faced by LED companies in China, in the field of epitaxial chips, the number of patents of foreign patent holders is about 70%; in the field of packaging, domestic and foreign. About half of each; in the field of application, foreign LED giants also have a large number of layouts. "In the field of epitaxial chips, for example, there are more than 340 inventions authorized in foreign countries, and there are only more than 100 articles in China." Ye Zhican said, "and not only has an absolute advantage in quantity, but the foreign invention patent authorization is more core because it It has entered the country in the form of priority and patent reorganization from abroad, and international giants have tried to bring more important things to China for layout."

Strengthen risk prevention and prepare for response

With the rapid development of the domestic LED lighting industry, infringement and litigation have become closer and closer to us.


Before 2002, Nichia Corporation dominated the intellectual property field of LED lighting, and then companies such as Philips and Osram joined forces. At present, the five giants have completed the cross-licensing of patents between each other, forming some form of industrial alliance, and controlling the white LED industry as a whole.

Zhang Zhicheng said that patents have become an effective weapon for giants to maintain the existing industrial structure. With the advancement and maturity of technology, this industrial pattern is gradually solidifying. Once the cross-licensing and alliance construction are completed in all major technical fields, it will mean that Chinese enterprises can only work in the periphery and downstream after entering the field. At that time, we are likely to have an industrial scale, but there is no industrial profit.

Between 1996 and 2011, nearly 180 lawsuits related to LEDs have occurred. The prosecution is mainly based on Nichia, as well as Philips, Cree, and Seoul Semiconductor. "The patent war is a war without smoke. Many times we are indiscriminately infringing." Liang Bingwen, a researcher at the Institute of Nanotechnology and Nano-simulation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "Many international giants treat Chinese LED companies as a kind of pig. 'The mentality, until the domestic enterprises' production scale, they will not hesitate to raise the 'big stick' of intellectual property litigation." Liang Bingwen stressed that with the rapid development of the domestic LED lighting industry, the infringement lawsuit has left us The closer it is. Although it seems that reconciliation is the final result of most litigation, the reconciliation must be in the hands of the prosecution. If there are not a few patents, reconciliation is very difficult.

So how should domestic companies avoid the risk of intellectual property infringement? You Tao, deputy director of the Intellectual Property Department of the Software and Integrated Circuits Promotion Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that, first of all, raise awareness and increase investment. Enterprises should take the awareness of intellectual property rights and gradually accumulate from the initial growth and invest their due expenses in intellectual property. Secondly, external intellectual property rights can be appropriately introduced, and some technical patents can be purchased, and even multiple companies can jointly fund the licenses. Thirdly, according to the characteristics and advantages of the enterprise, select a certain technical link of the industrial chain to carry out patent layout and strive for the bargaining chip. Finally, we must pay attention to trade secret disputes. At present, the technical personnel of many LED enterprises in mainland China are all dug up from Taiwan in China. Whether the relevant teams will lead to technical infringement and disputes needs to be paid enough attention by enterprises.

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