Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01365/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01365-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Cree, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

IN RE: CREE, INC.,

Appellant

______________________ 

2015-1365

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 90/010,940.

______________________ 

Decided: March 21, 2016 

______________________ 

 WILLIAM F. LEE, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and 

Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, argued for appellant. Also represented by SYDENHAM B. ALEXANDER, III, PETER M.

DICHIARA, MARK CHRISTOPHER FLEMING, CYNTHIA D.

VREELAND; BRITTANY BLUEITT AMADI, HEATHER M.

PETRUZZI, Washington, DC.

 PHILIP J. WARRICK, Office of the Solicitor, United 

States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, 

argued for appellee Michelle K. Lee. Also represented by 

THOMAS W. KRAUSE, STACY BETH MARGOLIES, ROBERT J.

MCMANUS. 

______________________ 

Before CHEN, CLEVENGER, and BRYSON, Circuit Judges.

BRYSON, Circuit Judge. 

Case: 15-1365 Document: 42-2 Page: 1 Filed: 03/21/2016
2 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

This is an appeal from a decision of the Patent Trial 

and Appeal Board in an ex parte reexamination proceeding. The Board held various claims of a patent owned by 

Cree, Inc., to be unpatentable as obvious. We affirm.

I 

The patent in suit, Cree’s U.S. Patent No. 6,600,175 

(“the ’175 patent”), filed in 1996, is entitled “Solid State 

White Light Emitter and Display Using Same.” The 

claims at issue in this appeal are directed to the production of white light through the “down-conversion” of blue 

light from light-emitting diodes (“LEDs”). Downconversion is the process in which high-energy (shorter

wavelength) light is absorbed by a material and then reemitted as lower energy (longer wavelength) light. By 

choosing the particular absorbing material, light at a

desired wavelength (and thus a desired color) can be 

produced. 

The examiner rejected six claims added during reexamination of the ’175 patent as obvious under multiple 

combinations of prior art references, including the combination of U.S. Patent No. 3,691,482 (“Pinnow”), U.S. 

Patent No. 3,819,974 (“Stevenson”), and U.S. Patent No. 

5,578,839 (“Nakamura”). The Board upheld the rejection 

based on that combination of references, among others. 

Claim 118, added during reexamination of the ’175 

patent, is representative of the six rejected claims. It

recites: 

A light-emission device, comprising a single-die, 

two-lead gallium nitride based semiconductor blue 

light-emitting diode emitting radiation; and a recipient down-converting luminophoric medium for 

down-converting the radiation emitted by the 

light-emitting diode, to a polychromatic white 

light, wherein the luminophoric medium is dispersed in a polymer that is on or about the singleCase: 15-1365 Document: 42-2 Page: 2 Filed: 03/21/2016
IN RE: CREE, INC. 3

die, two lead gallium nitride based semiconductor 

blue light-emitting diode.

The patent defines the term “luminophoric medium”

to mean “a material which in response to radiation emitted by the solid state device emits light in the white 

visible light spectrum by fluorescence and/or phosphorescence.” In the context of lamps and other lighting applications, luminophoric materials are called phosphors; 

such phosphors emit light through either fluorescence or 

phosphorescence.1 Fluorescence and phosphorescence are 

examples of down-conversion. In both cases, the essential 

principle is that light of short wavelength, such as blue or 

ultraviolet light, is absorbed by a phosphor and later reemitted in the form of light with a longer wavelength. 

Different phosphors emit light of different colors, and 

phosphors can be combined to produce a range of colors. 

Down-conversion has a long history as a source of 

light of various colors, including white light. For example, 

fluorescent lamps create white light by down-converting 

the ultraviolet light emitted by excited mercury gas. 

Fluorescent lamps are well known in the art and have 

been commercially available since the 1930s.

 

1 In both phosphorescence and fluorescence, the 

luminescent material absorbs a photon that excites an 

electron. In fluorescence, the electron quickly (on the 

order of 10-9 seconds) returns to the ground state and 

emits a photon having a wavelength equal to or longer 

than that of the absorbed photon. Peter Pringsheim, 

Fluorescence and Phosphorescence 2-5 (1949). In phosphorescence the process is much slower, and the light 

emission can occur long after absorption. That property

accounts for glowing wristwatch hands and glow-in-thedark toys that can emit light in a dark room. 

