The Fifth LED Industrial Summit & Forum took place in Tianjin between March 19 and 20, 2010. Lifang’s managing partner, Mr. Xie Guanbin, gave a speech on the newly-amended patent law and LED patent strategy to an audience including officials from the Ministry of Industry and Information (FII) and senior management of leading manufacturers, such as GE, CREE, Philips and Osram.

Xie analysed the current situation of LED patent protection and, by referring to the intent of patent law amendments, put forward his advices on patent strategy of the industry. He advised that Chinese manufacturers should give sufficient attention to LED patents. He said that China’s LED industry was still in its developing stage, having vast room for technology innovation, while on the other hand, some of this industry’s basic patents were about to expire soon. Therefore, he suggested that manufacturers could on the one hand, strengthen R&D and patent filing, and on the other hand lawfully exploit other’s advance technology. They could track patents due to expire, enter into licensing agreements, or exploit patented technology subject to compulsory or cross licensing. In addition, he also shared his insight on how to handle domestic and overseas patent litigation.