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Low-energy lighting is becoming big business, and innovation is rapidly bringing new technologies to the market. One of the most interesting of these uses microwaves to make light from a gas plasma. But two companies both claim the technology as their own and a war between the two has been ongoing since 2006.
The disputed technology creates brighter and whiter light that lasts longer and uses no nasties like the mercury in current low-energy lighting.
In the latest skirmish, Ceravision, based at Bletchley Park of Enigma fame, has alleged that California's LUXIM stole technology secrets when doing consulting work with one of Ceravision's former partners, Digital Reflection Inc (DRI).
Back at the end of the last decade, Ceravision was working with DRI to bring its ceramics expertise to DRI's light source technologies. As evidence of this, Ceravision quotes its US patent filed in 1999. The company has filed legal action against LUXIM in both the High Court in London and the US District Court.
Ceravision claims that LUXIM was engaged by DRI in 2000 to carry out some engineering support, and alleges that the information it gained as part of that contract form the basis of LUXIM's disputed patent. This information, says Ceravision, was covered by a non-disclosure agreement. In 2004, Ceravision bought DRI's assets to gain full title to all of the intellectual property relating to the lighting technology.
Suffice to say that Luxim does not agree with Cerevision's version of events. At the end of March it issued its own statement, which outlined the US Patent and Trademark Office's ruling against Ceravision, saying that the UK company was unable to prove priority of invention. The legal to-ing and fro-ing makes our heads hurt, but the increasing popularity of low-energy lighting will make ownership of this technology valuable in the future.
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