Can SHARP take a leadership on New Liquid Cristal Panel IGZO competing against competitors? -Observations from patent information analysis-

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1 Can SHARP take a leadership on New Liquid Cristal Panel IGZO competing against competitors? -Observations from patent information analysis- Shihori Saito Department of Technology Management Graduate School of Innovation Management Tokyo Institute of Technology saito.s.ao@m.titech.ac.jp Yoshitoshi Tanaka Department of Technology Management Graduate School of Innovation Management Tokyo Institute of Technology tanaka.y.al@m.titech.ac.jp Abstract. This research focuses on patent applications in the field of IGZO Liquid Crystal Panel business. IGZO is a new challenging material for LCP. We compared and analysed patent information about 9 Japanese applicants and 1 foreign applicant, by using bibliographic data, examination processes, registration data, overseas application, technical classification, citation data, etc., clarifying Sharp s strength and weakness in the field of IGZO LCP business. We showed in this paper the way of evaluation of strength and weakness together with patent strategy of companies, by using various approaches of patent information analysis. We reached to a conclusion that Sharp took advantages against other competitors in the field of IGZO patent acquisitions, because of their high registration ratio and few refusal notifications from Japan Patent Office. On the other hands, it is assumed that the other competitors, for instance, Sony and Samsung, have been making challenges to catch up with Sharp. 1. Introduction 1-1. Business environment of Liquid Crystal Panel(LCP) According to the latest book "quarterly tablet PC general investigation report" published by Display Search 1, The shipment number of tablet PC matures into 82 million from 20 million between 2010 and This trend also can be seen in Smartphone shipment, the shipment number of the smartphone was around 8 million in 1

2 2010, and it increased into around 24 million in It is expected that the demand for smartphone and tablet PC will continue to increase in the future. As Smartphone and Tablet PC demands are keeping grow, high-spec and high-performance LCP demands will be continuing to grow. Thin-Film-Transistor (TFT) which has good performance is necessary for LCP devices. A lot of researchers all over the world have dedicated to discover and research new material using for TFT which has higher performance so far. IGZO was one of the new materials which consists IGZO TFT and IGZO display discovered in 2002 by Hideo Hosono, professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology. In this paper we used the word like IGZO TFT or IGZO display. IGZO TFT means the TFT which uses IGZO for TFT as semiconductor material, and IGZO display means the liquid crystal display which has IGZO TFT in it. Fig.1: Total demand of the area of Liquid Crystal Display (NPD Display Search (2009)) What is IGZO protective membrane Source electrode board Source layer Chanel layer Gate electrode Drain layer Fig.2: IGZO-TFT 2

3 Fig.3: IGZO TFT manufacturing process IGZO is the oxide semiconductor which Sharp is succeeded in mass production for the first time in the world 3. It is innovative semiconductor material to be constructed by In (indium), Ga (gallium), Zn (zinc), O (oxygen), and to enable that have not able to be done before with conventional type of semiconductors (like silicon-based semiconductor). For example, IGZO reduces electricity consumption of LCP up to one-fifth. IGZO allows electrons to move faster 4, so that transistors could be built smaller. IGZO has High touch panel operation. The LCP made by IGZO is possible to bend. IGZO is used for the channel layer of the thin-film transistor (TFT). As shown in fig.1, IGZO was adopted in place of the silicon-based semiconductor which has been widely used as a material of channel layer of TFT. As we mentioned before, IGZO technology is so innovative, because it has much less electric consumption than silicon based TFT. While devices using TFT such as smartphone and tablet devices are rapidly spreading all over world, innovative TFT technology like IGZO is so influential and valuable. One process is added to manufacturing procedure as shown in Fig.3. That is to reform semiconductor by reducing half of semiconductor layer. This process is indispensable for IGZO TFT because this process let IGZO-TFT have relatively high electronic mobility. Having high electronic mobility is necessary for TFT to have high operation Research purpose When we intend to compare each company s competitiveness from patent information, those following information is especially useful. That is, the number of patent applications, procedure from patent application to registration, ratio of using PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) or accelerated examination, IPC distribution, inventors, and so on 5. The reason is because that kind of information reflects various intentions of applicants. To take a simple example, to know when was the first application date in the field of IGZO technology and when did the number of applications begin to increase let us understand how and how much each applicant 3 Sharp s special report(2012) at 4 Hosono, H.(2008) Transparent Flexible Transistors with Oxide Semiconductor Channel, Chapter 3. 5 Higashi, T and Hoshino, Y. (2011) Patent research and patent map making, p29.

