Color Kinetics Expands Intellectual Property Holdings

Color Kinetics Incorporated,

the manufacturer of intelligent LED-based illumination technologies, has announced two additions to its expansive patent portfolio, which now comprises 19 issued U.S. and international patents, with more than 100 patent filings in process. The new patents cover innovative methods of controlling LED sources for entertainment and aesthetic purposes.

U.S. patent number 6,577,080 is a utility patent called "Lighting Entertainment System" that covers many entertainment and educational applications of Color Kinetics' core technology. The patent covers the use of lighting tracks encoded into any media, including video, radio, CD, broadcasting, and networks, as well as the decoding from that media to provide illumination control. For example, a home theater system might integrate LED-based lights to generate customized effects that correspond with movies or music.

U.S. patent number 6,608,453 is a utility patent called "Methods and Apparatus for Controlling Devices in a Networked Lighting System." The patent covers a method of serially connecting light fixtures in a network and the data protocol used to communicate to the lights. For example, a forthcoming Color Kinetics® product will take the form of an LED-based strand that can scale to hundreds of thousands of individually controllable light nodes in a sequence. The patent also covers a lighting device that controls the color generated by an LED-based lighting fixture while also controlling a traditional lighting system, such as a fluorescent or incandescent bulb, enabling LED-based systems to operate with non-LED sources.

"We're thrilled with the continued recognition of Color Kinetics' inventions by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office," said George Mueller, Chairman and CEO, Color Kinetics. "These latest additions to our intellectual property portfolio reflect the company's wide-ranging expertise in both current and forward-looking applications of intelligent LED illumination technologies."