Patents Represented by Attorney Thomas H. Close
  • Patent number: 6831407
    Abstract: An OLED device includes a substrate; an OLED having a first electrode formed over the substrate, a layer of organic light emitting material formed over the first electrode, and a second electrode formed over the layer of organic light emitting material to define a light emitting area, wherein the light emitted by the OLED experiences undesirable waveguiding in the device; and a topographical feature located within the light emitting area for disrupting the waveguiding, whereby the light emitting efficiency of the light emitting area is improved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 15, 2002
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Ronald S. Cok
  • Patent number: 6819036
    Abstract: Lighting apparatus includes: a solid state area illumination light source having, a substrate, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) layer deposited upon the substrate, the organic light emitting diode layer including first and second electrodes for providing electrical power to the OLED layer, an encapsulating cover covering the OLED layer, and first and second conductors located on the substrate and electrically connected to the first and second electrodes and extending beyond the encapsulating cover for making electrical contact to the first and second electrodes by an external power source; and a socket for removably receiving and holding the light source and having first electrical contacts for making electrical connection to the first and second conductors of the light source, and second electrical contacts for making electrical connection to an external power source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2002
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Ronald S. Cok
  • Patent number: 6814642
    Abstract: A touch screen display, includes an electroluminescent display; a touch screen, and a transparent sheet that functions as an element of both the electroluminescent display and the touch screen.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2001
    Date of Patent: November 9, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Michael J. Siwinski, Kathleen Kilmer, Rodney Feldman, Andre D. Cropper
  • Patent number: 6812637
    Abstract: A top emitting OLED display includes a substrate; a patterned electrode formed above the substrate, defining a plurality of light emitting elements having gaps between the light emitting elements; a layer of OLED material disposed above the patterned electrode; a continuous transparent electrode disposed above the layer of OLED material; and a light-absorbing auxiliary electrode that is thermally and electrically conductive and in electrical and thermal contact with the continuous transparent electrode and located over the gaps between the light emitting elements of the display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Ronald S. Cok, Andrew D. Arnold, Dustin Winters
  • Patent number: 6813046
    Abstract: A method of exposure control in a camera employing a sparsely sampled extended dynamic range image sensing device includes the steps of: providing a sparsely sampled extended dynamic range image sensing device having fast photosites with a predetermined response to light exposure interspersed with slow photosites with a slower response to the same light exposure; using the image sensor to produce a sparsely sampled high resolution digital image having fast pixel values produced by the fast photosites and slow pixel values produced by the slow photosites; calculating an exposure control value using only the slow pixel values from the a sparsely sampled extended dynamic range image; and using the exposure control value to modify the exposure to the image sensing device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 2000
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Edward B. Gindele, Andrew C. Gallagher
  • Patent number: 6813389
    Abstract: A method of processing a digital image, include the steps of: specifying a noise control parameter; employing the noise control parameter to process the digital image to reduce the noise in the digital image; and employing the noise control parameter to process the digital image to adjust the tone scale of the digital image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 1999
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Edward B. Gindele, Alex Lopez-Estrada
  • Patent number: 6810209
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method to establish a sensitometry curve for a photographic medium, including the following steps: the formation on the medium of at least one sensitometry control by exposing many ranges of the medium with various exposure energies; the capture of the optical density values of the sensitometry control in each range; the formation from the captured values of sensitometry curve sections; and the energy offset of the curve section to obtain a partial overlap of sections corresponding to neighboring exposure energies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 21, 2003
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Thierry Prigent
  • Patent number: 6809840
    Abstract: A digital image processing method for adaptively sub-sampling an image to X % of original pixels, includes the steps of generating an edge map of the image; normalizing the edge map to N-bits; applying a shift to the normalized edge map such that X % of the pixels will be ones when the normalized shifted edge map is halftoned using a blue noise halftoning technique; halftoning the edge map using the blue noise halftoning technique to generate a halftone mask; and sub-sampling the image at the pixel locations represented by ones in the halftone mask.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2000
