Abstract
The determinants of successful development, commercialization and diffusion of solid state lighting (SSL) are not well understood particularly in a global context. Patent data provide one means to gain insight into these corporate and national R&D activities. However, existing SSL patent analyses have focused primarily on US patents. This study analyzes patents granted worldwide to probe differences between the U.S., Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, and China, countries poised to play a key role in SSL’s future. The growing role of Asian nations, corporate patent portfolios, the roles of individuals and universities, and relationships to national policy are analyzed. The global context is crucial, because producers worldwide are competing to develop, manufacture, and market SSL technologies and products, with some nations promoting rapid development and adoption. Further study of this emerging technology in the context of the key firms and regions that are contributing significantly to its development would help U.S. firms and policy makers.
Biography
Dr. Sanderson is an Associate Professor at the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is an expert on innovation and product development and author of numerous journal articles and books including Managing Product Families, Sanderson, with M. Uzumeri, (1997) and Design Inspired Innovation, with J..Utterback et. al. (2007). She is currently a member of the National Science Foundation’s Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center and Fuel Cell IGERT.
Dr Sanderson (with K.L. Simons) is the author of three recent studies on the commercialization of solid state lighting: “Lighting” in Innovation in Global Industries: U.S. Firms Competing in a New World, National Academies of Sciences, 2008, a report to the DOE, Global Technology Development in Solid State Lighting, July, 2009 and “SSL Technology Development and Commercialization in the Global Context,” in Proceedings of SPIE: Ninth International Conference on Solid State Lighting, SPIE, 2009, pp. 74220X-1-15.