India's patent law

Patents are a key incentive for any innovator. The Recent Supreme Court judgement denying a patent to Novartis' anti-cancer Glivec will surely trigger a wide-ranging debate onpatent law interpretation in India. Here's a look at some provisions of the Patents Act 1970:

WHAT IS CONSIDERED AS A PATENT IN INDIA?

The Indian Patents Act 1970 defines a patent as a grant or right to exclude others from making, using or selling one's invention and includes the right to license others to make, use or sell it. Section 3 of the Act contains an exhaustive list of what cannot be considered an invention, such as a frivolous invention, a mere re-arrangement, a farming method, mere presentation of information and a mere discovery of a new form of a known substance that does not result in increased efficacy.W

     

 IS EVERGREENING OF PATENTS?

It refers to prolonging the life of the patent by making minor incremental changes that do not necessarily alter the utility and features of the original patented product. Here the innovator is just trying to extend patent protection and prevent competition from manufacturing the same product. Section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act is specially intended to prevent evergreening.

WHAT ARE SECONDARY PATENTS?

Secondary or 'second generation' patents are acknowledged in the regulated markets like the US and UK. These are patents granted in relation to new developments or improvements of the subject matter of the basic patent. The Indian Patents Act does not have any provision on secondary patents.

WHAT IS ALLOWED UNDER TRADE-RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS?

WTO-administered Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which came into effect in 1995, allow the member countries to adopt, consistently with the other provisions of the agreement, measures to prevent or control practices in the licensing of intellectual property rights that are abusive and anti-competitive. Compulsory licensing and government use without the authorisation of the right holder are also allowed, subject to certain conditions aimed at protecting the legitimate interests of the right holder.

OLED

An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound which emits light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as television screens, computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld games consoles and PDAs.

There are two main families of OLEDs: those based on small molecules and those employing polymers. Adding mobile ions to an OLED creates a light-emitting electrochemical cell or LEC, which has a slightly different mode of operation. OLED displays can use either passive-matrix (PMOLED) or active-matrix addressing schemes. Active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLED) require a thin-film transistor backplane to switch each individual pixel on or off, but allow for higher resolution and larger display sizes.

An OLED display works without a backlight. Thus, it can display deep black levels and can be thinner and lighter than a liquid crystal display (LCD). In low ambient light conditions such as a dark room an OLED screen can achieve a higher contrast ratio than an LCD, whether the LCD uses cold cathode fluorescent lamps or LED backlight.

Advantages

Demonstration of a 4.1" prototype flexible display from Sony

The different manufacturing process of OLEDs lends itself to several advantages over flat panel displays made with LCD technology.

Lower cost in the future

OLEDs can be printed onto any suitable substrate by an inkjet printer or even by screen printing, theoretically making them cheaper to produce than LCD or plasma displays. However, fabrication of the OLED substrate is more costly than that of a TFT LCD, until mass production methods lower cost through scalability. Roll-roll vapour-deposition methods for organic devices do allow mass production of thousands of devices per minute for minimal cost, although this technique also induces problems in that multi-layer devices can be challenging to make due to registration issues, lining up the different printed layers to the required degree of accuracy.

Light weight & flexible plastic substrates

OLED displays can be fabricated on flexible plastic substrates leading to the possibility of flexible organic light-emitting diodes being fabricated or other new applications such as roll-up displays embedded in fabrics or clothing. As the substrate used can be flexible such as PET, the displays may be produced inexpensively.

Wider viewing angles & improved brightness

OLEDs can enable a greater artificial contrast ratio (both dynamic range and static, measured in purely dark conditions) and viewing angle compared to LCDs because OLED pixels directly emit light. OLED pixel colours appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90° from normal.

Better power efficiency

LCDs filter the light emitted from a backlight, allowing a small fraction of light through so they cannot show true black, while an inactive OLED element does not produce light or consume power.^[53]

Response time

OLEDs can also have a faster response time than standard LCD screens. Whereas LCD displays are capable of between 1 and 16 ms response time offering a refresh rate of 60 to 480 Hz, an OLED can theoretically have less than 0.01 ms response time, enabling up to 100,000 Hz refresh rate.

Disadvantages

LEP (Light Emitting Polymer) display showing partial failure

An old OLED display showing wear

Current costs

OLED manufacture currently requires process steps that make it extremely expensive. Specifically, it requires the use of Low-Temperature Polysilicon backplanes; LTPS backplanes in turn require laser annealing from an amorphous silicon start, so this part of the manufacturing process for AMOLEDs starts with the process costs of standard LCD, and then adds an expensive, time-consuming process that cannot currently be used on large-area glass substrates.

Lifespan

The biggest technical problem for OLEDs was the limited lifetime of the organic materials.In particular, blue OLEDs historically have had a lifetime of around 14,000 hours to half original brightness (five years at 8 hours a day) when used for flat-panel displays. This is lower than the typical lifetime of LCD, LED or PDP technology—each currently rated for about 25,000–40,000 hours to half brightness, depending on manufacturer and model.However, some manufacturers' displays aim to increase the lifespan of OLED displays, pushing their expected life past that of LCD displays by improving light outcoupling, thus achieving the same brightness at a lower drive current. 

Manufacturers and commercial uses

Magnified image of the AMOLEDscreen on the Google Nexus Onesmartphone using the RGBG system of the PenTile Matrix Family.

A 3.8 cm (1.5 in) OLED display from a Creative ZEN V media player

OLED technology is used in commercial applications such as displays for mobile phones and portable digital media players, car radios and digital cameras among others. Such portable applications favor the high light output of OLEDs for readability in sunlight and their low power drain. Portable displays are also used intermittently, so the lower lifespan of organic displays is less of an issue. Prototypes have been made of flexible and rollable displays which use OLEDs' unique characteristics. Applications in flexible signs and lighting are also being developed. Philips Lighting have made OLED lighting samples under the brand name "Lumiblade" available online  and Novaled AG based in Dresden, Germany, introduced a line of OLED desk lamps called "Victory" in September, 2011.

OLEDs have been used in most Motorola and Samsung colour cell phones, as well as some HTC, LG and Sony Ericsson models. Nokia has also introduced some OLED products including the N85 and the N86 8MP, both of which feature an AMOLED display. OLED technology can also be found in digital media players such as the Creative ZEN V, the iriver clix, the Zune HD and the Sony Walkman X Series.

The Google and HTC Nexus One smartphone includes an AMOLED screen, as does HTC's own Desire and Legend phones. However due to supply shortages of the Samsung-produced displays, certain HTC models will use Sony's SLCD displays in the future, while the Google and Samsung Nexus S smartphone will use "Super Clear LCD" instead in some countries.

OLED displays were used in watches made by Fossil (JR-9465) and Diesel (DZ-7086).

Other manufacturers of OLED panels include Anwell Technologies Limited (Hong Kong), AU Optronics (Taiwan), Chi Mei Corporation (Taiwan), LG (Korea), and others.

DuPont stated in a press release in May 2010 that they can produce a 50-inch OLED TV in two minutes with a new printing technology. If this can be scaled up in terms of manufacturing, then the total cost of OLED TVs would be greatly reduced. Dupont also states that OLED TVs made with this less expensive technology can last up to 15 years if left on for a normal eight hour day.

The use of OLEDs may be subject to patents held by Eastman Kodak, DuPont, General Electric, Royal Philips Electronics, numerous universities and others.^[81] There are by now thousands of patents associated with OLEDs, both from larger corporations and smaller technology companies .

RIM, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, have unofficially announced that their upcoming BlackBerry 10 devices will use OLED displays. This marks the upcoming BB10 smartphones as some of the first to use OLED displays.