History of Plasma Display Reflected by Patents

The paper is a historical presentation of the development of television and presents chronologically the evolution of the use of plasma in television. The first inventors who proposed the use of plasmas together with imagined solutions and patents related to plasma display panel - PDP are presented. The first attempt to accomplish an extra flat display by using a modified cathode tube is also presented. Yet, the technological difficulties stopped its utilization at a large scale in television. The solutions that determined the realization of certain TV displays with applications in other fields of electronics are also introduced. A pioneer invention from the 1960’s, which set the bases of future TV displays, is also specified. The utilization in the 1970’s was the most adequate technological solution for the realization of the first thin displays, a solution which survived even after the appearance of the LCD and LED systems.

Market adjacency and competing technologies: evidence from the flat panel display industry

What determines the emergence of a winner between competing technologies? We examine competition between flat panel display technologies, with the purpose of understanding of how liquid crystal display was able to surpass plasma display panel technology despite the initial lack of a convincing technological or cost advantage, and in the absence of network externalities. We propose an explanation whereby the relative availability of pathways of suitable adjacent applications markets provides differential opportunities for technologies to increase their scope and scale of application incrementally, effecting the speed of development as well as the cost effectiveness of the end products. Our findings suggest that these sets of adjacent application markets available can strongly influence which technologies emerge as winners and which are eventually abandoned.