Recently, Intellectual Property Bank Corp (IPB) has announced its "Applicant Score Rankings" based on the company's proprietary benchmarks for technical competitiveness of manufacturers engaged in the LED lighting system business. According to IPB, a company that provides consulting related to intellectual property, Nichia Corp is the top manufacturer on a basis of competitive technology in the LED lighting system area.

IPB said the "Applicant Score" evaluates the patent potential of the applicants based on the quality and quantity of the patents they have applied for. The rankings targeted companies, universities, research institutes and individuals that have filed applications related to LED lighting technologies with Japan's Patent Office. IPB's analyses are based on publicly disclosed patent bulletins (about 5,400 patents) issued during the period from January 1993 to February 2008.

Although ranked third in terms of the number of applications, Nichia gained high scores on a quality basis. IPB's analyses cover five areas, namely "LED devices," "fluorescent materials," "LED packages," "drive circuits" and "LED modules/lighting systems." Nichia showed overwhelming strength in the areas of "LED devices," "fluorescent materials" and "LED packages," IPB said.

Ranked second was Matsushita Electric Works Ltd, which topped in the area of "LED modules/lighting systems." Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, which came next, had ranked highly in each of the five areas, IPB said. Following these three companies were Royal Philips Electronics NV of the Netherlands, Sharp Corp, Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co Ltd of Korea, Kyocera Corp, OSRAM Opto Semiconductor GmbH of Germany, Toyoda Gosei Co Ltd and Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd.