Domestic and foreign LED patent application comparison

It is understood that since the 1970s there have been LED patent applications, and the annual application volume has exceeded 100 items. In recent years, LED patent applications have been rapidly increasing, and there are more than 20,000 patents each year. At present, there are 124,000 LED patents applied worldwide, of which Japan has applied for the most patents, accounting for 49,000, and the United States also accounts for more than 20,000. Compared with foreign countries, how is China's LED industry technology patent application status? Does LED patent application attract enough attention in our country?

International and domestic LED patent application status

The basic definition of a patent is: the protected exclusive rights owned by the inventor of an invention. Separately speaking, it means exclusive interests and rights. Seemingly simplified and literally explained, but in real life, especially in the enterprise, it is ammunition in the fierce market competition, with enough ammunition, companies can be invincible in the competition, dominant. In the smoke-laden LED industry, China's LED companies in particular need ample "ammunition."

Many LED industry giants belong to Japan and the United States. Under normal circumstances, the company will first apply the new technology in the country for patents. Therefore, the patent applications in the LED field in Japan and the United States are far ahead. The number of applications for LED patents in China has reached more than 26,000, of which the patents for packaging and applications in the midstream and downstream industries are close to 50%. However, most of these patents are not original, most of them are based on the original patent of the international giant LED, do some repairs, and its patent gold content is also greatly reduced. If you truly use the patent lawsuit with the international LED giants, nearly 70% of domestic LED patents for inventions may be invalid. According to the domestic LED company annual report or prospectus data, Ruifeng Optoelectronics, Hongli Optoelectronics, Lehman Optoelectronics, Qianzhao Optoelectronics, Sanan Optoelectronics, and BDO Runda have a total of 707 LED patents. There are 77 pieces. The BDO Runda, which holds 44 invention patents, has its main source of invention patents and acquired Korea EPIVALLEY.

In 2008, a retired professor at the University of Columbia filed an application with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) for a patent infringement on LED patents. The applications include Hongli Optoelectronics, Shenzhen Zhou Lei, Dalian Lumei, and Hangzhou Shilan Mingxin. The company initiated the "337 investigation." In the end, several domestic LED companies each paid several millions of dollars in reconciliation fees. The "337 survey" in China's LED industry is a huge shock. On April 16th, 2012, a German group of German customs officers rushed to the booth of a domestic company and seized their pirated and infringing LED lighting fixtures on the second day of the Frankfurt Architecture and Lighting Fair. The company's infringing patents are the intellectual property rights of Shenzhen Zhongming Semiconductor Lighting Company. Based on the protection of customer rights and the maintenance of the company’s own interests, Zhongming has thus launched the first shot of patent protection. From such incidents, we can see that there is a lot of water in the LED industry in China. One is that patent infringement is still quite serious.

Firms are not willing to invest funds

At present, there are more than 8,000 LED manufacturers in China, and more than 5,000 are in the middle and lower reaches of the industry. Among them, there are 1,200 to 1,500 packaging companies, about 40 sales of annual sales of over 100 million yuan, and sales of 10 million yuan to 1 Between 400 million yuan and less than 400 companies, most companies have less than 10 million yuan in sales. The profits of the midstream and downstream enterprises only account for about 25% of the entire industrial chain. Upstream chip and package manufacturing companies account for about 75% of the profits in the industry chain. It can be seen that although there are a large number of LED companies in China, the scale is generally small and the profits are low.

Doing research on LED technology is not a project that can see benefits in the short term. It requires long-term continuous investment of funds. Most of the LED industry in China are in the middle and lower reaches. The size of the company is relatively small and the funds are not sufficient. Therefore, most companies are not willing to invest large sums of money in technology research. Coupled with the fierce competition in China's LED market, this will further encourage companies to invest in technology research, which also makes the lack of China's LED patents and more water. Without its own technology, most of the LED companies in China can only imitate. The sales director of a company stated that imitating is also a way for the development of a company. There is still a certain amount of technology to imitate. In many industries in China, there are imitations, and the ability to imitate has become a factor in the competitiveness of the company. After all, imitation is an imitation, there is no own core technology, even if the imitation of product quality can not be guaranteed, coupled with the phenomenon of imitation, it is prone to product homogeneity, there will be a price war, companies can only rely on earned Take a meagre profit. This vicious circle is also the reason why China's LED industry did not create more core patents.

Lack of talent research can not persist for a long time

The biggest problem facing the LED industry is the lack of professionals. Many companies have issued such feelings: The lack of talent in enterprises, and the existing talent resources are facing the situation of loss and excavation. The general manager of an LED company reported to the media that recently the marketing director, sales manager and technical engineer in their company had jumped, or started their own business, started their own business owners, or were hijacked away by other companies because of the frequent loss of talents. The business situation of the company was once affected. In order to win talents, many companies will have to dig their own technical talents from other companies. This does not start from the basic problem, but the practice of digging talents with high salaries is detrimental to the long-term development of the industry. There are only so many talents in the LED industry, and then from this enterprise is dug to another company, and then from this enterprise It was dug to another company... Although the company temporarily acquired talents, there was no breakthrough in the technology research of the company. It was difficult to produce a technical study without a certain amount of time, and the patent would be difficult to emerge. . LED technology talents take their own little knowledge from this enterprise to another company, and then bring it to other companies. The technology is still those technologies. They have not been updated, they haven't been upgraded, and new patents are hard to come by.

There are many reasons for the lack of talent. First of all, the industry has grown rapidly, and companies have had too late to train talent. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the first LED companies have emerged in China and the entire LED industry has begun to develop rapidly. After many years of policy support and government subsidies, a large number of people have flooded into the LED industry. More and more new companies have joined the LED army and the industry has seen explosive growth. In the face of high-speed development, many new companies have no time to cultivate talents, and can only use high-paying “digging” from other companies.

Secondly, LED industry belongs to a sunrise industry. The market prospects are good. Many companies transform or get involved in the LED industry. However, these companies neither know LED, nor do they know where LED customers are, so they have to find the simplest way. Customer resources, see where to make money and get involved. This way did not take training from the talents, did not break through from the technical level, it is difficult to fundamentally promote the development of the LED industry.

Third, the lack of LED talent training system, the domestic basic education for LED is lacking. Taiwan has LED packaging expertise, but only photoelectron in the mainland, while optoelectronics and LED are separated by tens of thousands of miles. China's basic education has not trained LED talents. This has a congenital deficiency in the domestic LED infrastructure, but in the latter stage there have been abnormal development, LED education has no basis for talent, the domestic LED talent construction has not been improved.

Cultivate LED professionals to enhance patent awareness

A patent is not just a simple term. It implies the connotation of technology, talent, and the market. Having it means having technology, owning talent, and having a market. In the future market competition, the patent is like a soldier's equipment. With more equipment on the body, the soldiers will have more confidence when they fight, and they will be more likely to grasp the initiative and win the market more easily.

The development of the LED industry does not depend on the support of the government. It is essential to do a good job in basic work. This requires starting from cultivating talents, building LED professional talents, and establishing a professional talent pool. At the same time, it should also strengthen the awareness of LED patents, so that companies have a strong sense of patents, have a strong desire to build core technology, apply for patent rights. In this way, China's LED industry is not only more quantitative in terms of technology, but also superior in quality.