If people are offered a low-cost, high-power, flexible source of white light they are likely to
adopt it - and for this reason the lighting industry is feeling some sense of threat. The
likelihood is that the industry as we know it will be changed dramatically by the emergence
of this new light source - and whilst the names may remain the same they will have to pay a
high price for licensing the technology. They may try and get around the patents - but with
300 already in place and the experience of the complex chemistry and processing which go
into making LEDs Nichia have a long head start. When Dr.Nakamura left Nichia Chemical
for a chair at University of California, Santa Barbara, sales of blue LEDs (light-emitting diodes)
and lasers were bringing the firm more than $200m a year and the technology is estimated
to have earned Nichia nearly $2bn.