Patent Office Shoots Down LG’s Plans To Trademark QNED Term For Its New Premium Displays

January 22, 2021 by Dave Haynes

Hat Tip to Bob Raikes, who does the paywalled but valuable What Bob Saw newsletter through Display Daily …

The US Patent and Trademark Office has denied an application by LG Electronics to register the the term QNED as a trademark. The patent office said that QNED is an acronym for Quantum Nano-emitting Diode, so it could not be registered by LG for something that wasn’t really about nano-emitting diodes.

Earlier in the month, LG Electronics announced plans to release a premium LCD display that it would call a QNED. But, it is not the Quantum Nano Emitting Diode (aka QNED) technology that LG rival Samsung has been developing for years, and planning to bring to the market.

As noted previously in a post, the technical explanation is dense and way the hell over my head, but QNED technology is self-emissive (direct view) technology that has super-teeny light pixels shaped like rods or needles. The technology is in the same general family of efforts to add quantum dots to OLED technology, which has a few benefits- probably the biggest one adding brightness.

This new LG QNED thing does not appear to be all that similar, and involves a Quantum Dots filter and miniLED backlighting for a premium LCD (you will recall from the Before Times and trade shows that LG has been all-in lately on OLED, with LCD not seeing the same marketing priority.)

More detail here …

The issue here, at least from my perspective, is the USPTO maintaining at least a smidge of order on the use of tech terms. It’s confusing and challenging enough to stay on top of things like quantum dots and OLEDs and on and on, without manufacturers stretching the meaning and application of terms further than warranted.

MicroLED, in particular, is a term being liberally used by manufacturers, when most are using LEDs that don’t actually fit the generally-agreed technical threshold for what constitutes a true microLED light emitter.

Leave a comment