Edison and Swan Electric Light Company Edison and Swan Electric Light Company The Edison and Swan Electric Light Company Limited was a manufacturer of incandescent lamp bulbs and other electrical goods. It was formed in 1883 with the name Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company with the merger of the Swan United Electric Company and the Edison Electric Light Company. Thomas Edison established the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. Joseph Swan established the Swan United Electric Light Company in 1881. In 1882 the American Edison Company of Thomas Edison sued Swan, claiming infringement of Edison's U.S. patent of 1879; however, they never made it
Heinrich Göbel of the lamps and the method of production. Witnesses of the "Goebel-Defense" said, that reproduced lamps burnt 45, 87 and 166 hours. Edison's lamps burnt at time of applying for a patent approximately 40 hours. So-called "Goebel Original Lamps" were broken in 1893. Experts of the Edison side said that they never burnt. Lewis Latimer, an employee of the "Edison Electric Light Co." and responsible to support their counsels, discredited Goebel by demonstrating that his supposed 1870s bulb (Goebel Lamp No. 4) had been built much later. Professor van der Weyde, an 80 years old physicist, said in his affidavit,