10th July 2020

Ams completes acquisition of Osram

Within days of receiving EU regulatory approval Austrian sensor company Ams announced July 9th completion of the acquisition of Munich based Osram Licht AG. Ams now holds 69% of outstanding shares in a deal that values Osram at more than €4 billion. This is the finale to a story which saw Osram subject of a takeover bid by Bain and Caryle in summer of 2019, having originally spun off from Siemens in 2013. Osram has struggled over recent years dealing with weakness in its core automotive sector customer group and has been pursuing a transformation from its roots as a light bulb manufacturer to become a high-tech supplier of chip, sensors and digital lighting systems. With the deal completed Ams can now focus on its strategic ambition to be a global leader in sensor solutions and photonics for both mobile and consumer, as well as for automotive, industrial and medical applications.

Osram’s patent portfolio comprises over 5,700 patent families marking a step change in size for acquirer Ams. We have analysed the combined patent portfolio by grouping those families with similar characteristics into technology clusters. At a high level this is done through matching similarities in the patent meta data, specifically the (i) CPC codes (ii) citations (iii) title and (iv) abstract, with weightings attached to each. The largest cluster of patent families relate largely to LEDs, opto-electronics, light and radiation emitting associated inventions with a tail of overlapping clusters in the combined portfolio through lamps, sensors and other electronic component technologies.

The overlapping clusters across the combined patent portfolio highlights the technology synergies and the contribution that Osram makes to Ams’ ambition for wins in new breakthrough optical solutions. Included amongst the long list of items for management of the new group will be an examination of the patent portfolio and its optimisation to match with existing product line contributions and key strategic goals.

For more information on the Ams Osram patent portfolio or insight on current best practice for patent portfolio optimisation to maximise dollars spent in protecting innovation and minimising threat risk, please get in touch.