News Briefs (Feb. 7, 2006)

San Diego-based Ophthonix has received an eighth patent relating to its vision correction technology, the iZon wavefront-guided lens. The patent supports aspects of its manufacturing process that allow Ophthonix to produce customized and optically exact lenses, such as the use of controlled amounts of polymers, which are micro-jetted onto optical material to form polymer pixels that provide patient-specific vision correction. . . . The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has determined that Malaysia-based LED manufacturer Dominant Semiconductors violated a total of nine LED patents held by lighting manufacturer Osram Opto Semiconductors of Germany, and barred the company from importing its Power DomiLED and Super Small DomiLED into the US. The commission found that the two Dominant products infringe on four Osram patents. The ITC also found that Dominant’s LEDs listed in the complaint which emit white light infringe another five Osram patents, but Dominant said that the LEDs had been modified since the action was filed and no longer infringe. Osram maintains that the modified LEDs still infringe its patents and has also filed infringement action against Dominant in Germany. The specific patents relate to two fundamental technologies: producing LEDs that use a phosphor to convert the blue light of a semiconductor chip into white light for applications such as backlighting displays in mobile phones and car dashboards, and those for creating LED structural packages that dissipate heat generated by semiconductor chips in LEDs, such as the chips used in high-power LEDs for automotive lighting.