Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions (formerly Color Kinetics), Burlington, Mass., announced that Chief Scientist Ihor Lys has been named 2008 National Inventor of the Year by the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Education Foundation. Lys was selected for the invention of Powercore technology — a breakthrough in digital power processing that increases the efficiency, lowers the overall cost and eases the installation of solid-state lighting systems.
“This is an incredible honor, and I'm thankful to the IPO for recognizing this invention as instrumental to the growth of solid-state lighting — a technology that we have long viewed as the future of lighting itself,” says Dr. Lys. “Powercore has allowed us to deliver more efficient, easier-to-use lighting systems that illuminate and decorate the places where we live, work and play.”
Powercore technology broke ground as a new and holistic approach to power control and conversion, specifically optimized to drive solid-state lighting systems. It provides a means for integrating power and data management directly within solid-state lighting fixtures. This eliminates the need for external low-voltage power supplies and special cabling that were required to operate solid-state lighting systems previously. In doing so, Powercore reduces installation costs and complexity while making these fixtures far easier to use in existing lighting environments — in turn accelerating adoption of a light source with tremendous potential for energy conservation on a global scale.
Lys is largely credited for developing some of the underlying technologies that make LEDs useful for illumination today. He co-founded Color Kinetics in 1997, marking the beginning of a lighting-industry transformation from inefficient analog technologies to digital LED-based illumination. During his 10-year tenure with Color Kinetics prior to its acquisition by Philips, Dr. Lys led the development of the company's Chromacore and Chromasic technologies. A prolific inventor, he has contributed to more than 50 issued patents and numerous patent filings.
The award is one of the top honors bestowed upon U.S. inventors, and was presented to Lys in a ceremony in June in Washington, D.C.
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