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4 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

The ’175 patent recites the use of down-conversion to 

create white light with an LED. In one embodiment 

described in the ’175 patent, a blue LED commercially 

available from Nichia Chemical Industries, Ltd., is used 

with three commercially available phosphors—a blue 

phosphor (Lumogen® F Violet 570), a green-yellow phosphor (Lumogen® F Yellow 083), and a red phosphor 

(Lumogen® F Red 300). The combination of those colors 

results in the production of light that is perceived as 

white.

The Pinnow patent, published in 1972, discloses a 

display system that creates black and white images using 

a combination of a blue laser and appropriate phosphors. 

It also provides a detailed disclosure of the necessary 

conditions to create white light through the process of 

down-conversion. 

In particular, Pinnow teaches that a blue argon-ion 

laser can produce white light by down-conversion of short 

wavelength laser light to combinations of longer wavelength light emitted by various phosphors. Pinnow explains that “a necessary condition for achieving a true 

white is that the illuminating laser beam have a wavelength of approximately 4,950 Å or shorter,” which is in 

the blue to violet range of the visible spectrum.

The Stevenson patent, published in 1974, discloses a 

type of gallium nitride LED. Stevenson’s LED emits light

in the violet region of the spectrum and “may be converted 

to lower frequencies (lower energy) with good conversion 

efficiency using organic and inorganic phosphors.” Stevenson notes that with the “use of different phosphors, all 

the primary colors may be developed from this same basic 

device.” 

Finally, the Nakamura patent, which was published 

in Japan in 1993, discloses a gallium nitride LED that 

emits blue light. The Nakamura LED was much brighter 

than other similar LEDs previously developed, and it was 

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IN RE: CREE, INC. 5

widely recognized as a major breakthrough, earning Dr. 

Nakamura the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics. 

Based on those references, the examiner found that

“[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in 

the art, at the time of the invention to substitute Stevenson’s GaN-based LED with either the known UV light 

emitting or blue light emitting GaN-based LED disclosed 

in Nakamura.” The examiner further found that the 

combination was a “simple substitution of one known 

element (Nakamura’s GaN-based LED) for another 

known element (Stevenson’s GaN-based LED) to obtain 

predictable results.” The examiner explained that the 

reason to combine the references was the “advantage or 

expected beneficial result” that would result from replacing Stevenson’s LED with the more powerful Nakamura 

LED. The examiner concluded that, because Nakamura’s 

LED “would provide more photons to be down-converted 

by the phosphors and thereby provide brighter overall 

light emission from the device,” the advantage of brighter 

emission by the phosphors would be readily apparent to a 

person of ordinary skill in the art. 

The Board upheld the examiner’s rejection in view of 

the combination of Pinnow, Stevenson, and Nakamura. 

The Board agreed with the examiner’s reasoning, incorporating 109 pages of the examiner’s answer into its own 

opinion.2 In summarizing the grounds for its decision, the 

Board stated: 

 

2 Cree suggests that it was improper under the 

Administrative Procedure Act for the Board to incorporate 

substantial portions of the Examiner’s Answer into its 

opinion. There is no force to that argument. It is commonplace in administrative law for a reviewing body 

within an agency to adopt a fact-finding body’s findings. 

On judicial review, the adopted material is treated as if it 

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6 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

(1) Stevenson and Nakamura teach a two-lead, 

GaN-based blue LED on a single die, (2) Stevenson and Pinnow teach a “down-conversion” via 

phosphors from LED light, including phosphors 

dispersed in a polymer located “about” the LED 

(Ans. 117-121) and, given the presumed 

knowledge by an artisan of ordinary skill regarding the relevant prior art at the time of Appellant’s invention, (3) the combined teachings of 

Stevenson, Pinnow, and Nakamura would have 

 

were part of the reviewing body’s opinion. See, e.g., DHL 

Express, Inc. v. NLRB, Nos. 12-1072, -1143, 2016 WL 

278075, at *8 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 21, 2016); Sanchez-Robles v. 

Lynch, 808 F.3d 688, 692 (6th Cir. 2015); Mike-Sell’s 

Potato Chip Co. v. NLRB, 807 F.3d 318, 321 (D.C. Cir. 

2015). 

This court does the same in the case of Board opinions 

adopting patent examiners’ findings. See In re Brana, 51 

F.3d 1560, 1564 n.13 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (“The Board’s decision did not expressly make any independent factual 

determinations or legal conclusions. Rather, the Board 

stated that it ‘agree[d] with the examiner’s well reasoned, 

well stated and fully supported by citation of relevant 

precedent position in every particular, and any further 

comment which we might add would be redundant.’ 

