Lynk Labs Inc.’ s AC LED technology has recently secured a patent from the Chinese Patent Office,
Patent No. Pat. No. 200580011640.1 entitled “AC Light Emitting Diodes And AC LED Drive Methods And Apparatus".

The AC LED technology covered by the patent continues to add to a family of fundamental patents around AC LEDs and AC OLEDs in the form of core circuits, chips, packages, drive methods, lamps and lighting systems where applicable using AC LED technology in various methods. The AC LED and AC OLED technology includes high voltage and low voltage, high frequency and low frequency AC power using various drive methods.

The drive methods behind the patent depend on the AC LED application and include 50/60Hz high voltage or low voltage as well as high frequency (1000 Hz or greater) power supplies including electronic transformer-type power supplies (typically operating in the 20–50 kHz range) which have been used in lighting for decades.

“This patent adds to a broad and growing AC LED patent portfolio at Lynk with a significant amount of new and advanced AC LED technology to follow it form Lynk and our key strategic partners in this space,” said Mike Miskin, Lynk Labs President/CEO.

According to Lynk, one key difference between AC LEDs and DC LEDs is that an AC LED is more of an integrated circuit topology at the die level. This means that in the patent landscape, AC LEDs have core enabling circuits that have been patented by the early key players like Lynk Labs, Epistar (a strategic investor in Lynk) and Seoul Semiconductor. However, DC LED circuits that have always been placed in series, parallel or series parallel are more of an “open architecture” at this LED circuit level and the IP landscape sits more at a system level with drivers included.