Korean corporations filed the most patents in the field of "micro LED display transfer technology." They filed more than four times as many patents as China, which ranked second.
On the 22nd, the Ministry of Intellectual Property said that an analysis of patent filing trends for "transfer technology of micro LED displays" at the five leading intellectual property offices (IP5) — Korea, the United States, China, the European Union, and Japan — over the past 20 years from 2004 to 2023 showed Korea ranked first with 2,022 filings.
During this period, total patent filings in the micro LED transfer technology field were 4,813, with China following Korea at 1,107, the United States at 739, Japan at 295, and Europe at 272.
Major applicants LG Electronics (648) and Samsung Electronics (503) ranked first and second in filings, respectively. In addition, five Korean corporations — LG Display (147, third), Samsung Display (132, fifth), and Point Engineering (124, sixth) — stood out by placing among the top 10 most frequent filers worldwide.
Micro LED (light-emitting diode) displays, which secure superior performance, durability, and flexibility compared with OLED (organic light-emitting diode) and LCD (liquid crystal display), are drawing attention as a dream display that can be applied not only to TVs and tablets but also to wearable devices such as AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality).
Micro LED transfer technology precisely places tens of millions of micro LEDs on a substrate, and micro LED display applications are estimated to grow from about 30,000 in 2024 to about 440,000 in 2030.