First, the status quo of LED industry: rapid development, but the enterprise scale is small and the industrial chain is incomplete.
1. As the most attractive new generation light source in the world, LED is called the most promising green lighting source in 2 1 century because of its advantages of high brightness, low heat, long life, non-toxicity and recyclability. The LED industry in China began in 1970s. After nearly 40 years of development, it has formed seven national semiconductor lighting engineering industrialization bases in Shanghai, Dalian, Nanchang, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Yangzhou and Shijiazhuang, and its products are widely used in landscape lighting and general lighting. China has become the world's largest producer and second largest exporter of lighting appliances.
2. A statistical data of LED industry research institute-China LEDinside shows that by the end of 2009, there were more than 3,000 LED enterprises in China, of which only 140 had an annual output value of over 100 million. However, among these 140 enterprises, none of them has annual sales of products exceeding 1 100 million yuan, and only a few of them exceed 500 million yuan, mostly between 1 100 million yuan and 200 million yuan. It can be seen that although there are many LED enterprises in China, the scale is generally small.
3. At present, the world has initially formed an industrial pattern centered on Asia, North America and Europe, and a technological competition pattern centered on Niya Chemical and Toyota Synthesis in Japan, Kerry, General Electric and Osram in Germany in the United States. American and Japanese companies have monopoly advantages in epitaxial wafer and chip technology and equipment, while European companies have outstanding advantages in the field of applied technology, while China's LED is still at a low level. About 80% of the products are concentrated in the application markets such as landscape lighting and traffic lights, and less high-end products such as automobile lighting and large screens are involved.
Second, the crux of the LED industry: lack of core patents and loose cooperation in Industry-University-Research.
1. With the rapid development of the domestic LED market, more and more foreign enterprises are looking to China. Especially in recent years, the number of patent applications accepted by China in the field of LED has increased significantly year by year. According to a risk analysis report of semiconductor lighting patent provided by China National Intellectual Property Administration Development Research Center, by the end of 2008, 22 countries and regions around the world had applied for patents in China, and countries with obvious technological advantages applied for patents in China. The top five countries are Japan, South Korea, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. Among them, Japan is far ahead in the number of patent applications with 1306, accounting for 24% of the total number of applications, and the other four countries account for 7%, 5%, 4% and 3% of the total number of applications respectively.
2. In terms of effective patents, the ratio of domestic patent applications to foreign patent applications in China is about 4 to 5. However, in these domestic patent applications, Taiwan Province Province occupies a large share, and its effective invention patents account for 53%. In other words, if Taiwan Province Province is excluded, the gap between Chinese mainland and foreign countries in the number and gold content of patents will be even greater.
3. In addition, from the perspective of industrial chain distribution, foreign companies mainly have more patent layouts in the fields of chips and packaging, and half of LED core inventions have filed patent applications in China. Niya Chemical, Osram, Ramide, Kerry, General Electric and other companies have mastered most of the core patented technologies. Among them, Riya Chemical has the most core patents, involving all industrial chains except packaging.
4. Compared with the above foreign companies, China's LED patent application is obviously at a disadvantage.