Cree Inc., Durham, N.C., and Philips Lighting, Somerset, N.J., have signed a comprehensive, worldwide patent cross-license agreement designed to further accelerate the growth of the LED lighting market. This agreement covers patents from both parties in the fields of blue LED chip technology, white LEDs and phosphors (including remote phosphors), control systems, LED luminaires and lamps as well as LED backlighting of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and patents in the Philips LED Luminaire Licensing Program.
“This agreement demonstrates the breadth and depth of both companies' intellectual property, as well as the fundamental nature and value these patents bring to the market,” said Chuck Swoboda, Cree chairman and CEO. “It also signals both companies' commitment to growing the LED market while respecting the value and importance of international intellectual property laws.”
“Philips and Cree have significantly invested in innovation in LED lighting solutions. The wide-ranging IP portfolios of the respective companies reflect the outcome of this effort,” said Rudy Provoost, chief executive officer of Philips Lighting. “We wish to see the accelerated adoption of LED lighting, and are therefore delighted that Cree will be joining our LED Luminaire Licensing Program.” Details
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Jim Lucy Blog
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Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.