Ann: Upcoming Investor Video Presentation, page-9

Good question. lumileds seem to have proceeded in TW and US (US2017338369), despite filing a PCT (global) patent application.

The US application has been examined. The final examination report did not refer to our patent (US8298624) but it did refer to our web page https://www.bluglass.com.au/rpcvd-for-led.
Lumileds priority date is 20 May 2016.

I'm not sure when we started talking to Lumileds. However, we should have had an NDA which prohibited Lumileds using our invention as a springboard. That said, our patent was published 6 April 2006.

The Lumileds claim 1 (issued very recently) reads:

" A method for growing a light emitting device comprising:
A. growing a light emitting device structure on a growth substrate, the light emitting device structure including a n-type region, a light emitting region and a p-type region stacked together; and
B. growing at least a portion of a layer of a tunnel junction on the light emitting device by using at least one of RP-CVD and sputtering deposition in at least a reduced hydrogen environment that does not cause inoperability of at least the p-type region,
C. the light emitting device structure being grown on the growth substrate using a non-RP-CVD and non-sputtering deposition process."

our process involves:
1. passivation of an Si containment tube using nitrogen plasma,
2. heating a substrate in the tube to between 450C and 750C in a growth chamber;
3. producing an active neutral nitrogen species in a remotely located (wrt the growth chamber) nitrogen plasma;
4. transferring the active neutral nitrogen species to the growth chamber via the containment tube;
5. forming a reaction mixture in the growth chamber the reaction mixture containing a species of a group III metal capable of reacting with the nitrogen species to form a group III metal nitride film; and
6. forming a film of the group III metal nitride on the heated object under conditions whereby the film is suitable for device purposes.

They have withdrawn their device claims in the US, but I expect they will file a US continuation-in-part application to capture the device made by the process.

In our claim, steps 3 to 6 would be the RP-CVD process.

The difference in terminology makes it difficult to make a direct comparison of the claim features without a detailed study of the two patent specifications and possibly consultation with the proverbial person skilled in the art. This would take more time than I have available at the moment.

It is possible that Lumileds may have designed around our patent because we seem to build all the layers in the growth chamber using the RP-CVD process.

If that is the case, we may not be able to stop Lumileds using their process. On the other hand, Lumileds cannot stop us using our process. WE can stop Lumileds using our process in the countries where our patent is granted.

We could use the Lumileds process in countries where they do not have a patent, but this may block us from the US market.