How should I proceed?

[Swingaxle]

Hi all,

I have been working on a project recently that has showed much promise. Without giving too much away it involves LED's and and a sharp edged beam. I am building a version that is much closer to how I envision an actual product taking shape, and have been talking to a lawyer about getting it patented. However building the high powered, complete version will require a significant investment. The question is, when should I attempt to contact say, ETC, and ask if they might be interested in at least having a look. It would be lovely to have their support, because machining and non-bulk components are not cheap at all. However, I don't want to lose credit for the technology. If people are actually interested, I don't want them to just take it from me. Sorry I'm hesitant about giving more details, I know it will be difficult to give me advise without actually knowing what it is, but I'm just nervous about giving too much away.

The other consideration is if ETC is not interested (it is retrofit kit for their product though), who else would be, and is capable of getting good deals on LED components, and has the know how to properly distribute them?

Thank you for your consideration.

 

[LightStud]

Haven't we gone down this road before?

So I have this idea...

 

[gafftaper]

First off although they would be foolish to comment, it's very likely ETC and others in the industry have already invested a LOT of money in developing their own LED source four replacement cap. So I wouldn't talk to anyone without having a patent. It's very likely that ETC (and some of the other manufacturers) already have something that is as good as your product. However, it is possible you have come up with a feature that they have not considered. Remember if you are creating an ETC only product you will probably have to work with ETC in order to get the rights to sell it so they need to be your first call.

Once you have the patent talk to ETC guy and CB member SteveTerry

Companies that manufacture accessory products whom you should contact include:
Apollo (CB member Kelite)
City Theatrical
Rosco
Ocean Optics
GAM

 

[ship]

Hi all,

I have been working on a project recently that has showed much promise. Without giving too much away it involves LED's and and a sharp edged beam. I am building a version that is much closer to how I envision an actual product taking shape, and have been talking to a lawyer about getting it patented. However building the high powered, complete version will require a significant investment. The question is, when should I attempt to contact say, ETC, and ask if they might be interested in at least having a look. It would be lovely to have their support, because machining and non-bulk components are not cheap at all. However, I don't want to lose credit for the technology. If people are actually interested, I don't want them to just take it from me. Sorry I'm hesitant about giving more details, I know it will be difficult to give me advise without actually knowing what it is, but I'm just nervous about giving too much away.

The other consideration is if ETC is not interested (it is retrofit kit for their product though), who else would be, and is capable of getting good deals on LED components, and has the know how to properly distribute them?

Thank you for your consideration.

Are you out for glory, profit or as if a priest - some career that in this case advances it as an industry? Had my moments of behind the scenes fame over the years in being personally involved with stuff... never heard of me other than at the manufacturer level where I'm either a pain in their rear or someone to deal with in having good ideas and noble intent.

Resigned never to set the world on fire, instead I'm more the grumpy old man of the theater type place I'm at in making sure at least our standards are followed. This while some behind the scenes stuff has gotten out to the market by way of me in being it's antagonist or protaginist in getting done in our suppliers listening to what I require and thinkng about them, than adopting them. Not about me and I speak to the spotlight people that make it code without me having to join the club. This or in lamps... one or a few I recommended have come to market.

Thiking you have the new LED Leko or something all wrapped up. Be careful in everyone is out to believe it 8w now in individual LED source if not even color changing source. Great, been a long time coming and ETC did sell rights to Bardwell & McAllaster and ACT for using their fixture parts on some alternae gear they were making. Expect that if you make it, it's one profit margin in buying the rights to verses in attemting for your design to use their parts in a different margin.

Persnally, I have never gotten that far. When Encapsulite stopped seling their T-12 fixtures or any parts for them, I got into the spirit of inventing my own fixture in using my own parts. Mostly these days I am making my own lighting fixtures.

 

[SHARYNF]

As I am sure your lawyer will tell you need to FILE first before you talk to anyone, There is a less costly process where you basically file a preliminary patent application and then have I believe it is a year to complete the full filing, but you are protected.

If you design is really good then two things are likely to happen, one is that someone might want to license it, or two you will get in a battle with the other folks re if their own design conflicts with your patent. Patent trolls so to speak have made a lot of money patenting designs other companies later on need to license and pay fees to in order to produce their own products.