Therefore, reference in this opinion to Board findings are 

actually arguments made by the examiner which have 

been expressly adopted by the Board.”) (internal citations 

omitted). 

Contrary to Cree’s suggestion, this court in In re Lee, 

277 F.3d 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2002), did not vacate the Board’s 

decision on the ground that the Board adopted some 

portions of the examiner’s answer as its own opinion. 

Instead, we vacated the Board’s decision because “neither 

the examiner nor the Board adequately supported” the 

rejection. 

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IN RE: CREE, INC. 7

suggested to an artisan of ordinary skill to use a 

blue LED on a single die to create white light via 

“down-conversion” because Nakamura’s blue LED 

is more powerful than Stevenson’s older, lessefficient LED in terms of power and brightness 

and, as such, is more suitable with a “downconversion” process to produce white light.

In the Board’s view the invention was “nothing more 

than a new application of a high-power, high-brightness

blue LED developed by Dr. Nakamura in late 1993.” The 

Board found that the new application was predictable in 

view of the state of the art in LEDs, the market demand 

for white light devices, the finite number of identified 

means to convert light from LEDs into white light, and 

the advantages of using the down-conversion approach. 

II

A 

On appeal, Cree first argues that the Board erred by 

assuming that it was known in the prior art to make 

white light from a monochromatic LED through downconversion. In Cree’s view, “[t]he Board ruled that it was 

obvious to use down-conversion to create white light from 

LEDs because it was (according to the Board) not merely 

obvious, but actually already known.” Cree bases this 

argument on a passage from the Board’s opinion in which 

the Board stated the following:

Appellant’s experts, Drs. Stringfellow, Redwing, 

and Wetzel, acknowledge: (1) Stevenson’s seminal 

work on a violet/blue LED in early 1974, and (2) 

at the time of Appellant’s invention in early 1996, 

there were two known approaches to produce 

white light from LEDs. One was a direct-emission 

“triplet” approach in which individual LEDs that 

emit three primary colors—red, green, and blue 

(RGB)—are packaged together and then all the 

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8 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

primary (RGB) colors are mixed together to form 

white light. The other was a “down-conversion” 

approach in which a phosphor material is used to 

convert monochromatic light from a blue or ultraviolet (UV) LED to create white light, much in the 

same way a fluorescent light bulb works.

Cree infers that the Board’s use of the word “known” 

in that passage indicates that the Board erroneously 

concluded that a single reference disclosed downconversion from blue LED light to white light. We do not 

read the Board’s use of the term “known” in that fashion.

The Board’s opinion makes clear that the Board focused on the general disclosure of the process of downconversion, rather than any disclosure of down-conversion 

limited to a particular source, i.e., an LED. The Board 

explained that Pinnow discloses “a ‘down-conversion’ 

approach to create white light,” and that nothing in 

Pinnow suggests that the particular source of primary 

radiation is important to the down-conversion process. 

The examiner noted that Pinnow discusses downconversion generally, not the specific down-conversion of 

blue LED light to white light. The examiner characterized the source of the primary radiation as unimportant 

“because it is the wavelength of the source that matters 

not the source itself.” In the portion of his answer that 

the Board adopted, the examiner stated that a person of 

ordinary skill in the art “is not going to fail to appreciate 

the other teachings in Pinnow simply because a laser is 

used as the primary light source, because the phosphors 

cannot tell from what light source a wavelength of light 

comes. Rather, they can only absorb or not absorb a given 

wavelength.” The examiner also stated that “it does not 

matter that Pinnow uses a laser, it only enhances the 

point that a [person having ordinary skill in the art] is 

aware of a variety of UV to blue radiation sources that are 

capable of being used to produce light of various colors, 

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IN RE: CREE, INC. 9

including white, by down-converting the primary radiation to longer-wavelength visible light using a mixture of 

phosphors in a single medium.”

In context, it is clear that the Board was not using the 

word “known” to mean “disclosed in a single reference.” 

Instead, the Board’s statement that down-conversion was 

a known approach for creating white light from an LED is 

best understood to mean that persons of skill in the art 

were aware that down-conversion could be used to make 

white light out of blue light, regardless of the source of the 

light. 

The Board found that Pinnow teaches a downconversion process for creating white light that would 

work with blue light of any source, including the blue 

LEDs disclosed in Nakamura. That was an entirely 

reasonable conclusion to draw from Pinnow. Therefore 

the Board was correct when it said that it was “known” to 

create white light from LEDs using down-conversion, as 

Pinnow teaches a down-conversion process that was 

understood to be equally applicable when used with an 

LED light source as with the laser source specifically used 

in Pinnow. 

