This broken bulb comes from the Edison patent infringement trial of the late 1800s. It had been frosted to prevent onlookers from seeing the filaments inside and was only cracked open during the court case. The Edison patent trial was the legal battle over the invention of the incandescent light bulb. Thomas Edison filed a patent in 1880 for his version of the light bulb, which featured a carbon filament and a practical design suitable for mass production and widespread use. However, several inventors had developed similar technologies around the same time. The dispute culminated in a major patent infringement case when the Edison Electric Light Company sued the United States Electric Lighting Company.

The trial focused on whether Edison’s patent covered all forms of electric lighting with carbon filaments or just his specific design. In 1892, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld Edison's patent, asserting that he was the first to develop a practical and commercially available electric light bulb, even if others had similar concepts. This decision established Edison’s reputation as the light bulb’s inventor and helped his company dominate the early electrical industry, even though the development of electric light was a collaborative and competitive effort involving multiple inventors.