So again talk with a lawyer, and if you do have to have something evaluated make sure that your lawyer draws up the proper confidentiality Non Disclosure documents so that you are protected.

You will also face in the patent process proving how your design is different, and prior art etc etc. It is a very interesting, but complex process

Sharyn

 

[Footer]

Everyone in the entertainment industry is looking for the holy grail of LED's... an ERS type fixture with full color mixing ability, hard edge beam, good pattern projection, and the output comparable to a 750w S4. No one to my knowledge has gotten there yet. Reveal is the closest I have seen. LED's are moving a mile a second. I think we will see this holy grail of a fixture at LDI this year (6 months away).

If you have something that truly is that good, as SharynF said, get paperwork going on it now. With the paperwork going, you can approach these other companies. However, know that they might not even want to look at it because they might have something similar in the works and they don't want even the thought of litigation out there after they release their product.

There is no competitive company in entertainment lighting that is not working on an LED product. With the purchase of Selador by ETC I would be hugely surprised if they don't have their version of this fixture nearing its final prototype phases. Vari-Lite/Phillips/Strand is probably at a similar stage and I think have the best bet at getting this fixture out.

 

[Swingaxle]

Thank you for the input. I know I have suggested some crazy ideas before, but I have never taken any of them this far. In response to the question about whether or not it will work in any other fixtures, you would have to changer the design slightly for the particular manufacturer, but it should work in most ellipsoidals except shakesperes and selecons. That's what gave me the thought about just heading the route of an accessory company. I am finishing the final CAD drawings today, and trying to get my documentation in order. I understand that they are probably working on an LED fixture of ther own, but I still have my fingers crossed that my solution is unique enough to be it's own product, if only for retrofits. I would not want to be the face of this, it would just be nice to have the solution on the market for everyone to benefit.

 

[gafftaper]

In response to the question about whether or not it will work in any other fixtures, you would have to changer the design slightly for the particular manufacturer, but it should work in most ellipsoidals except shakesperes and selecons.

I wouldn't worry about adapting it to any fixtures except Source Fours and Selecons. With Strand and Selecon now teamed up, there really is no other fixture worth looking at anymore. If you could reasonably price it and make an Altman 360Q version you could try to go after the out of date school and low budget community theater market (where 360Q's live forever). But that's a shot in the dark. You would have to convince them they'll save enough in their electric bill to make an investment they can't afford worth while.

 

[shiben]

I wouldn't worry about adapting it to any fixtures except Source Fours and Selecons. With Strand and Selecon now teamed up, there really is no other fixture worth looking at anymore. If you could reasonably price it and make an Altman 360Q version you could try to go after the out of date school and low budget community theater market (where 360Q's live forever). But that's a shot in the dark. You would have to convince them they'll save enough in their electric bill to make an investment they can't afford worth while.

It would have to be very cheap. With LED products that work well enough in the 1000+ dollar range at the moment, you would need to be making this thing cost about 100-300 MAX, and even 300 bucks would be kind of pushing it, IMO. Given the choice of a 300 dollar LED retro-fit for all of our source 4s and 1000 lamps, guess which option will win out first? (We have 120 or so S4 products(ERS, PAR, etc), and run through about 300 lamps a year) Reasonably priced is the kicker here, even at a college-level venue, where we have fairly high budgets, Sup 100 dollar retrofits are probably in order.

 

[Les]

It would have to be very cheap. With LED products that work well enough in the 1000+ dollar range at the moment, you would need to be making this thing cost about 100-300 MAX, and even 300 bucks would be kind of pushing it, IMO. Given the choice of a 300 dollar LED retro-fit for all of our source 4s and 1000 lamps, guess which option will win out first? (We have 120 or so S4 products(ERS, PAR, etc), and run through about 300 lamps a year) Reasonably priced is the kicker here, even at a college-level venue, where we have fairly high budgets, Sup 100 dollar retrofits are probably in order.

I think something like 8w or even 50w vs 750w is the real selling point here. I think that some day in our lifetime, dimmer racks as we know them will be a thing of the past.

 

[Swingaxle]

I'm looking at about $200 in parts. 185w in power consumption

 

[shiben]

I think something like 8w or even 50w vs 750w is the real selling point here. I think that some day in our lifetime, dimmer racks as we know them will be a thing of the past.

