In a first, Cree, Philips sign licensing agreement

Several years ago, a VC in the power field was talking about with me about areas his company was considering  investing in, and I asked what about high-brightness LEDs which were just starting to become available; While way expensive and not that efficacious, they seemed to have some potential. The VC dismissed LED technology as no place for start-ups: “The LED industry is dominated by licenses and IP lawsuits.” As the years went by and I saw the squabbles play out among the Big 4 vendors I saw there was at least some truth to his statement.

Today Cree and Philips announced a cross licensing agreement, a first between the two companies, that “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.”

Not to belittle the blue LED chip or phosphor technology IP (because the announcement goes into absolutely no detail about who’s licensing what)  but the most immediately important part of the agreement could be Cree’s licensing of Philips luminaire technology, which I believe is Philips’ design that qualifies for the L-prize. As Cree gets more involved in lighting end-products, this could be an indicator of where they think LEDs in luminaires are heading. (Note these are luminaires, not the 55W replacement lamp that Philips has submitted for the L-Prize.)