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11 Nov 2005
The number of organic semiconductor patents continues to grow with Japanese and Korean firms leading the way.
Companies in Japan and Korea are dominating the organic semiconductor sector when it comes to patenting their research findings, according to a recent report produced by the UK analyst firm cintelliq. The technology is important for many photonics devices including organic light emitters (LEDs and lasers), displays as well as electronic paper.
The latest issue of cintelliq’s Organic Semiconductor Patent Analyst (OSPA) provides an analysis of the patent applications that were granted or published in the sector during Q1 2005. In total, 299 firms accounted for 1422 patents during the period. Despite the activities of well-known US and European firms such as Kodak, Dupont, Philips and Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), Asian firms are filing far more patents in the field.
Significantly, just ten firms (see table) account for 33% of the 580 European (EP), US and worldwide (WO) patents and six of these firms (Semiconductor Energy Laboratory, Samsung SDI, Seiko Epson, Canon, Sony and LG Electronics) are Japanese or Korean.
The bottom line is that Japanese firms are applying for far more patents than their European and US counterparts. For example, during the first three months of 2005 Japanese firms had 842 domestic patent applications published. In contrast, during the same period the number of EP, US and WO applications published was just 119.
“What I find interesting is that there are lots of European and US companies that are active in this area but in terms of number of patents they are well down the ladder,” said Craig Cruickshank, founder and principal analyst at cintelliq. “In contrast, the Far East companies aren’t so visible but are very productive.”
Last year, around 5100 organic semiconductor patents were granted or published and cintelliq estimates that this year this figure will be significantly larger. “While OLED patents account for in excess of 70% the published and granted patents it is encouraging to observe that patent protection for transistors, photovoltaic devices, sensors, lasers and memory devices is also being actively pursued in increasing numbers,” said Cruickshank.
•The OSPA is published by cintelliq once a quarter and an annual subscription is priced at £2400. For more information visit cintelliq
Author
Oliver Graydon is editor of Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.
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