Over 4,500 organic semiconductor patents published in 2004

cintelliq ltd, the world's leading provider of information services and strategic consulting to the organic semiconductor industry, has released summary data of patenting activities in 2004. The full patent analysis is available in the Organic Semiconductor Patent Analyst report which is published by cintelliq on a quarterly basis.

During 2004, 545 organisations published 4,551 patents relating to organic semiconductor technologies. Published JP patents accounted for 57 percent of all patents. Of the remaining 1,958 patents, US patents account for 49 percent, EP patents for 26 percent and WO patents 25 percent.

Patents published in 2004 EP, JP, US and WO granted and published patents
	EP	JP	US	WO	Total
	510	2,593	963	485	4,551
Assignees	147	325	140	150	545

Distribution of patents by region

Distribution of assignees by region

The top 30 assignees, ranked in terms of the number of patents held, accounted for 2,724 patents. Or put another way, just 6% of the assignees accounted for 60% of the published patents during 2004.

Patents published in 2004 Top 30 assignees EP, JP, US and WO granted and applications patents
	EP	JP	US	WO	Total
Patents	234	1605	689	196	2,724
% of patents	46%	62%	72%	40%	60%

The top thirty assignees are dominated by Japanese companies, which is only to be expected as they are very active in OLED development and manufacturing.

Patents published in 2004 Top 30 assignees EP, JP, US and WO granted and applications patents
Assignee	No. of patents		Assignee	No. of patents
Seiko Epson {N/A} Semiconductor Energy Labs Eastman Kodak Konica Fuji Photo Sony Dai Nippon Sanyo Electric Idemitsu Kosan Samsung SDI Canon Inc Canon KK Pioneer Electronic Corp Matsushita Electric	421 349 217 181 139 121 120 105 92 78 78 66 65 58 55		Mitsubishi Chemical Fuji Electric Tohoku Pioneer Philips Electronics Rohm Co ltd Sharp Corp Siemens Nitto Denko Nippon Seiki LG Philips Denso Corp Cambridge Display Technology Pioneer Corp Fujitsu Ltd Xerox Corp	49 48 46 42 40 39 37 36 36 35 35 35 35 33 33

In second place is an assignee labelled "N/A". These are US published applications that for an unknown reason do not have their assignee declared. This group accounts for 349 (36 percent) of all US patents published in 2004.

Organic semiconductor group (OSG) classifications
As part of our patent analysis cintelliq reviews each and every EP, US and WO patent and reclassifies it in terms of the function it performs and the basic components and techniques from which it is fabricated.

Organic Semiconductor Groups
Basic Components		Functional Components
Materials Patterning Deposition Substrates Encapsulation Other		LED Transistors Photovoltaic Lasers Sensors Memory Other

There were 1,958 EP, US and WO patents published and granted in 2004. Their distribution in terms of Organic Semiconductor Groups is provided in the following table.

LED and materials related technologies account for 72 percent and 36 percent of the published application and granted EP, US and WO patents. This is only to be expected given the maturity of OLED technology and evolution of the industry. One interesting observation is the number of memory related patents. In general memory is not much discussed, but from the analysis below it would suggest that during 2004 the number of memory related patents exceeded those for phototvoltaic.

Patents granted and published during 2004 EP, US and WO granted and published patents
Basic Components	Patents			Functional Components	Patents
Materials Patterning Deposition Substrates Encapsulation Other	699 67 65 20 131 976	36% 3% 3% 1% 7% 50%		LED Transistors Photovoltaic Lasers Sensors Memory Other	1,418 146 46 3 9 53 283	72% 7% 2% 0% 0% 3% 14%
Total	1,958	100%		Total	1,958	100%
Excludes US patents with {N/A} as assignee

OLED licensees and licensors
Our analysis also separates out Kodak and CDT and their respective licensees. Kodak and their licensees accounted for 241 published application and granted EP, US and WO patents, while CDT and their licensees accounted for 246 published application and granted EP, US and WO patents.

Analysing these 487 patents in terms of their OSG indicates that they have a distribution profile similar to the larger population of organic semiconductor patents.

Patents granted and published during 2004 EP, US and WO patents: OLED licensees and licensors
Basic Components	Patents			Functional Components	Patents
Materials Patterning Deposition Substrates Encapsulation Other	134 21 24 5 45 258	28% 4% 5% 1% 9% 53%		LED Transistors Photovoltaic Lasers Sensors Memory Other	386 17 4 1 - - 79	79% 3% 1% - - - 16%
Total	487	100%		Total	487	100%

The Organic Semiconductor Patent Analyst (OSPA) report provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of patents published in the organic semiconductor industry.

Issued quarterly, the report analyses relevant organic semiconductor patents that have been published in the previous quarter by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), European Patent Office (EPO) and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

27 July 2005