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Qing Yu, Jiebo Luo
  • Patent number: 6791716
    Abstract: A method of automatically processing a digital color image, the digital color image having pixels values from which lightness, chroma, and hue values of the image can be deduced according to a predetermined transform, includes the steps of: transforming the pixel values to lightness, chroma and hue values; transforming the hue values by consistently and smoothly moving the hue values within a predetermined region of color space toward or away from hues of predetermined preferred colors; and consistently and smoothly shifting the hue values in a predetermined region of color space to avoid predetermined objectionable colors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 14, 2004
    Assignee: Eastmas Kodak Company
    Inventors: John D. Buhr, Karin Topfer
  • Patent number: 6787994
    Abstract: A solid state area illumination light source includes: a substrate; a plurality of non-pixellated organic light emitting diode (OLED) segments deposited on the substrate, each organic light emitting diode segment including a first and a second electrode for providing electrical power to the OLED segment; an encapsulating cover covering the OLED segments; and a plurality of conductors located on the substrate and electrically connected to the first and second electrodes, and extending beyond the encapsulating cover for making electrical contact to the first and second electrodes by an external power source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 4, 2002
    Date of Patent: September 7, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Ronald S. Cok
  • Patent number: 6787990
    Abstract: A solid-state area illumination light source includes a rigid support; a flexible substrate attached to the rigid support; an organic light emitting diode (OLED) layer deposited on the flexible substrate, the organic light emitting diode layer including first and second electrodes for providing electrical power to the OLED layer; an encapsulating cover covering the OLED layer, first and second conductors electrically connected to the first and second electrodes, and extending beyond the encapsulating cover for making electrical contact to the first and second electrodes by an external power source; and a base connected to the rigid support, the base being adapted to be removably received by a socket and having first electrical contacts for making electrical connection to the first and second conductors of the light source, and second electrical contacts for making electrical connection to conductors in the socket.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2002
    Date of Patent: September 7, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Ronald S. Cok
  • Patent number: 6784973
    Abstract: A quality assurance system for retail photofinishing includes a communication network; a retail photofinishing site including photofinishing equipment, a client computer connected to the communication network, and a process monitoring device connected to the computer; and a server located at a service center and connected to the communication network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2000
    Date of Patent: August 31, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Timothy M. Wozniak, Ronald J. Craven, Grant Ahlrichs, Phil H. Davies
  • Patent number: 6776496
    Abstract: Lighting apparatus includes a solid-state area illumination light source, having: a planar substrate, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) layer deposited on the planar substrate, the organic light emitting diode layer including first and second electrodes for providing electrical power to the OLED layer, an encapsulating cover covering the OLED layer, and first and second conductors electrically connected to the first and second electrodes, and extending beyond the encapsulating cover for making electrical contact to the first and second electrodes by an external power source; and a lighting fixture for removably receiving and holding the solid state-light area illumination light source in a horizontal plane, the lighting fixture including contacts for providing electrical contact between said first and second conductors and an external power source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 2002
    Date of Patent: August 17, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Ronald S. Cok
  • Patent number: 6778277
    Abstract: Apparatus for measuring deflection of a film in a film gate having an aperture illuminated by a primary light source having an output spectrum, includes: a) a reflective photonic probe mounted in the film gate, the reflective probe having at least one optical fiber; b) a measurement light source coupled to reflective photonic probe and emitting a wavelength of light outside of the primary light source's spectrum; c) a photodetector coupled to the reflective photonic probe; d) a narrow pass optical filter located between the photodetector and the reflective photonic probe, the narrow pass filter passing the light from the measurement light source and blocking the light from the primary light source; and e) signal processing electronics connected to the photodetector for producing a signal representing the motion of the film perpendicular to the plane of the film.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 24, 2001