4 focuses on this technology, and if there is difference between each applicants that fact leads to the discovery of strength and weakness of the applicants. This paper focused on business competence of Sharp s IGZO. We made analysis by using patent information of 10 companies in the field of IGZO business development. In this research, the information obtained from patent applications for IGZO TFT is analyzed from various perspectives. From the fact we mentioned above, to clear that these information let us know Sharp s strength and weakness in the way to take leadership in the future as well so far and to clear. Doing analysis of one of the new technical seeds called IGZO became a new trial in the field observations from patent information analysis. By using the case of IGZO, we showed the way of evaluation of strength and weakness together with patent strategy of companies, by using various approaches of patent information analysis. 2. Methodology and Result 2-1. Methodology About patent information in this research, we used a patent search engine called JP-net 6 to look for the patents. The information of each patents consists of following elements. That is for instance, application serial number, application date, publication number, patent Number, asked to examination or not, International application serial number, registration date, full name of the inventor, applicant name, IPC (International Patent Classification), FI (File Index), F-term, contents of the claim, number of claims, references cited. About the way how to extract IGZO Sharp s competitor, first, we made a table of top 20 companies which did patent applications in the field of H01L29/78 618B (It is FI correspond with the technical characteristic of IGZO using TFT). In addition to this group, we made a table of Top 20 companies which cited five patents fileded by Hideo Hosono (Professor of Tokyo Instititute of Technology). These are Patent no.jp , JP , JP , JP and JP Finally, we extracted Top 10 companies which were given as canditates on both of these two groups. The 10 companies are shown on the table 1. Table 1: extracted 10 companies 1 Sharp 2 Canon 3 Fujifilm 4 Sony 5 Samsung 6 Toppan 7 Panasonic 8 Konica 9 Toshiba 10 Epson 6

5 About the process extracting patents each companies have applied for IGZO, we used following 2 types of patent search fomula using patent search engine to find IGZO related patent publications. 1) First formula Application date: 2004~2012 Phrase in claims: oxide-semiconductor FI: H01L29/78 618B Applicants: Sharp, Canon, Fujifilm, Sony, Samsung, Toppan, Panasonic, Konica, Toshiba or Epson. 2) Second formula Application date: 2004~2012 Phrase in all the sentences: oxide-semiconductor Applicants: Applicants: Sharp, Canon, Fujifilm, Sony, Samsung, Toppan, Panasonic, Konica, Toshiba or Epson. Here we declare that, by reading the publication, the patents irrelevant to LCP using IGZO were removed, because these were not in the range of our research. We made sum set of patents extracted from these two methods and difined them as the targeted patents for this research. As a result of all methods, 380 patents are extracted (345 from first method, 35 from second method) Analysis of 10 applicants seen from patent application transition Fig.4: number of patent application of 10 applicants from Fig.4 shows the number of patent application to JPO (Japan Patent Office) from January December 2012 for the 10 applicants. As the date showed by Table1, there is some tendency for the application number. Some applicants applied a lot of patent around 2004 and then decreasing their application following the year. Some others once increasing their application number around 2007 and then decreasing their number after that, and the others keep their application number increase thorough the Sharp Canon Fuji-film Sony Samsung Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba Epson

