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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

I feel like filament LED bulbs were invented in China, or at least that's where I saw them (and LED lighting in general) used far more widely first.

Relatedly, the bigclivedotcom YouTube channel has a huge collection of detailed analysis of various types of LED lighting.

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I'm pretty sure filament LED bulbs were invented in China - and patented by their Chinese inventors at the time too. The University of California seem to be suing using broad, trollish patents on things like omitting the rear reflector and allowing LED dies to emit light in all directions. Also, most of the patents were filed after LED filaments became widespread on the market using tricks with patent priority. (The other odd thing is that a lot of LED filaments don't do this - they have a rear reflective metal strip that forms the main structure of the filament.)

> tricks with patent priority.

It's not a trick because in order to assert priority based on a prior application, the invention claimed needs to be completely supported by the prior disclosure. In fact, an applicant will often claim less than what they can in a first application, for a variety of reasons.

What you feel doesn't matter to what is. Many were developed and made in China, but that doesn't mean they have the IP rights secured to sell in any or all markets where other patent holders registered the idea first.

If they were made in China before the patent was filed, I think that would be prior art, meaning the patent is invalid.

Until the US switched to a “first to file” country like China.

Are you referring to the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act of 2011? It sounds like that still says prior art stops the ability to file.

> Actions and prior art that bar patentability under the Act include public use, sales, publications, and other disclosures available to the public anywhere in the world as of the filing date, other than publications by the inventor within one year of filing (inventor's "publication-conditioned grace period"), whether or not a third party also files a patent application. The law also notably expanded prior art to include foreign offers for sale and public uses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Ac...

Public sale or publication still acts as prior art in first to file.

Could be they used the publication grace period: you can be first to publish an invention publicly and then have a one year grace period to file and can use that publication as priority.

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