Someone needs to give this company kudos for being 20 years behind everyone else.
FYI, Edison was only 50 yrs behind, imagine if he had left the idea alone...
Electricity and Lightbulb - History
Thomas Edison's greatest challenge was the development of a practical incandescent, electric light. Contrary to popular belief,
he didn't "invent" the lightbulb, but rather he improved upon a 50-year-old idea. In 1879, using lower current electricity, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe, he was able to produce a reliable, long-lasting source of light. The idea of electric lighting was not new, and a number of people had worked on, and even developed forms of electric lighting. But up to that time, nothing had been developed that was remotely practical for home use. Edison's eventual achievement was inventing not just an incandescent electric light, but also an electric lighting system that contained all the elements necessary to make the incandescent light practical, safe, and economical. After one and a half years of work, success was achieved when an incandescent lamp with a filament of carbonized sewing thread burned for thirteen and a half hours.
There are a couple of other interesting things about the invention of the light bulb: While most of the attention was on the discovery of the right kind of filament that would work, Edison actually had to invent a total of seven system elements that were critical to the practical application of electric lights as an alternative to the gas lights that were prevalent in that day.
These were the development of:
the parallel circuit,
a durable light bulb,
an improved dynamo,
the underground conductor network,
the devices for maintaining constant voltage,
safety fuses and insulating materials, and
light sockets with on-off switches.