6 year. So the 10 applicants will be divided 3 groups. Group1 consists of the applicants who applied patents a lot around 2004 and then reduced their application thorough the year. This group consists of Canon and Toppan. Group2 consists of the applicants who increased patents application number around 2007 and then reduced the number after that. This group consists of Fuji-Film, Epson and Panasonic. Group3 consists of the applicants who keep their application number increasing thorough the year. This group consists of Sharp, Sony, Samsung and Toshiba. We could see each company patent application trend as result of the investment of R&D. If we line the Groups how much they focus on this technology, Group3 is the Group which focuses this technology the most, because they are increasing their patent application number until recently. At first sight, each company s data seem to be disconnected, but they could be divided into three groups if some attention was paid to the growth of the number of applications. We focused on Group 3 which Sharp belongs to in the following analysis Analysis of the number of inventors Table 2: the number of all inventors( ) Sharp Canon Fuji-film Sony Samsung Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba Epson inventor Sharp Canon Fuji- film Samsung panasonic Sony Epson Toppan Konica Toshiba Fig.5: transision of the number of inventors Fig.5 shows a graph of the number of inventors summed up for each company s application. The number of inventors shows how many human resources they have invested in IGZO R&D. The number of inventors is larger, the more the company is focusing on IGZO R&D. If the number of inventors is increasing, it is more likely to keep focusing on IGZO R&D than the other companies. As for the companies belongs to group 3, they have tendency to increase the number of inventors through the year, especially Samsung has the largest number of inventors (88 people), Samsung is most likely to keep focusing on IGZO R&D in the view of human resource investiment. We found that Samsung have competence equal to Sharp in IGZO R&D. We used the data of patent applications and the number of inventors to know whether Samsung has same trend in dicision-making from R&D to application or not. It can be said that the number of applications is related to how many results they

7 get from the investments in human resources. For example, Canon and Fujifilm comparably apply a lot of patent applications as we take into account the human resource investment. Their numbers of inventors are low, but the numbers of applications are comparably high. On the other hand, Sharp and Samsung file less patent applications if we take into account the human resource investment. This result indicates that Canon and Fuji tend to apply their patents without selecting so much carefully. On the other hand, Sharp and Samsung tend to select their R&D result before filing patent applications. They select their R&D result carefully before applications. As a result, we found that Sharp and Samsung have same trend in the disition-making from R&D to patent applications Analysis on Technical field (IPC) Primary IPC shows its patent s technical characteristics. So we know which IPC the inventions belong to by primary IPC. Secondary IPC shows technologies related to the inventions but not as main characteristics. By using primary IPC, we analyzed the patents from main technical characteristics, and by using secondary IPC, we analyzed the patents widely from technical aspects related with the invention. By analyzing IPC trend we know that which technical field is related to IGZO display and which technical field is main and necessary for IGZO display, and also to know which technical field each company focusing on. For example, having a lot of patents in field where others not focus can be strength, and vice versa. Sharp Samsung Sony Toshiba Canon Toppan Fujifilm konica Epson Panasonic A61B B41J B32B B82B C01G C08F C09K C23C G01J C23F G01N G01T G02F G03B G03F G03G G06K G06F G09F G09G G11C G11B H01B H01L H01M H01S H03K H04N H05B Fig.6: patent map classification using primary IPC Sharp Samsung Sony Toshiba Canon Toppan Fujifilm konica Epson Panasonic H05B H04N H03K H01S H01M H01L H01B G11C G11B G09G G09F G06K G06F G03G G03F G03B G02F G01T G01N G01J C23F C23C C09K C08F C01G B82B B41J B32B A61B Fig.7: patent map classification using all IPC from primary to last

