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Electric Christmas Research Paper

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The Electric Christmas Bubble Light Fight
In 1882 Edward Johnson invented the first set of electric tree lights. Johnson had worked under Thomas Edison as an inventor. The first tree lit by these new electric lights was in New York City. Johnson invented a string of 80 light bulbs. He then went on to become vice-president of Edison's electric company. By 1890 Christmas lights were being mass produced and used mainly in department store window displays. Electric lights didn't gain in popularity among American households until a few decades later.

Even with the innovation of these new lights, many households were still using candles to light their trees. After a terrible fire in 1917, New York City teenager Albert Sadacca knew that there …show more content…

After a year Sadacca had only sold 100 strings of lights. It wasn't until the following year when lights were made available in color that Sadacca's invention bloomed into a multi-million dollar business. Along with his brothers, Sadacca opened up the NOMA Electric Company, which became the largest seller of Christmas lights in the US.

In 1939 the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted a patent to Carl Otis on an invention called 'Display'. 'Display' was a lighted advertisement designed to rest on a table top. The company or product name was comprised of glass tubes filled with liquid that would bubble when heated with small lights. Using the 'Display' invention concept as his inspiration, Otis went on to create the bubbling tree lights. He called it the Ornamental Illuminating Device.

Otis submitted a patent application for his Ornamental Illuminating Device in November 1941 and was granted a patent from the USPTO in July 1944. A third patent was granted on another version of Otis' Ornamental Illuminating Device in September 1945. Otis sent samples to several major light companies at the time and only received a response back from one; the NOMA Electric Company. NOMA Electric purchased Otis' patents and began production on now what is called Bubble Lights. These lights were a huge success for NOMA Electric and also proved lucrative to …show more content…

NOMA offered to divide this with Carl Otis but he refused this offer. After this, Otis became more directly involved with the court cases. The courts ruled that parts of Otis' 'Display' and Bubble Light patents were invalid. Otis quickly appealed this judgment. As the court cases were becoming more timely and costly, both NOMA and Raylite agreed to drop their cases in fear that both of Otis' earlier patents would be invalidated. The courts did invalidate Otis' patents and NOMA went on to cancel their licensing with

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