Altair Engineering (Altair) is a Michigan-based company that sells energy efficient solid state lighting products, particularly LED lamps, through its subsidiary, Ilumisys. 

Altair owns U.S. Patent Nos. 7,049,761 (’761 Patent) and 7,510,299 (’299 Patent), both directed to a light tube for a fluorescent light fixure having a plurality of light emitting diodes within the bulb. 

Light tube (20) is illuminated by LEDs (22) packaged inside the tube.  The light tube (20) includes a cylindrically shaped bulb portion (24) having a pair of end caps (26, 28) at opposite ends of the bulb portion.

The LEDs are mounted on a circuit board (30).  The circuit board (30) and LEDs (22) are enclosed by the bulb portion (24) and the end caps (26, 28).

The two patents are related in that the ’299 Patent is a continuation of the ’761 Patent, which means the patents have the same written description and figures but different claims.

Last month Altair sued LEDS America in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan alleging that the Florida-based LED maker’s LED-O T-8 Replacement Tube product infringes the ’761 and ’299 Patents.

LEDS America launched the LED-O product line in July (see the LED-O brochure here).

The complaint (altair_complaint.pdf) provides a little bit of the backstory of the dispute, including a preview of one potential non-infringement argument.  

According to the complaint, the defendant told Altair that its products do not infringe the asserted patents because they do not have an “end cap” as required by the claims of the patents, but instead have a “power supply.”

The complaint alleges that, prior to bringing the suit, Altair ordered one of the T-8 products and confirmed that the “power supply” is actually a large “end cap.”

Another point of interest relating to the infringement issue is that there is recent precedent as to the meaning of one of the terms of the ’761 patent claims. 

Last year another LED maker also targeted by Altair in the Eastern District of Michigan, LEDdynamics, won a partial summary judgment ruling that one of its LED tube replacement products did not infringe certain claims of the ’761 Patent. 

The ruling (altair_order.pdf) was based on the court’s claim construction interpreting the term “a plurality of closely-spaced light emitting diodes” to mean that adjacent LEDs are sufficiently close that another LED can’t fit in between them.

If the case gets to the claim construction phase, it will be interesting to see if the “closely-spaced” term and the prior interpretation of it plays a role.

Kruse Technology Partnership (“Kruse”) is an Anaheim, California partnership that owns several U.S. patents relating to its higher efficiency and cleaner burning diesel engines.

In previous posts (here, here and here) I discussed infringement suits in which Kruse accused DMAX, Ltd., Isuzu and General Motors of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 5,265,562 (“’562 patent”), 6,058,904 (“’904 patent”) and 6,405,704 (“’704 patent”) relating to higher efficiency and lower emission diesel engines.

Last month Kruse filed a fourth patent action against several defendants, including Daimler, Mercedes-Benz USA, Volkswagen, Ford and Chrysler.  The complaint (kruse-daimler_complaint.pdf) alleges that the defendants are infringing the Kruse patents by making and selling engines and vehicles equipped with engines that practice the patented methods.

The asserted patents are entitled “Internal combustion engine with limited temperature cycle” and are directed to Kruse’s “Limited Temperature Cycle” technology, which limits peak combustion temperatures in direct injection gas and diesel engines. 

The Limited Temperature Cycle injects fuel in multiple increments both before and after ignition.  According to Kruse’s web site, such injection of partial quantities of fuel reduces the combustion temperature, boosts thermal efficiency and reduces certain chemical emissions.

The asserted patents claim this process and describe an engine incorporating the invention.  The engine (10) comprises a block (12), a cylinder head (14) and a cylinder (16) having a piston (18). 

Fuel is supplied to the engine (10) by a fuel injection system (36).  The engine (10) also includes an air induction system (26) having an air intake valve (28) in the cylinder head (14).

One key feature of the process is the maintenance of a proper fuel/air mix in the engine to reduce the temperature and the work of compression.  According to the ’904 patent, the fuel injection system (36) precisely regulates this fuel/air mixture for combustion and exhaust emission control.