8 Fig.6 shows the figure of patent map classification of 10 applicants focusing on primary IPC. Every single applicant focuses on in the field of H01L. This field is related to semiconductor technologies. So this result shows that semiconductor is the technical field that cannot miss in IGZO technology. G02F and G09F are related to LCP manufacturing.for example, G02F is the technology about the control of the light polarization. G09F is the technology about display device. G09G is the technology about device for control display unit. We found 2 companies with similar trend that Sharp has, when careful attention was paid to these 3 IPC field G02F, G09F and G09G. The first one is Sony and the other is Canon. On the other hands, it is notable that both companies have certain field that its not strong. For example, Sony is not strong in the field of G09G and Canon is not strong in the field of G02F according to Fig.7 not only primary. Since they are not strong on these IPCs, Sharp may keep their strong position in the IGZO LCP market. Though Sony and Canon have patents in the field of G01N which Sharp is not focusing, but this cannot be a factor to let them take advantage in IGZO LCP market. Because G01N is about the technologies related to measurement equipments not concerned to the LCP which equipped with IGZO TFT. We compared the value of CHHI of each company. CHHI shows the expansion or integration of the different fields of IPC about patent application. For instance, when we compare 2 companies, X and Y, if X has high CHHI value, it means there is concentration of the specific field of IPC, as we can see that the IPC classification A becomes like the circle graph in the left of Fig.8. On the other hand, if company Y has low CHHI value, it means there is tendency of expansion of the field of IPC.The IPC classification of B becomes like the circle graph fig.8 as I showed below. High CHHI; Company X Low CHHI; Company Y Fig.8: the appearance of IPC classification (both high CHHI and low CHHI) The result of caluculation of 10 applicants showed the following Table. Table 3: the value of CHHI1(main IPC only) and CHHI2(first to last all IPC) Sharp Canon Fuji-film Sony Samsung Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba Epson CHHI(main IPC only) CHHI(first to last all) Here we compared three companies having relatively small CHHI value. These are Sharp, Sony and Samsung. Compare Sharp and samsung, Sharp has smaller value of CHHI. Sharp and Sony, they both have a very small number of CHHI. This means that Sharp and Sony applicate patents not to deviate to only a few field of IPC. As we mentioned before in this chapter, we found that Sony is the company which has the similar tendency to Sharp when we pay attention to 3 IPC fields (G02F, G09F and G09G). Except that having certain field that its not strong, Sony could be a the

9 competitor which has competence to enter the IGZO LCP market. It might be the biggest competitor in the aspect of technical field (IPC). If we compare Samsung, Sharp and Sony, Samsung focuses on specific field of IPC more than Sharp and Sony according to the larger number of its CHHI value than these two as shown in Table 3, the field Samsung focuses on is H01L according to Fig.6. Sony s trend is similar to Sharp. If Samsung strengthen in the field of G02F, G09F and G09G, Samsung must be a competitor to be paid attention as Sony Analysis of the aspects of patent application procedure We understand the following things by conducting analysis of the aspect of patent application procedure. Firstly, Ratio of PCT means how much each companies applicated their patents by using PCT (Patent Cooperation treaty) route. This result means how much they are active in aquisition of patent right in foreign countries. Secondaly, Ratio of accerelated examination means how much each company is active in stepping into manufacturing after the registration. Table 4: ratio of using PCT and ratio of using accelerated examination Sharp Canon Fujifilm Sony Samsung Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba Epson rate of use PCT 69% 0% 0% 0% 0% 25% 0% 0% 0% Rate of accelerate 73% 2% 5% 0% 0% 0% 25% 0% 0% 0% All applications divided into the following groups by using information of patent application procedure. 1. Applications which applicants gave up acquisition of Patent Rights. (without calling for patent examination within 3years from application date.) 2. Applications received some notices of refusal. (corresponded to reasons for refusal descrived in Patent Act Article 49) 3. Applications which don t get any refusal notice yet. The result of the division of all applications into 3 groups as follows Sharp Canon Fuji-film Sony Samsung Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba Epson Fig.9: patent application procedure focusing on the presence of rejection

