Heatball is a brand name for an incandescent lamp. The brand was used as part of a scheme by Siegfried Rotthäuser, a mechanical engineer from Essen in Germany, to stimulate discussion of EU Regulation 244/2009. This Regulation forbade the importation or sale of light sources with energy efficiency worse than 'Class C' after September 2012 as part of the phase-out of incandescent light bulbs. The scheme's declared purpose was to sell incandescent lamps as small heating elements for winter, or for use in chicken coops. The scheme was covered by several members of the international press.