Signaling the end of a patent battle lasting for almost three years, Korea’s Intellectual Property Tribunal (IPT) rejected an attempt to invalidate Dow Corning patent 10-976075. The patent is among Dow Corning’s rich intellectual property (IP) portfolio covering the company’s proprietary high refractive index (RI) phenyl-based optical silicone technology, which offers numerous high-value benefits to LED devices. These benefits include improved light output, excellent mechanical protection of LED components and enduring gas barrier properties for enhanced reliability. Handed down by the IPT on August 9, the decision in favor of Dow Corning significantly strengthens its intellectual property position for the technology in Korea, as well as in other key global LED manufacturing centers, including the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, China, Malaysia and Europe.

With the maturing of the LED lighting market, medium-power LED demands have heated up. LED packaging manufacturers have recently begun entering into production of mid-to-high-powered EMC (Epoxy Molding Compound) frames. However, some industry insiders pointed out that EMC frames and PPA (polyphthalamide) frames have a vastly different production process.

China’s LED chip manufacturer HC Semitek Corp. Suzhou branch has received a US$ 150 million loan to be paid back in six years for its LED business, according to a Chinese-language Reuters report.

Samsung announced on September 23rd that the patent dispute with LG has finally come to an end. The two South Korean firms decided that the best method for solving the dispute was to put aside differences and cooperate instead.

Light is at the heart of our communities, our technological advances and our sustainable world. Speeding up this new age of digital light will unlock even greater health, well being, sustainability and economic benefits for society as a whole. This is the conclusion of an independent report - ‘The Future of Light’ – published today by think tank PSFK Labs and supported by Philips. The report is available on www.psfk.com, and accessible as a SlideShare slide show and as an iOS or Android app.

A Canadian team has launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter for its Dodecado, a dodecahedron light with magnetic properties that allows it to be attached to another light, and rearranged or sculpted according to the user’s needs. The lights are scheduled for production in Oct. 2013 with first delivery scheduled in Dec. 2013. So far the Canadian team has raised CA$ 5,214 (US$ 5,069) for its project on Kickstarter.

Lighting design, installation and maintenance company Weblight has won a contract to replace the lamps in over 240 of Spirit Pub Company's pubs with Philips Master LED lamps.

Cities and cultures invariably craft ways to express their identity in visceral ways. The most revered of these public statements become a point of pride in the community and a compelling destination for visitors, according to a recent PSFK Labs article. Supported by the evolution of digital LED technology, we’ve witnessed a number of creative uses of light to achieve iconic status through blending elements of a culture with the unique deployment of light. These installations work to capture the permanence of a place and maintain ties to tradition, all while pointing to new and cutting edge technology and signaling a optimistic outlook of innovations still to come.

When Monroe Lee, owner of KIA AutoSport, began design on a new KIA dealership in Columbus, Ga., he decided to investigate lighting solutions that delivered bright, high-quality light while helping to reduce energy consumption in one of the facility's key areas: dealer lots.

Chinese lighting manufacturer Foshan Electrical and Lighting announced that the company received a “voucher” and “notice of response to action” by the Guangzhou Municipal Intermediate People’s Court accepting the civil case filed against the company byt 515 people for a misrepresentation of security liability dispute.

Apple has yet again swept the market with the launch of the new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. The new cell phones have acted as a propeller for sapphire substrate manufacturers and LED manufacturers with the introduction of new fingerprint recognition technology. This has significantly increased the demand in sapphire substrate.

As LED lighting application matures, HVLED technology developed by Taiwanese LED manufacturer Epistar is showing fruits of success. The smaller sized HVLED has better heat dissipation and advantageous over-drive capabilities that can lower driver IC costs. Epistar revealed it is using HVLED products in several projects, and shipments have increased by more than twofolds in 2013 compared to the same period in 2012.

San’an Optoelectronics recently announced it had received RMB 32 million (US$ 5.23 million) subsidiary from People’s Government of Siming, Xiamen.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Dr. Ernest Moniz speaks about clean energy revolution in the U.S. in an article recently posted on Department of Energy website.  For decades, America has chased after the promise of clean, domestic energy. But even as costs fell and technology matured, that clean energy future seemed to linger just beyond our reach. Critics often said this new world would “always be five years away.” Today, that is changing.

A recent article by PSFK labs explores the relationship between lighting products and human interaction. Could light be used to bridge two remote experiences? If so, what kind of stories could it tell? In a trend we are calling Remotely Connected, PSFK Labs explores how synced lighting experiences are helping bring to life the unique connections between people. With their ability to convey shared experiences, awareness or proximity, these lighting displays are being creatively deployed to evoke an emotional response between people.

In a collaboration project between Philips and Germany’s Hochschule Wismar Architectural Lighting students this year, 10 students designed an installation entitled "Light Beats." It is an exploration of the relationship between light and different cultures via several types of music. The lighting concept was implemented with innovative LED technology and with the support of the lighting partners, providing technical expertise and equipment. It's offered the opportunity to play with a translucent glass facade on two floors, a terrace, a footbridge and a glass facade to the ground floor.  