    Date of Patent: August 17, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Michael A. Marcus, Kenneth J. Repich
  • Patent number: 6771021
    Abstract: Lighting apparatus includes a solid-state area illumination light source, having: a planar flexible substrate, a flexible organic light emitting diode (OLED) layer deposited on the flexible substrate, the organic light emitting diode layer including first and second electrodes for providing electrical power to the OLED layer, a flexible encapsulating cover covering the OLED layer, and first and second conductors electrically connected to the first and second electrodes, and extending beyond the encapsulating cover for making electrical contact to the first and second electrodes by an external power source, whereby the light source may be stored in a space saving planar configuration; and a lighting fixture for removably receiving and holding the light source in a curved 3 dimensional configuration, the lighting fixture including a support for holding the light source in the curved configuration and contacts for providing electrical contact between said first and second conductors and an external power source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2002
    Date of Patent: August 3, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Ronald S. Cok
  • Patent number: 6770502
    Abstract: This invention provides a top-emitting OLED display device that includes a substrate; an array of OLED elements disposed on one side of the substrate; and a desiccant material provided in a patterned arrangement over the array of OLED elements on the same side of the substrate such that the desiccant material does not interfere with the light emitted by the OLED elements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2002
    Date of Patent: August 3, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Ronald S. Cok, Michael L. Boroson, Terrence R. O'Toole
  • Patent number: 6765611
    Abstract: A method of producing a compressed image from a full resolution sparsely sampled extended dynamic range image produced by a sparsely sampled extended dynamic range image sensing device having fast photosites with a predetermined response to a light exposure for producing fast pixel values and slow photosites with a slower response to the same light exposure for producing slow pixel values, including the steps of: providing a full resolution sparsely sampled extended dynamic range image; separating the full resolution sparsely sampled image into a fast image comprising only fast pixel values and a slow image comprising only slow pixel values; and separately compressing the fast image and the slow image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2000
    Date of Patent: July 20, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Andrew C. Gallagher, Majid Rabbani, Edward B. Gindele, Robert T. Gray
  • Patent number: 6747618
    Abstract: An improved OLED color display device, in which a display pixel has a plurality of subpixels of different colors, wherein the areas of the subpixels are different in size based on the emission efficiency of the emissive elements and the chromaticity of a target display white point, thereby protecting the subpixels whose emission efficiency is low from prematurely deteriorating, wherein the improvement comprises the relative sizes of the subpixels being further based on the relative luminance stability over time of the subpixels, thereby further extending the useful lifetime of the display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2002
    Date of Patent: June 8, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Andrew D. Arnold, Michael E. Miller, Michael J. Murdoch
  • Patent number: 6724990
    Abstract: A digital film recorder for recording a digital image on a strip of photographic film includes a light tight housing; a cartridge chamber in the housing for receiving a cartridge of unexposed photographic film; a film receiver in the housing for receiving the film strip from the cartridge, a write head located in the housing between the cartridge chamber and the film receiver, the write head including a linear array of pixels for exposing the film strip a line at a time across the width of the film strip; a film transport for moving the film from the cartridge to the film receiver a line at a time; control electronics for receiving the digital image and controlling the film transport and the write head to write the digital image on the film strip as a plurality of color separations including at least one positive human readable image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2002
    Date of Patent: April 20, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: John R. Fredlund, Joseph A. Manico
  • Patent number: 6720942
    Abstract: An image display includes an addressable image display pixel, having a substrate; a light emitter formed on the substrate; a photo-sensor formed on the substrate and optically coupled to the light emitter to detect light emitted by the light emitter to generate a feedback voltage signal in response to light emitted by the light emitter; and, a feedback readout circuit formed on the substrate and responsive to the feedback voltage signal to provide a feedback signal representing the light output of the light emitter, the feedback readout circuit including a transistor amplifier, means for resetting the readout circuit, and a select switch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2002
    Date of Patent: April 13, 2004
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Paul P. Lee, Ronald S. Cok