Patent Issues Highlighted in December Issue of LIGHTinsight
Source/Type: News - Staff reports

December 9, 2004... Intellectual Property (IP) is the focus of this month's LIGHTinsight. The title of this indepth treatment of the topic is "The Art of Manufacturing of IP" which is authored by our Founding Editor, Jo Ann McDonald, author of The McDonald Report which appears daily in both CompoundSemi News and LIGHTimes. LIGHTinsight is an added feature of our LIGHTimes 2nd Page member service. (Click here for more on how to become a LIGHTimes 2nd Page member.) If you're already a member, you know how to easily access the report. If you forgot, read on. This installment of LIGHTinsight is chock full of IP related SSL industry topics, conveniently grouped and reviewed, complete with hotlinks to the patents themselves. If you're not yet a 2nd Page member, or if as a member you haven't gotten around to reading it all yet (it's rather long, as usual), here's the opening graph as a tease to get you motivated. (Note that as a USA-based online-only news source (both print magazines serving the CS industry are owned and operated by large UK publishing houses and have no direct affiliation to CompoundSemi Online) our LIGHTimes and LIGHTinsight viewpoint and writing style is noticeably "American". For that we don't apologize, but thought you'd appreciate the clarification.) Here's the 'tease'...

THE ART OF MANUFACTURING IP
With the rate of IP (intellectual property) related "news" this Fall, I thought it appropriate to focus on Nitride-related IP in this issue of LIGHTinsight. When first pondering the topic, I felt the community was finding itself caught in yet another rampage of slinging IP threats and boasts until I tuned in Charlie Rose over PBS and caught HP's Chairman/CEO, Carly Fiorina. As part of the panel discussion with Charlie, Carly noted that HP files an average of 10 new USA patents per day! That obviously leaves our compound side of the semiconductor sector in the dust. I truly pity the USPTO reviewers. The point of the program was discussing the shift from manufacturing prowess in the USA to China. Some say that about the only thing the USA seemed to command anymore, beyond the battlefield, is the manufacture of high tech IP. Others further the dismay pointing out that IP is the only economic defense we have left! The West, in general, has always been better at producing ideas than labor. But then... it is "the information age..."

Return to CompoundSemi        Return to SSLnet/LIGHTimes      Return to Solid State Lighting Design