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Originally Posted by Crytone
From what I read recently the company who owns the patent (Orbitec) is filing for a continuation of their patent. This is where people are stepping in and submitting a Third-Party Submission against Orbitec to hopefully stop their monopoly. If they can prove "prior art" (basically meaning someone was using this idea before Orbitec claims they invented it) then they are hoping to overturn the patent. Big problem though is Orbitec has big pockets- iirc they got money from NASA for something. I believe money speaks a lot in the patent biz.
The patent is pretty broad too. Summed up it's basically "adjustable/dimming LED lights over an aquarium". Did they invent the LED? No. Did they invent the dimming/adjusting of the LEDs? No, PWM's have been around a long while for this purpose.. Did they invent the aquarium? Of course not! So All they claim they invented was the IDEA of putting an adjustable LED over an aquarium! Orbitec doesn't seem to be doing anything substantial with this patent either- except suing everyone who infringes it.
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My experience comes from pharmaceutical patents but in order to patent something it has to be something novel and non-obvious. Orbitec's patent is neither and never should have been allowed (however, inappropriate patents get issued all the time and subsequently invalidated). lighting aquariums with different types and sources of light has been going on for a long time so LEDs are a natural and obvious continuation of that. Changing colour spectrum has been done by using different bulbs and combinations of bulbs before so nothing new there. Timing of lighting has been done for a long time so nothing new there too. So I really believe it is a patent that shouldn't stand for those reasons alone, let alone the prior art. Orbitec invented nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Canadian
If optics are inexpensive why do you think a company would produce a fixture without them? They obviously have reason to believe that not having them provides some type of performance benefit. I believe the new Vertex LED fixture also lacks optics. So there are obviously some companies performing some R&D that leads them to believe LEDs without optics provides a performance, efficiency, or cost advantage. The application of LED technology is still in its infancy in this hobby. Over time I guess we'll see how things pan out. It wasn't that long ago that MH reflectors were designed with the intent of focusing the light and we got to a point where fixtures were producing fairly acute hot spots. Then reflector design transitioned to providing an even spread of light without hot spots.
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Money. Without optics you can use fewer LEDs spread out further. Cheaper to produce and hopefully cheaper to buy. It all depends on the performance and PAR you want. If you want high PAR deeper in your tank you need optics. If you only plan to have higher light corals near the top of the tank then no optics will most likely be good for you. But the optics make a big difference in concentrating the light to get good PAR at greater depth.
BTW, those Maxspect lights seem to produce significant hotspots below the 30W LEDs that may be a concern for some tanks and affect coral placement. The other issue that seems to come up is that the LEDs used in the Maxspect fixtures are not as durable as the Cree emitters. Maxspect is suggesting replacement of the LEDs in 18 to 24 months which will not be cheap. The Crees should last for 5+ years if they are cooled adequately.