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Patent literatures are of dual characteristics as technical and legal documents. Patent analysis, also named patent map in Japan, is a pratical and reliable tool to unveil the treasures embedded in the patent data. Technology trend, competitor analysis and legal rights analysis are typical of the patent analysis. TFT LCD patents are used to analyze the technology trend and competition in this study. Evolution, both of TFT and TFT LCD, are presented to illustrate the trend and emerging fields of partinent technologies. Competitive analysis among various countries and firms shows that Japan has dominated over USA as the primary inventors in the last few years; Taiwan and South Korea ranks in the third and fourth places, respectively, in terms of patent counts. Twelve firms as major patent owners are listed and further analysis of firms, such as SHARP, XEROX, etc. are conducted. Inventors of pertinent patents are discussed as well. It also demonstrates that the development of TFT LCD is its growth period of technology life cycle. Patent analysis is an indispensible tool for the technology development in enterprises and research-associated organizations. More attention ought to be paid to learn and to improve the methodology in order to upgrade the national industry and technology. It is hoped that the study may serve as a milestone to bring togetherall the producer, officer and academy for maximizing the use of patent information.
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