Reading the article reminded me that APA has been threatening vendors of the WS2812, claiming that it infringes one of their patents: https://hackaday.com/2018/07/31/are-patent-claims-coming-for...
It surely looks to me as if they are using patents in their originally intended way. The downside is that they are hitting vendors with a C&D instead of going to the source. But that could rooted in the difficulties surrounding the ability of a taiwanese company to sue a china mainland one...