"Notably, the attention to backlights, polarizers and PDP filters is increasing and the full HD market has expanded lately, shedding light on the possibility that the film technologies will be developed in various ways," added Irene Heo, researcher at Displaybank.
According to the Core Optical Film Patent Analysis report by Displaybank, the number of patent applications regarding optical film for LCD is 4,171 cases (78%) in Japan, 609 cases (11%) in the USA, 317 cases (6%) in Korea, and 269 cases (5%) in Europe, indicating an overwhelming share captured by Japanese firms. They have been aggressively engaging in all film sectors such as compensation film, protective film, reflective film, and compound film, while Korean companies are active in the fields of compensation film and diffusion film with American vendors in the field of compensation film, protective film, reflective film and compound film and European companies in the compensation film field.
Figure: LCD Optical Film Patent Application Status by Specific Technology
Looking at the LCD optical film patenting status by companies, Fujifilm ranked top by applying for 1,082 patent applications (20.1%), followed by Nitto Denko with 680 cases (12.6%) in second place and DNP with 472 cases (8.79%) in third place. On the heels of the third player, Konica Minolta and Toppan followed, highlighting strong influence by the top ten players that represent a 68.2% share of the total patent applications. Among LCD optical films, DNP, Toppan and Toray have applied for a number of patent applications related to backlight use optical films, while 3M owns many patents in luminance enhancement technology and Toray and Mitsui Chem have patents in the reflective film sector.
The number of patent applications related to optical film for PDP is 207 cases (54%) from Japan, 93 cases (24%) from Korea, 64 cases (16%) from the USA and 23 cases (6%) from Europe, highlighting Japanese dominance also in the PDP optical film sector. By technology, the number of patent applications totaled 212 cases (55%) in the hybrid sector, 94 cases (24%) in the NIR sector, 54 cases (14%) in the anti-reflective sector, and 26 cases (7%) in the color compensation sector.
"The latest hot issues for optical film patent applications are development of acryl film to replace TAC, and compound sheets. A number of enterprises have joined in the development since 2006, but they need to first identify technologies and patents of companies that have the core technology for corresponding film rather than embarking on imprudent technology developments. In addition, after identifying companies that intend to enter into the market, it's also important to identify patent technologies responding to the newcomers, basic patents, and patent technologies to be retained," noted researcher Heo.