NliteN has just added the dimmable 2D-Lux™ Smart LED Disk (SLEDD) to its campaign on Indiegogo. The 2D-Lux SLEDD, a 60W-incandescent-replacement LED smart "bulb", adds an Atmel AVR microcontroller, USB interface, and hardware-expansion pins to the 2D-Lite™ LED Disk (Sept 4, 2013 PR here), bringing intelligence, programmability, additional hardware functions, and the ability for consumers to install, and run, light bulb apps, including smartphone control, at very low cost -- about the average price of "dumb", connectivity-incapable, LED bulbs at most retailers - US$ 25.

Rob Huston,founder at LED Canada, shares his inside look at LED's up-and-coming light bulb price war. LED lighting prices have turned many people away (in the past) from this exciting lighting technology, but that is all that about to change.

Veeco Instruments Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire privately held Synos Technology, Inc. (Synos). Synos designs and manufactures Fast Array Scanning™ Atomic Layer Deposition (FAST-ALD™) systems that are enabling the production of flexible OLED displays for mobile devices.

Lighting plays a vital role in today’s retail environments, maximizing shopping experiences and making merchandise appear its best. GE’s Infusion™ LED Module product line offers a versatile LED lighting solution that provides highly flexible LED lighting options critical for retailers who want to highlight certain products or create emphasis through a display.

Power management company Eaton today announced that its Cooper Lighting division has provided products and solutions to help Industrial Developments International (IDI), a privately held real estate company with offices across U.S., reduce energy costs at its Jurupa Valley, Calif., facility. By utilizing a range of exterior LED solutions, the company will achieve proper illumination while also realizing a total energy savings of more than 50 percent compared to metal halide equivalents.

ilumi solutions, a company focused on mobile LED lighting technology, recently launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter for their color tuning LED bulbs. The RGB LED bulbs share similar features to the Philips Hue bulbs, as it can be color tuned via a smartphone or tablet Bluetooth, and works on both Apple and Android systems. With 51 days to go for their fundraising campaign, ilumi has received backing from 180 supporters, with funds totaling US$ 17,325 as of date.

Xicato, a leading developer of LED modules, announced that is has expanded its Artist Series® portfolio of LED modules, adding a 2000-lumen module to give interior designers and lighting professionals the option to offer high-quality light in general lighting applications. Installations with higher ceilings, i.e., greater than 10 feet (3 meters), and fewer light points can now accommodate a better grade of lighting than is possible with fluorescent or ceramic metal halide (CMH) sources.

Philips has partnered up with Perkins Products, a provider of education, services and products to the blind, deafblind, and those with disabilities to develop LightAide, a new LED device designed as a teaching tool for children with low vision or other disabilities. Arrays of multi-colored LED lights in LightAide can be programmed and manipulated in various ways to help children get ready to learn reading, math and critical interactive skills. 

Cree, Inc. announced the industry’s first High-Density (HD) LED Arrays – a breakthrough technology that doubles the system intensity of spot lights compared to previous arrays. The new HD class of CXA Arrays provide unrivaled lumen density, enabling major reduction in system cost and power consumption. The first HD Array, the CXA1520 LED, enables lighting manufacturers to create a new generation of products that delivers the same intensity and light quality as 39W ceramic metal halide (CMH) at up to 50 percent lower power.

The Honorable Allan Gropper, Bankruptcy Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, has ordered Eastman Kodak Company to assign ownership of three patents and a patent license agreement to Global OLED Technology, LLC, a company that is an owner and licensor of over 2,400 OLED patents and patent applications. This effectively ends the lawsuit (Case No. 1:12-bk-10202 – S.D.N.Y.) that GOT filed against Kodak in December 2012. 

previous article: Interview with Ta-Wei Lin on Giant Bicycle Headquarters – Interacting with a vivid building, Making LED not to be like LED (1/2) Ta-wei Lin, a member of PLDA, is a MA of interior design (Pratt Institute) and an international lighting designer who has won IALD Award of Excellence and IIDA Award of Merit. Lin is now the principal of CMA Lighting Design, mostly focusing on lighting projects in Taiwan.

To welcome the LED lighting era, Taiwan LED wafer manufacturer Formosa Epitaxy (ForEpi) Project Manager Li Renzhi stated that as the LED industry develops into an M shaped trend, highly priced but small volume products have occupied one end of the spectrum and products with large volume but pricing considerations are on the other. Continuing reduction in price for LED chips has lead to manufacturers entering into package free wafer R&D. ForEpi’s launched their Package Free Chips and through high efficiency, large luminosity angles, and more plan to break into the LED market.

Taiwanese LED chip manufacturer, Epistar, recently showcased its latest Embedded LED Chip (ELC) technology. The new ELC product reduces lead frame and wire bonding, and only requires a chip, phosphor and glue, said Hsieh Ming-Hsun, VP, R&D, Epistar at the LED Technology Forum held in Taipei, Taiwan. As a result, the chip can directly use surface-mount technology (SMT). The ELC can be applied in advance onto backlight products, and possess advantages of wide light beam angles, continued Hsieh. There is an opportunity to omit secondary optical lenses in the future.

Taiwan LED package manufacturer Edison Opto Corp.’s board recently approved the issuance of unsecured convertible bonds amounting to NT$ 1 billion (US$ 34 million) in Taiwan. This is the second time that the company has issued unsecured convertible bonds in the domestic market. Edison Opto has a positive outlook of the LED lighting market’s continual development, and funds from the bonds will be used to expand the company’s Yangzhou, China factory that will cover high power LED components, PLCC package components, and other product line expansions.