LED optics intellectual property can foreshadow winners in SSL products

Solid-state lighting (SSL) products are very much a complex system with innovation occurring in the packaged LEDs, but also in other areas such as optics, drivers, thermal management, and more. Indeed, optics developments have been critical. If you would have followed the patent activity in the optics area over the past 20 years, or even just the last six, you may have been able to predict the companies that would find success manufacturing LED-based lighting products. A similar examination might foretell who the major players will be down the road.