LED industry no longer fights capacity battles

LED packaging manufacturer Yiguang and Japan's LED manufacturer Nichia, in the past ten years in the world, including Japan, Taiwan, Germany, the United States and other places to fight patents. The transformation of Japan into the world's top five LED manufacturers, why will it cost a lot of money, to fight against the billions in the patent war? There is no reason for this. The main reason is that in the face of Taiwan, mainland LED factories have frequently expanded their production. Japan has no ability to compete in production capacity. The only remaining weapons are only patents!

The era of knowledge economy, patents have become supreme assets

Even the foundry empire, Hon Hai, has repeatedly sold many of its communication technology patents to Google. Although the transaction content has not been announced, it is already clear that even if it is a foundry, the importance of patents should not be small. watch for.

Guo Taiming believes that in the era of knowledge economy, patents are assets. For example, Intel, Microsoft, and Toyota all actively distribute patents. In particular, after the economic downturn, the industry will have structural changes, and R&D, patent application, and commercialization will be required. Five to ten years, the current layout of the action will determine the future of Hon Hai.

Beginning this year, mainland manufacturers have begun to discover the importance of patents. Since the domestic demand market of the mainland itself was large enough, the products were not enough to sell on the mainland, and no one cares about the patent issue. As long as the products can be used and the price is low, customers will naturally pay for it. Even if the product quickly breaks down, manufacturers and even consumers are accustomed to it - because it is cheap enough, it is good to buy it again.

However, with the increasing production capacity of mainland manufacturers and the gradual saturation of the market, there has been a situation of oversupply. When manufacturers began to look at markets outside the mainland, they suddenly discovered that there is a market, but there is a clear market. It is visible and cannot be eaten. Because there is no patent, the product is applied for a lock-up order by the competitor, and it directly catches the throat of the mainland manufacturer. Even if the product is good or cheap, it is useless.

Faced with the frequent expansion of LED factories in Taiwan and mainland China, Japanese manufacturers can only fight for patents.

Cheap and useless millet to eat patents

The most obvious case is the patent war between Xiaomi and Ericsson in India. In July 2014, Ericsson asked Xiaomi to pay the patent license fee unsuccessfully, and finally resorted directly to the law. On December 8, the Delhi High Court of India found Xiaomi infringement and issued a lock-up order. Xiaomi could only announce on the official website of India, and the two products of Red Rice 1S and Red Rice Note will be discontinued. It is estimated that before Xiaomi announced the suspension of sales, the pre-purchase amount of Red Rice Note reached 150,000.

In January 2015, LED packaging factory Jufei Optoelectronics and Japan Toyota Synthetic Optoelectronics Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. signed an agreement in Shenzhen. The two parties reached a strategic cooperation in supply chain, Jufei Optoelectronics and obtained the Toyota Synthetic White LED patent license.

Jufei Optoelectronics originally used backlight and LED lighting as its main business. An unnamed high-ranking supervisor in the Taiwanese industry pointed out that Jufei Optoelectronics will suddenly sign a patent agreement with Toyota, probably for the mainland's smartphone manufacturers. Find ways to solve the embarrassing situation of export sales.

Industry insiders said that when they saw Xiaomi eating in India, the mainland smartphone manufacturers were really shocked. They did not expect the patents that they did not care about, and the lethality was so strong. But undoubtedly, the mainland is still a large and important market in the global LED industry. Based on the interests of both parties, Jufei Optoelectronics signed a patent agreement with Toyota to reach a consensus on cooperation.