B 

Cree next argues that the Board reached its conclusion that down-conversion was “known” by misreading the 

declarations of Cree’s experts, Drs. Stringfellow, Redwing, 

and Wetzel. We agree with the Board that Cree’s experts 

testified that down-conversion from blue LED to white 

light was a known, but disfavored, option prior to the 

availability of high intensity blue LEDs such as Nakamura’s. Dr. Wetzel stated that “[d]own conversion of LED 

light had been considered, but was discredited due to the 

loss of energy and light brightness during the downconversion process.” He then went on to explain why 

persons in the art would prefer to generate white light by 

mixing the output of three primary colored LEDs in a 

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10 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

triplet format. In saying that down-conversion was a 

discredited solution to the problem of generating white 

light from LEDs, Dr. Wetzel in effect acknowledged that 

down-conversion of LED light was at least known to those 

in the art. Thus, Dr. Wetzel’s testimony cuts against 

Cree’s contention that generating white light from blue 

LEDs was unknown.

Dr. Redwing stated in her declaration that “down 

conversion of LED light was known and had been used in 

very select and rare occasions.” She added, however, that 

down-conversion would not be used as a practical source 

of white light, because white light applications would 

have “required a significant amount of power and brightness,” and “[l]ow illumination, as might be the case for an 

indicator light or a calculator, would clearly be insufficient for white light in these applications.” 

Dr. Redwing’s statement addressed the question 

whether, before the Nakamura LED, a person of skill in 

the art would reject the down-conversion approach for 

practical applications. As in the case of Dr. Wetzel, 

however, her discussion of the competing technologies 

clearly reveals that down-conversion was a known method 

of creating white light prior to the ’175 patent. We therefore reject Cree’s suggestion that it was error for the 

Board to cite Dr. Redwing’s testimony as support for its 

finding that down-conversion to create white light from 

LEDs was a known option prior to the ’175 patent.

Finally, Dr. Stringfellow stated that at the time of the 

’175 patent, “the industry was focused on LEDs that 

directly emitted the color of interest and there was no 

focus on the use of down-conversion because (a) it would 

waste energy; (b) it was no longer needed to create primary colors; and (c) it entailed increased cost and complexity.” Again, his testimony simply establishes that the use 

of down-conversion was not a preferred option for practical reasons. It does not show that down-conversion from 

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IN RE: CREE, INC. 11

LEDs was unknown or could not have practical applications if a sufficiently powerful LED were available (such 

as the one invented by Nakamura). Because it was reasonable for the Board to draw the conclusion from Dr. 

Stringfellow’s testimony that down-conversion was a 

known solution for generating white light from a blue 

LED, the Board’s decision is supported by substantial 

evidence. See In re Jolley, 308 F.3d 1317, 1329 (Fed. Cir. 

2002) (“[W]here two different, inconsistent conclusions 

may reasonably be drawn from the evidence in record, an 

agency’s decision to favor one conclusion over the other is 

the epitome of a decision that must be sustained upon 

review for substantial evidence.”).

C 

Cree next takes issue with the Board’s analysis of the 

motivation to combine. In particular, Cree argues that 

“neither the Examiner nor the Board articulated any 

rational motivation for why a skilled artisan would have 

combined the teachings of Pinnow—which discloses the 

projection of a large, high-powered, gas laser beam 

through a modulator and a deflector and onto a phosphor 

screen to display a white image—with the teachings of 

Stevenson and Nakamura, which disclose violet and blue 

LEDs.” 

Contrary to Cree’s contention, the Board provided a 

sufficient, non-hindsight reason to combine the references. The Board found that a person of ordinary skill in 

the art would realize that Nakamura (a brighter LED)

would be an upgrade over the LED of Stevenson for use 

with down-conversion and that the Nakamura LED would 

therefore be suitable to produce white light based on the 

teachings of Pinnow. The availability of the high-powered 

Nakamura LED thus provided the motivation to combine 

Stevenson’s use of LEDs to create primary colors with 

Pinnow’s use of a short-wavelength light source to create 

white light. 