10 Fig.9 shows patent application procedures that applicants have taken so far from application. We d like to focus on 3 things here. The first thing is the left-sided row of bar graphs.the line shown with a pattern of dots. This row of each applicants shows the number of applications which the applicant did not request for examination within 3 years. These applications are deemed to have been withdrawn because the lack of their requests. When the attention is paid this row, Canon, Fujifilm and Konica have large values in this row. If they take this action strategically, what exactly does this mean is that they left it out whether they aimed at the actual patent acquisition and had decided to file patent applications about invention first of all. It is more likely to be defensive applications. Because these applications have a meaning not to let the other companies get patents, publishing own patents sometimes useful for refusing others by the lack of novelty (ex. Act 29). In this way, these 3 applicants we mentioned above tend not to let other companies get patent and tend to apply for defensive patents. The second thing is the second row from the left. The line shown with a pattern of fine dots. This row of each applicant shows the number of applications which have not requested for examination yet, but have not passed 3 years from application date. It is still possible to request an examination for the applications. When the attention is paid this row, Sony and Samsung have large values in this row. If they take this action strategically, what exactly does this means is that this is the outcome of their careful posture that they want to request an examination with some conviction to be able to get patents. In this way, these applicants we mentioned above tend to be careful about requesting an examination. The third thing is the third row from the left. The line shows with a pattern of stripes. This row of each applicants shows the number of get some refusal notice from JPO, we mean the sum of two numbers in the row which have a pattern of stripes is the applications which refused because of other s application (ex. The lack of novelty (Act 29)).The left number in stripe row is the applications whih have been resistered after getting refusal notice,and the right number in stripe row is the applications which have gotten the refusal from JPO but not have been resistered yet. If the attention is paid to this stripe row, Canon and fujifilm have large values. If they get the refual notification with some strategies or intentions, what does it mean is that they aim to get patents with a wider range as possible as they can. In this way, These 2 applicants tend to pay careful attention to the right s range of their patents. As results, Sharp has none of the three tendencies that we mentioned above, especially Sharp didn t get refusal notification so many times (they get only 5 refusal notifications out of 36 so far). It is what we mentioned as third point of three tendencies above, the companies which often get refusal notification have tendency to aim to get the patents with larger right range. The fact that the applications of Sharp didn t get so many refusal notifications means that Sharp could expect a wider right range and it could be more aggressive Analysis of the progress from application to registration We understand the following things by conducting analysis of progress from application to registration. That is if the years taken from application to registration is short (around 1or2years), the company is focusing on getting patents earlier and stepping into manufacturing with patent rights. The result of this analysis was shown as follwings.

11 Sharp Canon Sony Fuji-film Toppan Panasonic years 1year 2years 3years 4years 5years 6years 7years Fig.10: how many years does it take from application to registration (6 applicants) Annual transition of registration ratio shows us whether patent applications which ended up to patent registration is increasing or decreasing. If it is increasing, that means the company comes to focus on the acquisition of patents through the years. The result of this analysis was shown as follows. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Sharp Canon Fuji-film Sony Toppan Panasonic Fig.11: registration ratio of each year(6 applicants) Fig.10 shows how much years taken from application date to registration date. The years characteristic differ from company to company. Almost all companies tend to take more than 2years to get registered, but the applications from Sharp were needed around only 1year to get registered. One main reason for this is they have utilized accelerated examination system when they applicate patents as we saw from table 4. Few applications were registered more than 4 years in Sharp. It is Sony which has similar tendency to Sharp according to this analysis. Sony also has a lot of patents which registered around 2 years taken.this tendency means that Sharp want to step into manufacture earlier with patent rights protection. Sharp applicated their patents in anticipation of their manufacturing near future. So in this way, Sony might also have filed their patent applications in anticipation of their manufacturing near future.

12 Other companies except for Sharp tended to take more than 4 years from applicathion to get patented. The tendency is particularly strong in Canon. Few applications got registered around 1 year and lots of patents got registered around 6 years in Canon. Fig.11 shows registration ratio of each year (6 applicants). Sharp has high registration rate especially after It seems to be getting 100%. Their registration rate grew so much after There is no company with such a tendency. We found that Sony has similar tendency according to Figures above, the registration tendency was not so high as Sharp. It s below 30%. However it s notable that Sony s registration ratio is growing. From 2 Figures and based on the result above we found following things. Though Sharp get their patents registered faster than any other competitors and Sony has similar tendency about the years taken to registration, Sony doesn t have high registration ratio growing through the year and does not achieve high % like Sharp has achieved 100%. It means that Sharp has speriority which no other companies have and they put their strong efforts on IGZO display Comparison of the acquisition of the company patent and attack to the other companies Each applicant had applications which had gotten refusal notice because of the application of the other companies former applications. By conducting analysis on whose applications are refused by whose patents, we understand that whose patents tend to be cited by whose applications. Table 5: Number of cited cases that refuse the applications on IGZO of each 10 applicants Sum of the number of cited applications of each applicants are shown as follows. Registration ratio was added to fig Sharp Canon Fujifilm Sony Samsung Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba Epson Sharp Canon Fujifilm Sony Samsung 1 Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba 1 1 registration ratio Number of cited applications Sharp Canon Fujifilm Sony Samsung Toppan Panasonic Konica Toshiba Epson Fig.12: Number of cited cases that refuse the applications (except for their own company s application) on IGZO of each 10 applicants 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