Im not so sure about that. The warm glow of Incandescent lamps will be with us until the collective memory of their feel is eliminated from the population (not to sound morbid, but until people no longer associate the warmth at grandma's house with incandescent bulbs and replace that idea with CFL or LEDs, its the case), we will want/need that kind of lighting system. In addition, LEDs still have a seriously long way to come before we can even consider them as something to use for our entire lighting system, then we need a generation of LDs trained by people who use both who begin dropping incandescents from their plots. I believe that we will see theaters begin using large scale solar and wind arrays before we loose the dimmer rack. However, to counter my own thinking, a University of IL student produced group spent about 30 grand on 4 Seachanger Nemos and a bunch of Chauvet LEDs (30 or so, I think) and did an all LED/Non-conventional show... So maybe your right, the genration of designers that mine trains might be doing load ins with no dimmer beach...

 

[Les]

Im not so sure about that. The warm glow of Incandescent lamps will be with us until the collective memory of their feel is eliminated from the population (not to sound morbid, but until people no longer associate the warmth at grandma's house with incandescent bulbs and replace that idea with CFL or LEDs, its the case), we will want/need that kind of lighting system. In addition, LEDs still have a seriously long way to come before we can even consider them as something to use for our entire lighting system, then we need a generation of LDs trained by people who use both who begin dropping incandescents from their plots. I believe that we will see theaters begin using large scale solar and wind arrays before we loose the dimmer rack. However, to counter my own thinking, a University of IL student produced group spent about 30 grand on 4 Seachanger Nemos and a bunch of Chauvet LEDs (30 or so, I think) and did an all LED/Non-conventional show... So maybe your right, the genration of designers that mine trains might be doing load ins with no dimmer beach...

Seems like such a thing happened back when stage lighting switched to using quartz lamps. Apparently many designers couldn't cope (had to relearn their color theory due to the high color temperature of the new quartz lamps) and they subsequently quit or retired.

I don't think dimmer racks will completely disappear any time soon, but note that I said "as we know them". I think they will become much smaller units because many lighting instruments will be replaced or retrofitted with LED's. It's possible that many "key lights" will stay quartz, but I could see a lot of the fill lights going to LED sources (which usually also consume the most dimmer real estate). I also hold on to the fact that LED's will become much warmer, like CFL's have in recent years. Possibly if not color changing, a proposed LED ellipsoidal may have an array of white and amber LED's to create an acceptable white. Maybe even a DMX algorithm to replicate amber drift. We shall see!!!

 

[Footer]

I also hold on to the fact that LED's will become much warmer, like CFL's have in recent years. Possibly if not color changing, a proposed LED ellipsoidal may have an array of white and amber LED's to create an acceptable white. Maybe even a DMX algorithm to replicate amber drift. We shall see!!!

The Reveal unit I linked to earlier actually does this right now. It has one channel that is an intensity channel and another that just controls color temperature from about an HMI lamp to a Altman 360 color temperature. When set at either, it fades perfectly and even has a bit of amber drift.

And on the other note.... Tharon Musser when asked why she stopped designing answered essentially that with the newer lighting fixture out there did not render color the same. She did not want to re-learn her color theory.

 

[Les]

And on the other note.... Tharon Musser when asked why she stopped designing answered essentially that with the newer lighting fixture out there did not render color the same. She did not want to re-learn her color theory.

That's exactly what I was referring to, I just couldn't place it. Thanks! I'm happy to know that it's not just my memory playing tricks on me [again]. Sad that new technologies can just end a career like that, but it's not just us -- it happens in just about every other industry and profession as well.

 

[church]

what will be interesting is to see how the manufacturers and the industry will cope with fixtures where the light source lasts 50,000 hours without burning out the reflector. Companies who make lamps will either have to manufacture LEDs or find soething else to do. Semiconductor production lines are very expensive to set up, need large volumes of high quality water etc. and must continuosly run wafers the size of a DVD, each of which contains thousands of die so there is not a lot of room for many manufacturers and there are a number of semiconductor manufacturers already most of which is done in Asia. The companies who make the fixtures will also see a change in buying patterns because fixtures will last much longer so to promote sales to keep their factories busy the push will be to keep adding features to keep people buying which will result in the commoditisation of fixtures. Potentially this could follow the same pattern that we have seen with DVD players, TVs phones you name the electronic product and it has gone down this route.

