As a semiconductor manufacturing company, IP rights are critical to having any freedom to operate in those manufacturing jurisdictions.
So Bluegrass is spun out of over a decade of core research at Macquarie University in the physics department, developing a unique way to create the semiconductor materials used for gallium nitride.
We are turning that material into a light emitting device and that can be an LED or in our case, what our focus is on is laser diodes.
All of the gallium nitride wafers that are made come from the facility in Sydney.
We then have them fabricated into devices in our facility in Fremont, in California.
We get them then tested in our New Hampshire facility for final shipping.
When we made the transition to become a laser manufacturer, we actually shifted our entire IP strategy towards now being less focused on patenting some of the underpinning equipment technology, but more focused on the products and the device structures. Almost from atom to device.
We actually do the R and D (research and development), we do the product development, and now with our US facilities, we're doing the full vertical integration of the lasers.
That gives us a much richer platform for our IP and our portfolio of patents because now we're not just focused just on one side of things, we're actually integrating all three of those aspects together.
When you do get to patent, it gives sort of the same feel as if they publish something, and even though there are some financial incentives for obviously coming up with ideas, you know, a patent is in the inventor's name in perpetuity.
And that actually is a type of reward and has helped us attract staff in the past who are drawn to patenting and commercialisation.
Very early on in the piece, we used a boutique IP management consulting firm and we took an approach here of someone who is very, very seasoned in the procedural nature of patenting.
And I do think getting some outside help, be it through a consultant, has been really instrumental.
Having our IP has enabled us to attract really leading partners and innovation.
We're really excited to take our technology and not just change the way that things can be made, but the very things that can be made right here in Australia.
