Forest Lighting (formerly branded as MLS) announced recently it had acquired 80% shares from Hong Kong lighting vendor Super Trend Lighting Chairman Jiangguo Yen (嚴建國), which is expected to bolster the Chinese player’s  LED filament bulb market share.

Nichia announced several LED patent lawsuits this week, including its two patent infringement suits filed against TV manufacturer Vizio in Eastern Court of Texas and District Court for the Central District of California in U.S., and ongoing YAG patents lawsuit against Everlight China. The lawsuit filed against Vizio stands out in particular, since it targets the end product manufacturer instead of a LED chip or component supplier.

In 2012, EVERLIGHT filed a declaratory judgment action of invalidity and non-infringement against Nichia’s U.S. Patent Nos. 5,998,925 and 7,531,960 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. These two patents are directed to YAG phosphors being used in LEDs and phosphor concentration. The jury on April 22, 2015 has found all the asserted patent claims invalid. And the court has rejected Nichia’s motions for a new trial and confirmed the jury finding on January 19, 2016. 

Bengaluru, the capital of Kanakata State in India, has distributed more than 5 million LED bulbs to local residents since it launched the energy efficiency program three months ago, reported The New Indian Express.

Dutch lighting giant Philips Lighting has started selling energy efficient LED bulbs at Palace shopping mall in Ghana capital Accra, reported Graphic Online.

Global leading LED manufacturer Nichia has filed another patent infringement lawsuit against U.S. TV manufacturer Vizio in Central California Court, just one day after filing a lawsuit in the Eastern Texas. Moreover, the Japanese company is enforcing its YAG patents in China, and filed a lawsuit against Everlight subsidiary and distributor in China earlier this month. Below are Nichia’s statements related to the cases:

A photocall on March 17, 2016 marked the start of a two-year project to replace all of the borough’s 11,300 street lamps with LED energy efficient ones.

Silver Spring Networks announced a new go-to-market partner, Rongwen, for its rapidly growing smart cities and smart street lighting business. Rongwen is one of the largest smart LED street light providers and operators in China, and has deployed more than 250,000 controllable LED street lights in its home country under the Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) business model. 

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Apple 59 patents including one related to AMOLED displays, reported Patently Apple.

Nichia has filed a complaint in the Eastern Court of Texas in U.S. court against American TV manufacturer Vizio for infringing its LED patent (U.S. Patent No. 8,530,250), reported Law 360 magazine.

Lighting Science, the global technology leader in human health focused LED solutions, unveils a bold new brand identity designed to more accurately communicate the mission of the company and its groundbreaking products. The brand relaunch coincides with the expansion of Lighting Science’s line of biologically-tuned LED products including the Sleepy Baby®, GoodNight™, and GoodDay™ bulbs which emit pre-sleep and awake & alert spectrums of light, respectively.

Prospects of the LED lighting market in Indonesia is promising and set to soar this year, due to growing electrification ratio in the country, reported Indonesia Investments.

Seoul Viosys filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the US Court in Florida, claiming that their UV products, including EPI, FAB, package or system, have been infringed.

Local U.S. governments have been actively replacing conventional streetlights with LEDs in an effort to slash energy consumption, according to a latest report from The Climate Group mayors across the U.S. are prioritizing LED streetlights. Below are summaries of streetlight projects in several U.S. cities.

If you have been following LEDinside news, India has been a booming market for massive streetlight retrofit projects over the last two years. Progress of LED streetlight projects in the region have been mixed, with some states and municipalities successfully implementing plans, and others lagging behind due to political, financial or technical difficulties. 

This recall involves GE Lighting high intensity discharge (HID) LED lamps. The lamps are used in lighting fixtures for warehouses, schools and gymnasiums. The lamps are 5 1/2 inches in diameter by 11 1/2 inches long and weigh about 3 pounds. The lamps were sold in a blue and white carton with “ED37/EX39 base” on the front and “PC:21259” on the back above the bar code. 

As previously announced, Bang & Olufsen a/s ("Bang & Olufsen") initiated a review to identify strategic and structural options to increase scale and further reduce complexity within Bang & Olufsen.

