Patent ID: 9480133
Filing Date: 2016-10-25
CPC Classification: H05B

Claim Text:
1. A lighting system comprising: a substrate; disposed on the substrate, a plurality of spaced-apart conductive traces defining a plurality of gaps therebetween; a plurality of light-emitting elements disposed over the substrate, each light-emitting element being disposed within a gap and electrically connected to the conductive traces defining the gap; first and second power conductors disposed over the substrate; a fault location defined by a gap between two conductive traces either (i) lacking a light-emitting element therein or (ii) comprising an inoperative light-emitting element therein; and disposed over or under the substrate at the fault location, a patch comprising (i) a patch substrate, (ii) two conductive traces disposed on the patch substrate, and (iii) a replacement light-emitting element electrically coupled to the two conductive traces of the patch, wherein (i) the conductive traces of the patch are each electrically connected to one of the conductive traces defining the fault location, thereby electrically connecting the replacement light-emitting element across the fault location, and (ii) the conductive traces on the substrate and light-emitting elements are organized in a plurality of light-emitting strings, each light-emitting string (a) comprising a plurality of series-connected light-emitting elements spanning gaps between conductive traces on the substrate, (b) having a first end electrically coupled to the first power conductor, and (c) having a second end electrically coupled to the second power conductor.