13 Table 5 and Fig.12 show the number of cited cases that refuse the applications on IGZO of each 10 applicants. We focused on the companies which have comparably many cited patents, it came to Sharp and Canon. Registration ratio is added in Fig.12 to compare it with the data of the number of cited patents. About what would be the difference between two companies, we found Canon has low registation rate, but it has ability to refuse other companies applications. Because they have a lot of patents which refused other s applications according to Fig.12. On the other hands, Sharp has high registration rate and it also has ability to refuse other companies applications according to Fig.12. In the result, we came to know that that is the big differences of both companies. Though Canon has higher competence similar to Sharp in the aspect of refusal, Canon is not going to be a competitor which is going to threaten Sharp in IGZO LCP market. Because according to Fig.4 Canon s number of applications is not growing and according to Fig.5 its number of inventors is neither growing. So, we forcast that Canon is not going to change this tendency and does not intend to grow up the registration ratio in the near future. In order to built an advantage in the market having high registration ratio and ability to refuse other s application are equally important. 3. Conclusions We analysed patent information of sharp and nine its competitors in the field of LCP using IGZO. We got some data indicating the superiority of some Sharp from the result of this investigation. In addition that, we are referring to the point that Sharp can strengthen as a result that can be said as a proposal of this search. Firstly, the numbers of applications can be taken as the indicator of each company s competence to develop each company s R&D of IGZO. We found groups in section2-2 which have been focusing on IGZO R&D. Sharp belongs to this group. That was group3 shown on the fig4 and consisted of 4 companies that is Sharp, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba. In this group, Sharp and Samsung have a tendency that was similar in the actions before application. Sharp and Samsung apply less patents if we take into account the human resource investment, so this can be said that they tend to select their R&D result before filing patent applications. The company which has the same trend as Sharp in group 3 was Samsung, and they have same trend in the decision making from R&D to application. Secondary, The number of the inventors concerned with applications at the age can be identified from the column of an inventor list in patent information and can be considered to be the investment into man power. It can be said that inventor s increasing number associated with the increase of the number of the applications. The companies which have increasing inventors are advantageous. Sharp is one of them. Thirdly, the expansion of the technical area of the development can be estimated by calculating the value called CHHI using given IPC. As the value of CHHI getting smaller, the expansion of the technical area is bigger. When some product is made by the combination of various techniques like IGZO-LCP, the companies that have smaller CHHI value is advantageous. Sharp s CHHI number is small. Fourthly, we found 3 tendencies by analyzing patent application procedure. The third one was that some companies had many applications which had refused by other companies applications. Sharp didn t have this tendency. As a result of this fact we could say that Sharp could aim to the patent right which had more wide range. The fact

14 the application of Sharp didn t get so many refusal notification means Sharp could expect a wider right range and it could be more aggressive. Fifthly, we found that Sharp had high accelerated examination ratio and PCT ratio as we showed on table4. This means that Sharp was considering moving to manufacturing IGZO LCP and was considering of business development in foreign countries not only in Japan. Therefore, as a continuance of this study, we d like to analyze the patent information about the applications related to IGZO LCP done by foreign companies to USPTO. By the research we ll know whether Sharp can take a leadership on New Liquid Cristal Panel IGZO competing against foreign competitors all over the world. This is one of our focusing now. In this research, the information obtained from patent applications for IGZO TFT is analyzed from various perspectives. By using the case of IGZO, we showed the way of evaluation of strength and weakness together with patent strategy of companies, by using various approaches of patent information analysis. We hope that patent information analysis will be utilized in efficient way and will contribute for further growth of various industries in the future. References [1] [2] h.asp [3] Sharp s special report(2012) at [4]Hosono, H.(2008) Transparent Flexible Transistors with Oxide Semiconductor Channel, Chapter 3 [5]Higashi, T and Hoshino, Y. (2011) Patent research and patent map making, p29. [6]