Heliospectra, a world leader in intelligent lighting technology for crop cultivation and plant research, have together with Gothenburg University and biotech companies CropTailor and OlsAro, successfully grown cereals (oat and barley) in a controlled environment under sole source LED lighting. The report entitled “Growth and development of cereals in a controlled environment with sole source LED lighting” demonstrate the potential to cultivate staple foods in a closed environment anywhere in the world. 

As a late entrant in the LED luminaire market, Sony has been primarily focused on grabbing profits in the budding smart home market, and its recent product pricing strategies and new products launched clearly illustrate this approach of utilizing its experience in the consumer electronic industry to make value-added smart LED products.

Gisborne Council in New Zealand announced it will replace over 950 old high pressure sodium street lights with upgrades to new LED power-saving lighting in the district over the next three years.

On the biennial Light+Building 2016 organized by Messe Frankfurt, Samsung Electronics (SAMSUNG) and Wellmax Lighting (WELLMAX) jointly showcased their collaboration on LED technologies. The smallest 810lm full-beam-angle LED A50 bulb—the Ultron—is firstly released and gained tremendous attention from visitors worldwide.

India will be installing LED floodlights along its border neighboring Pakistan, in the first phase of the project lights in various sections covering districts of Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Granganagar and Barmer in Rajasthan have been replaced, reported Times of India.

Indian city Varansi’s ambitious project to replace old streetlights with LEDs in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency has been delayed, 33,000 streetlight replacements scheduled for completion in September 2015 is long overdue, reported Times of India.

LG Display announced that it will invest in a new OLED light panel manufacturing facility. The planned facility will be the first 5th generation (1000 x 1200mm) OLED light panel manufacturing plant in the world. It is to be located in the South Korean city of Gumi, where it will produce a range of OLED light panels.

Xenics USA, Xenics North and Latin American office covering the full spectral range of Xenics' advanced infrared imagers, cores and cameras, has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Laser Components’ North American sales, marketing and distribution office. With this new agreement, Laser Components USA, Inc. will become the partner to sell and market Xenics in-house developed SWIR line-scan imagers with rectangular pixels. This partnership will further extend Xenics position in the North American IR spectroscopy market. The agreement was jointly signed on February 12, 2016 at the Photonics West Trade show held in San Francisco.

Gooee, the IoT platform provider for lighting, has partnered with EnOcean, the world leader in energy harvesting wireless technology, to integrate a BLE based self-powered wall switch module into the Bluetooth Smart Mesh stack; the primary communication protocol in Gooee’s enterprise IoT ecosystem.

Essex County Council in UK projects it will be able to save about GBP 24 million (US$ 34.23 million) over 20 years with new LED streetlight installations, but despite energy savings it still plans to implement its part-night lighting scheme, reported local paper Dealer Offers.

Today at Light + Building, the world’s leading trade show for lighting and building services technology, Samsung Electronics and Silver Spring Networks announced a partnership to develop a networked LED street lights solution, helping to cut costs and simplify connected lighting componentry for luminaire manufacturers.  This will accelerate the road to smart cities for municipalities, utilities, transportation departments and other outdoor lighting network operators.  

Philips Lighting, a Royal Philips company and global leader in lighting, is helping to drive the adoption of the smart home by partnering up with Dutch telecoms company KPN, French insurance firm AXA and French energy company ENGIE. With lighting considered to be one of the main interests in the connected home along with energy and security , collaborations such as these not only help drive the adoption of the Internet of Things for homes but also deliver energy savings and peace of mind when away from home.

Qualcomm announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Atheros, is working closely with Acuity Brands in the commercial deployment of LED lighting fixtures/services (marketed by Acuity Brands as Bytelight™ Services) that use Qualcomm® Lumicast™ technology to bring indoor positioning capabilities and services to retailers. Unlike RF-based technologies, Lumicast uses visible-light signals transmitted from LED fixtures to deliver indoor positioning. A regular smartphone, using apps enabled by Lumicast software, receives the light signals through the front camera to determine its position and orientation with exceptional precision and speed.