The complaint requests that the court issue permanent injunctions against the defendants and award Kruse compensatory damages for the alleged infringement.

Koninklijke Philips Electronics and Philips Solid State Lighting Solutions (collectively “Philips”) sued Pixelrange and UK lighting company James Thomas Engineering last month, accusing the defendants of infringing six patents relating to LED systems. 

The complaint (philips_dmass_complaint.pdf), filed in Massachusetts district court, lists U.S. Patent Nos. 6,250,774 (’250,774 Patent), 6,016,038 (’038 Patent), 6,150,774 (’150,774 Patent), 6,806,659 (’659 Patent), 6,788,011 (’011 Patent) and 6,975,079 (’079 Patent) and alleges that the PixelLine Micro W product (shown above) infringes the asserted patents.

The ’250,774 patent is entitled ”Luminaire” and is directed to an LED package for street lighting that uses the generated light more efficiently. 

According to the patent, a major disadvantage of some existing luminaires is that the light doesn’t concentrate well into a beam and therefore a substantial percentage of the light projects outside the area or object to be illuminated.

The patented technology solves this problem and reduces energy use by focusing the individual beams of multiple LED lighting units such that each narrow beam only hits a portion of the area or object. 

The claimed luminaire (1) (shown above) has a housing (10), a light emission window (11) and a set of lighting units (20), each having at least one LED chip (30) and an optical system (40), with the lighting units illuminating respective portions of an object.

The ’038, ’150,774, ’659 and ’011 Patents comprise a chain of related patents entitled “Multicolored LED lighting method and apparatus” and are directed to computer controlled multicolored LED networks. 

According to these patents, the inventions overcome some of the problems associated with integrating multiple LEDs of different colors, intensity levels and power ratings.

These patents describe a pulse width modulated current control where each lighting unit is uniquely addressable via a controller and capable of receiving illumination color information on a computer lighting network.  

Multiple integrated circuits at respective nodes are operatively connected to a light module (100) with LED sets (120, 140, 160), which each contain a series or parallel array of LEDs of various colors.

The ’079 Patent, entitled “Systems and mehtods for controlling illumination sources,” relates to methods of providing control signals for LED lighting systems to control light output.  The methods can take into account the response of a viewer to different light output levels and convert data inputs to output control signals that adjust the light output levels accordingly.

A company called Commonwealth Research Group LLC (Commonwealth) filed a patent infringement suit last month against a number of technology companies, accusing them of infringing a patent relating to an energy saving system for electronic devices.

The complaint (commonwealth_complaint.pdf), filed in federal court in Delaware, asserts U.S. Patent No. 6,026,493 (’493 Patent) against Samsung, Toshiba, NXP Semiconductors and Renesas Technology.

The ’493 Patent is directed to electronic circuitry that conserves energy by turning off or reducing power to selected chip components.  A disclosed embodiment involving powering a tape recorder is shown below.  The embodiment comprises a circuit having two relays (12, 18).

In its normal position, the second relay (18) supplies continuous power to the power bus.  The first relay (12) is designed to lock open as long as power is maintained on the power bus.   

Tape sensor prongs (27) momentarily connect on a passing cassette tape (26) to energize the second relay (18).  When the second relay (18) is energized, the power bus loses power, and the first relay (12) returns to the normal position with no power supplied to the tape recorder (14).

It is unclear from the complaint who or what Commonwealth is.  The complaint does not say anything about the company except that it is a Virginia corporation that owns all rights to the ’493 Patent. 

The only other information I could find on the internet was through a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office assignments database, which lists a Washington, DC address for Commonwealth. 

Commonwealth has requested a preliminary and permanent injunction, which would require the company to explain how it’s been harmed by the alleged infringement.  More details are likely to come out at that time.

Litepanels, LTD, a UK company, and Litepanels, Inc., a Los Angeles-based corporation (collectively ”Litepanels”), make LED lighting systems for use in film and TV production. 

