Eindhoven, The Netherlands – Philips Lighting (Euronext Amsterdam ticker: LIGHT), a global leader in lighting, today announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) confirmed the validity of a vast majority of claims of Philips Lighting’s patents belonging to the EnabLED Licensing Program for LED luminaires and retrofit bulbs challenged by inter partes review (IPR) in written decisions on November 23, 2016.
Wangs Alliance Corporation (a.k.a. WAC Lighting) has challenged 32 claims related to seven Philips Lighting patents (out of a total of 184 claims in those patents). Of the 32 claims challenged, 27 were upheld as valid in IPRs in favor of Philips Lighting. The PTAB decisions confirm Philips Lighting’s strong patents in the open EnabLED Licensing Program.
“We are pleased that the US Patent Office confirmed that the vast majority of the challenged claims in seven of the more than 300 US patents of the EnabLED Licensing Program are valid,” said Frank Bistervels, Vice President Intellectual Property of Philips Lighting. “This strengthens our confidence that the patents we make available in our open EnabLED Licensing Program are of a very high quality.”
The patents challenged via the IPR proceedings are some of the most popular and commonly-used patents in the EnabLED Licensing Program. The patents relate to different technologies and techniques used for driving or controlling LEDs — for example to make LED systems compatible with AC dimming circuits (patent numbers 7038399, 7352138) and optically extracting light from LED-based products (patent number 6250774), typically found in bulbs and luminaires.
Since 2008, Philips Lighting’s EnabLED program has encouraged innovation and fostered industry growth. Philips Lighting has pioneered many of the key breakthroughs in lighting over the past 125 years and has led the development of the LED industry over the past 20 years. Few companies can match its level of R&D investment. Philips Lighting’s LED patents include inventions such as warm dimming, high color rendering white, tunable white, color illumination and efficient light mixing and distribution.