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12 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

Cree’s quarrels with the Board’s analysis of the motivation to combine are without merit. Cree argues that 

because a laser generates more output power than an 

LED, a person of ordinary skill would fail to appreciate 

that Pinnow’s teachings on down-conversion would be 

applicable to LEDs as well. However, the examiner 

pointed to ample evidence that Pinnow’s teachings are 

applicable to LEDs. In a portion of the examiner’s answer 

adopted by the Board, the examiner explained that “the 

phosphors’ ability to convert the UV-to-blue light is predicated only on whether or not it can absorb a given wavelength of light, not on which kind of light source a 

particular wavelength of light is emitted, laser, LED, or 

otherwise, as a [person of ordinary skill in the art] would 

readily appreciate.” In other words, a phosphor does not 

care how an incident photon of light at a particular wavelength was generated.

Cree also argues that color mixing and phosphor selection are more difficult when using a source with a 

broader emission spectrum, such as an LED, than one 

with a narrower emission spectrum, such as a laser. The 

examiner (in a portion of his answer adopted by the 

Board) also addressed that issue: He stated that “the 

issue of phosphor selection for UV-to-blue radiation was 

successfully addressed in the 1930’s. While the exact 

same phosphor mixture as used in fluorescent bulbs 

might not be used with a GaN-based LED of Stevenson or 

Nakamura, it certainly is factual evidence that those of 

skill in the art have sufficient understanding of the scientific and engineering principles to choose phosphors for a 

broadband, UV-to-blue primary radiation source.” The 

examiner and the Board thus based the rejection on 

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IN RE: CREE, INC. 13

sufficient evidence that a person of ordinary skill in the 

art would have had a reason to combine the references.3

III

Cree’s final argument is that the Board improperly rejected Cree’s proffered secondary evidence of nonobviousness. Cree points to three categories of secondary 

evidence that, according to Cree, the Board improperly 

discounted: evidence of industry praise; evidence of licensing; and evidence of the commercial success of white LED 

 

3 Cree argues that the Board’s rejection was based 

on “impermissible hindsight.” That argument, however, 

is essentially a repackaging of the argument that there 

was insufficient evidence of a motivation to combine the 

references. It is fully answered by the Board’s observation that “the weight of the evidence shows that the 

proffered combination is merely a predictable use of prior 

art elements according to their established functions.”

Cree also asserts that the Board improperly shifted 

the burden to Cree to show that the claims at issue would 

not have been obvious. That argument, too, lacks merit. 

The Board stated that the examiner had provided “a 

reason showing motivation by a person of ordinary skill in 

the art to achieve the claimed subject matter.” Immediately thereafter, in the passage quoted by Cree, the Board 

stated that Cree “has not demonstrated why that reason 

is erroneous or why a person of ordinary skill in the art 

would not have reached the conclusions reached by the 

Examiner” (emphasis in original). In context, it is clear 

that the sentence quoted by Cree simply states that Cree 

failed to show why the examiner’s finding was incorrect. 

In short, the Board held that the examiner carried his 

burden on the issue of obviousness, and Cree failed to 

offer any convincing reason to find otherwise. That is not 

burden-shifting. See Belden, Inc. v. Berk-Tek LLC, 610 F. 

App’x 997, 1004-05 (Fed. Cir. 2015).

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14 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

products. The Board analyzed each of the claimed secondary considerations and concluded that the evidence of 

secondary considerations “does not outweigh the strong 

evidence of obviousness.” 

A 

Cree first points to two press releases from the 

Fraunhoffer Institute and contends that those press 

releases support the inference of non-obviousness. The 

press releases describe the down-conversion of blue LED

light to produce white light as a “breakthrough” and an 

“innovative idea.” The Board, however, found the press 

releases unpersuasive as secondary evidence, because the 

praise was directed to the Fraunhoffer Institute’s own 

work, not the work of the inventors of the ’175 patent.

Cree faults the Board for discounting that evidence. 

In Cree’s view, even though the press releases were 

directed to the work of others, the praise for the concept 

still had the requisite nexus to the claimed invention. 

We agree with the Board’s treatment of this evidence. 

While “praise in the industry for a patented invention, 

and specifically praise from a competitor tends to ‘indicate 

that the invention was not obvious,’” self-serving statements from researchers about their own work do not have 

the same reliability. Power-One v. Artesyn Techs., Inc., 

599 F.3d 1343, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (quoting Allen Archery, Inc. v. Browning Mfg. Co., 819 F.2d 1087, 1092 

(Fed. Cir. 1987)). The Board thus permissibly concluded 

that the press releases were unpersuasive and, if anything, showed that down-conversion was the logical next 

step after the development of the Nakamura LED. 

