Seiko Epson See Market for Smart Glasses

"Seiko Epson Corp. projects sales of its smart glasses to climb fivefold to 10 billion yen ($84 million) in three years, President Minoru Usui said in a Feb. 17 interview with Bloomberg," goes the Bloomberg report on Yahoo! Finance. "Seiko Epson employs high-precision sensors already in use in its projectors for its Moverio smart glass, which is targeted at professionals such as engineers and doctors, Usui said. Google stopped selling Glass on Jan. 19, according to its website." Read more.

Patents and Trades Re-Examining Seiko's Patent for Freeform Lenses

Robert Shanbaum, president of Ocuco Inc., reports that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will begin the 20-month process of re-examining Seiko Epson's patent for freeform progressive lenses (6,019,470). “Historically, 22% of such re-examination proceedings result in all of the challenged patent’s claims being confirmed, but only 12% result in all claims being canceled.  In most cases, the patent’s claims are changed so as to avoid the questions raised in the re-examination request.” When Shanbaum initiated the request for re-examination a month ago, he said that he "was familiar with engineering projects back in the early 1990’s at both Gerber Optical and Coburn Optical, which had as their objective the production of back-surface progressives.  It struck me as absurd that Seiko Epson, or anyone else, could claim to have invented a category of lenses that we were feverishly trying to make years before they were allegedly invented.”

Seiko Epson filed the patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in December 2009. Its publication date was December of last year, which means a USPTO examiner began the next step of the approval process: reviewing the patent request. Also as of December, the application has been available for public review, as on this Google site. Therefore, this is precisely the time period for companies or individuals, as is the case of Ocuco, to issue challenges to the entire patent claims or portions of the claim. Read more.

Hoya Takes Control of Seiko Epson's Eyeglass Lens Operations

"Hoya Corp said on Friday it will take control of Seiko Epson Corp's eyeglass lens development and manufacturing business as part of a partnership to expand sales of eyewear products globally." That's a recent post from Reuters. Read more.

Seiko Epson reported that the two companies commenced negotiations in April 2012. As a result, Epson will transfer its eyeglass lenses business to Hoya. According to the terms of the deal, the two companies' related businesses will be merged and leveraged worldwide. Hoya also concluded an alliance with Seiko Holdings Corporation over the sale of eyeglass-related products.

Seiko Epson and Hoya Talking of Epson Transfer of Optical Products Business

Seiko Epson Corporation will begin negotiating about the transfer of Seiko Epson's optical products business to Hoya Corporation. The proposed transfer aims to promote global expansion of the business by combining the assets of the two parties. Based on the agreement, Hoya and Epson are looking to conclude a contract at the earliest opportunity. Hoya has today also come to an agreement with Seiko Holdings Corporation concerning an alliance about sales of eyeware products. Read more.