Last month Litepanels sued Dot Line Corp. (Dot Line) and Infocus Camera & Imaging, LLC (ICI) in federal court in Tyler, Texas, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,948,823 (’823 Patent) and 7,604,361 (’361 Patent) (litepanels_complaint.pdf). 

The ’823 Patent is entitled “Wide area lighting apparatus and effects system” and is directed to a camera mountable lighting frame (302) having multiple lamp segments (306) arranged in a radial pattern around a center hole (303).  Each lamp segment 306 comprises a plurality of LEDs (305).

The portable frame could be circular (as picture above) or rectangular.  When the portable frame is mounted to a movable camera, the frame follows the movements of the camera.

The ’361 Patent is a continuation-in-part of the ’823 Patent and is entitled “Versatile lighting apparatus and associated kit.”  It is directed to an LED light panel with a self-contained battery unit that provides power to the light elements but not to the camera.

Litepanels previously asserted the ’823 Patent against Sony, which quickly settled the case about a month after the complaint was filed.

Three new light emitting diode (LED) patent infringement suits were filed last month, all in the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall.

In the first case, Japanese LED maker Nichia Corporation (Nichia) has accused Chinese solar products company Jiawei North America Inc. (Jiawei) of infringing four patents relating to LED technology.

According to Nichia’s bare bones complaint (nichia_complaint.pdf), Jiawei is infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 5,998,925 (’925 Patent), 7,026,756 (’756 Patent), 7,531,960 (’960 Patent) and 6,870,191 (’191 Patent).  The ’925, ’756 and ’960 Patents are members of the same patent family.

The three related patents describe a light emitting diode (100) that minimizes deterioration in emission light intensity by including a phosphor in the coating resin (101) that covers the light emitting component (102).  The ’756 Patent claims a garnet fluorescent material activated with cerium as the phosphor.

According to the ’756 Patent, incorporating a phosphor in the LED reduces deterioration:

the phosphor used in the light emitting device has excellent resistance against light so that the fluorescent properties thereof experience less change even when used over an extended period of time while being exposed to light of high intensity.  This makes it possible to reduce the degradation of characteristics during long period of use and reduce deterioration due to light of high intensity emitted by the light emitting component . . . to provide a light emitting device which experiences less color shift and less luminance decrease.

In two lawsuits filed the same day, Light Transformation Technologies LLC (LTT), exclusive licensee of U.S. Patent No. 6,543,911 (’911 Patent), has accused a host of lighting and electronics companies of infringing the ’911 Patent.

One complaint (ltt_complaint1.pdf) lists 15 defendants including LEDdynamics, Philips, Osram Sylvania and Volkswagen.  The other complaint (ltt_complaint2.pdf) names Alliance Electronics and several others. 

The accused products include lenses, optics, lighting products and automobile lights that either allegedly infringe the ’911 Patent or are designed for use with allegedly infringing products. 

The ’911 Patent is entitled “Highly efficient luminaire having optical transformer providing precalculated angular intensity distribution and method therefore.”  The central innovation of the ’911 Patent is an integrated omnidirectional light transformer (100) that includes an optical window (110) and a support (120).   

The light transformer (100) may have an aspherical reflective surface (130) and be incorporated into lighting assembly or luminaire (300) along with a light source (310), a shell (320), a connector (330) and a printed circuit board (340).  The light source (310), which may be an LED, emits light rays (350, 352) that are reflected in accordance with the curvature of the reflective surface (130). 

According to the ’911 Patent, this design results in luminaire (300) having a luminous intensity higher at lower angles, and all light emitted by the light source will be directed in a predetermined pattern. 

In particular, the luminaire 300 can redirect the light so that illuminance at a long range distance (i.e. at the lower observation angles) will be equal to illuminance at a short range distance (i.e. at the higher observation angles).  Therefore, as a driver in a car approaches the luminaire 300, the driver can perceive light of equal intensity at long distances and at short distances from the luminaire 300.