B 

Cree next points to evidence of licensing. During the 

reexamination proceedings, Cree put forward declaration 

testimony and press releases describing certain licensing 

transactions. The Board found the evidence of licensing 

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IN RE: CREE, INC. 15

unpersuasive for failing to show a sufficient nexus to the 

’175 patent.

Our cases “specifically require affirmative evidence of 

nexus where the evidence of commercial success presented is a license, because it is often ‘cheaper to take licenses 

than to defend infringement suits.’” Iron Grip Barbell Co. 

v. USA Sports, Inc., 392 F.3d 1317, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2004) 

(quoting EWP Corp. v. Reliance Universal Inc., 755 F.2d 

898, 908 (Fed. Cir. 1985)). When the specific licenses are 

not in the record, it is difficult for the court to determine if 

“the licensing program was successful either because of 

the merits of the claimed invention or because they were 

entered into as business decisions to avoid litigation, 

because of prior business relationships, or for other economic reasons.” In re Antor Media Corp., 689 F.3d 1282, 

1294 (Fed. Cir. 2012). That is the situation here. Cree 

has provided press releases evidencing that it has entered 

into licensing transactions, but has not shown that the 

licenses were based on the merits of the ’175 patent. 

Additionally, the press releases indicate that some of 

the licenses were broad cross-licenses (such as the licenses to Nichia, Toyoda Gosei, Osram, and Phillips) or were 

intended to resolve litigation (such as the license to 

Nichia). Some of the press releases on which Cree relies 

define the scope of the licensing transactions as “broad 

and substantial,” “comprehensive [and] worldwide,” and

“cover[ing] patents from both parties in the fields of blue 

LED chip technology, white LEDs and phosphors (including remote phosphors), control systems, LED luminaries 

and lamps as well as LED backlighting of liquid crystal 

displays (LCDs) and patents in Phillips LED Luminaire 

Licensing Program.” In light of the lack of specificity in 

that evidence, it was reasonable for the Board to find that 

the licenses were not shown to have a sufficient nexus to 

the ’175 patent to require a finding of non-obviousness.

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16 IN RE: CREE, INC. 

C 

The final piece of secondary evidence on which Cree 

relies is evidence of commercial success. Cree put forward 

evidence in the form of a declaration by Dr. Brandes, who 

presented sales figures showing the growth of the white 

LED market and stated that in his opinion there is a 

nexus between the sales figures and the ’175 patent. The 

Board found that “Dr. Brandes’ declaration [did] not show 

a correlation between the claimed invention and the sales 

numbers,” and that his characterization of a nexus “is 

nothing more than an allegation or a conclusory statement.”

When commercial success is cited as a basis for inferring non-obviousness, a nexus must be shown between the 

commercial success and the claimed features of the patent. In re Huang, 100 F.3d 135, 139-40 (Fed. Cir. 1996).

We agree with the Board that Dr. Brandes’ declaration merely repeats, in conclusory fashion, that there is a 

nexus between the success of white LEDs and the claimed 

invention. The Board found that the evidence showed 

sales of white light products using LEDs with luminophoric substances, such as consumer products incorporating white LED backlit LCD displays, but that there was 

no sufficient showing of a nexus between those sales and 

the invention. 

In a portion of the examiner’s answer that was adopted by the Board, the examiner found that the commercial

success of white LEDs “cannot be due to simply making a 

single-die semiconductor LED that emits white light,” 

because if that were so, “then the commercialization could 

have started back in 1973.” Instead, the examiner found, 

“it appears that Wetzel, Redwing, and Stringfellow all 

acknowledge the invention of a GaN LED with sufficiently 

high light output, somewhere in the UV to blue region of 

the spectrum was the thing that made the downCase: 15-1365 Document: 42-2 Page: 16 Filed: 03/21/2016
IN RE: CREE, INC. 17

converting device of Stevenson . . . commercial[ly] successful.”

Cree has failed to rebut the Board’s finding of a lack 

of nexus between the invention and the commercial 

success of white light LEDs. As the Board found, “the 

record is completely silent on whether the commercial 

success was caused by the subject matter of the ’175 

patent as distinct from the prior art.” For that reason, we 

sustain the Board’s conclusion that the evidence of commercial success did not outweigh the strong prima facie 

showing of obviousness.

We therefore uphold the Board’s decision rejecting the 

disputed claims of the ’175 patent.

AFFIRMED

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