Encapsulation and Barriers A review of the patent landscape | Encapsulation

Encapsulation and Barrier IP Landscape Report

This research report provides an overview of the patent landscape of encapsulation and barrier technologies. It is an invaluable guide to technology developers, patent departments, licensing departments, and business developers who want to develop encapsulation and barrier technologies and patent strategies.
"The commercialisation of OLED technology is driving the growth of sealing, barrier and encapsulation technologies, with more than 90% of the patents in this dataset being filed since 2001”
Readers of the report will be able to determine the encapsulation and barrier technology space, identify the number of patents being filed, by who, and when, which has been cited the most, which assignees are active, and their breadth of portfolios. The development and application of encapsulation and barrier technologies is vital for the performance of organic semiconductor based devices which suffer degradation from the ingress of oxygen and moisture. The increasing market acceptance of OLED based displays has been a major driver in the development of encapsulation systems, as OLED lighting begins to gain market adoption this too will also be a primary driver for further development. In fact the growth in encapsulation and barrier technologies has shown the same explosive growth since 2000. The different approaches for encapsulation vary, sealing technologies, such as glass covers and metal cans found early acceptance, and are being used successfully in commercials products, which is suitable for bottom emission OLED devices, but unsuitable for top emission and transparent OLED devices. In this case, thin-film encapsulation is necessary, and there are many companies developing this as an alternative to sealing. As the industry begins to adopt flexible substrates instead of glass then it becomes important to coat the flexible substrate with one or more barrier layers as plastic films do not offer the same level of protection to the ingress of oxygen and moisture as glass. There are more than 400 companies who have developed novel encapsulation technologies, and barriers systems.
This research report aims to answers key questions that include: How many patents are being filed each year? Who has filed early IP? Which patents are cited most frequently? Which companies are active filing encapsulation patents? Which companies are active filing barrier patents? What areas of innovation are being pursued? Which industry sector is the most active? Who has filed the most IP and in what areas of innovation?