The Patent may have been filed in 2002, but people WERE thinking of using LED's on tanks. It;s just the 3w LED's were not mainstream enough. I do not see the patent as an un-obvious use of LED's, or a lighting controller. We (reef community) had allready experimented with LED's, and were waiting for better ones to come on the market. To me, this patent has some pretty serious holes/Grey area's in it.
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Originally Posted by StirCrazy
ok one thing here is your caught in the time warp.. you keep reading this as if it was applied for today.. they files in 2002 and at that time there was no discusion of using LEDs for anything but acent lighting as crees wern't out/afordable yet and we were only playing with 5mm LEDs. so at the time this was aplied for we were only using leds for decrative purposes. I even did PAR tests on 5mm leds and they were junk. untill 3watt leds were redily availble no one used leds as a primary lighting source then a while later solarus came out with 3 watt leds but they were off shore cheep ones that had a lot of burn out problems.
also you should get 50000 hours befor you lose 15 to 20 % or the brightness only the spectral wavelenth stays the same where in other lights both the brightness and wavelenght are decreased/changed. so there is some valid points there.
I don't know if you would get away with making a system with out a controler.. it looks like the controler is an inclusion to the main patent of using one or more LEDs over an aquarium to permote grother of marine life.. I would have to read it agin though.. one thing that did pop into my head is you could maybe sell a system for fresh water tanks and sell it as an ornamental light.. the only thing I would wonder about is the spectral wavelenth for color they mention.. that might be a catch all for fresh water use.. but if it is sold as an accent light it might be able to squeek through as long as you don't think anyone would use it as a primary light.. 
now from my understanding the drug trade is heavy regulated by the goverment to do with patents also to allow the goverment and medical system access to clone drugs for cheep.
with this one you have to look at it not as you you would a drug where you are dealing with a specific compound but rater.. hmm whats the best way to look at it.. lets say I go to home depot and buy a bunch of off the shelf stuff. with that I go home and build a system that automates a rotatiller so it will follow a string and keep your garden tilled inbetween the rows. did I invent the rotatiller... no.. did I invent any parts I used.. no, but I did invent the process and use of the combanation of these parts to achieve a purpose. so I can now patent it and sell them myselves or go in partnership with another company who wants to build it and sell them and give me a cut.. that is what they have done.
Steve |