The result will be fixtures with feaures we can't imagine today and stage lightin as we know it will not exist outside of books. If we have high output LEDs and each LED includes its own lens they can be married with MEMs technology to produce an LED with the ability to change beamwidth etc. and produce light sources beyond what we imagine today. Look forward to a very different future.

 

[gafftaper]

There's a reason Phillips has been busy buying up Color Kinetics, Strand, Vari-lite, Selecon, and others. Meanwhile in the other corner we have ETC purchasing Selador (wouldn't you love to see them buy out Martin or Barco/HES). Deep in the back rooms of these companies are long range plans to combine these technologies and create Uber-fixtures to battle it out in the post-incandescent world.

We dream and joke about these things here, but it's a serious and top secret business in reality. There may not be an ETC or Strand LED (or plasma) ellipsoidal yet but that doesn't mean they haven't been secretly pouring a lot of money into developing one for a long time. They know what they want the product to look like. They know what specifications it needs. The product has been in development a long time. But being at the top of the market they can't waste their reputation on any half way products. They will let AMDJ, Elation, and Chauvet play around in the development market. When the technology's capability and the magic price points line up correctly, the ellipsoidal LED will appear and knock our socks off. The big dogs can afford to stay on the porch for now because there are no serious challenges, but at the same time they know that if they don't lead the way into the future, they will be wiped out by the rising tide of new technology.

Think back to the 1980's when the Altman 360Q was the king of the market. There were a lot of medium sized light board manufacturers. Then this little upstart company in Middleton, Wisconsin came along in 1992 and released the Source Four AND the Obsession. Everyone's place in the industry was shaken up to make room for ETC. Now we are on the edge of a new technology. Altman has to be thinking, "maybe we can jump in and fight our way back on top". ETC knows full well that a little company can come out of no where and wipe out the leader of the market. Strand, now with the deep pockets of Phillips behind them, are hanging in the middle looking to jump over ETC. Who will create the BEST product at the best price point? Will their patents stick. Will there be years of patent lawsuits, like the intelligent lighting market went through? The next 5 years are going to be a very interesting ride.

 

[Footer]

Meanwhile in the other corner we have ETC purchasing Selador (wouldn't you love to see them buy out Martin or Barco/HES). Deep in the back rooms of these companies are long range plans to combine these technologies and create Uber-fixtures to battle it out in the post-incandescent world.

It would probably be the other way around. Barco has deep pockets. They just purchased Element Labs, an LED screen/effects manufacturer. We are going to see Barco and Phillips battle this thing out. Barco is very strong in the medical and research area. They are also one of the top manufactures of high end projectors. Barco already has some of the best optics and LED's in the business. Barcro is being pretty upfront that they own FPS, HES, and now Element Labs. They will be eliminating the name element labs completely and re-branding everything Barco. Granted, HES has turned into a video company in the past few years, but this is just one avenue lighting could be going, especially in the concert/corporate world. Who needs a shutterable fixture when you can just send video content to the fixture itself. (Granted you would still need shutters to cut spill).

 

[DMahalko]

You think you have hard-edged-beam LED fixtures figured out? Heh, I have the answer. But I'm just not up on that whole lawyer and patent and petitioning manufacturers thing. I just don't have the energy or the money to pursue it.

So instead I just sit here in smug satisfaction that no one else has found my solution to a brilliantly bright, sharp-edged-beam LED fixture yet.

All the existing fixture designs I've seen are just stupid. No one is willing (or able) to think outside the box, I guess.

But, oh well, it'll be fun to see how long until someone else discovers how to ramp up the LED density by 10x to 100x per standard-sized PAR fixture without enlarging the fixture too much vs what is being done now.

 

[gafftaper]

But, oh well, it'll be fun to see how long until someone else discovers how to ramp up the LED density by 10x to 100x per standard-sized PAR fixture without enlarging the fixture too much vs what is being done now.

That's not hard to do actually. Just takes a couple of 100 Watt LED's (like they use in the neo-neon/irradiant Revo-100) instead of the collection of 1 and 3 watters we currently are seeing.