Patents Examined by Robert H. Kim
  • Patent number: 11269220
    Abstract: The present invention provides a polarized light irradiation device capable of setting an alignment azimuth angle ? of liquid crystal molecules to be a desired angle even when the incident angle of polarized light on a substrate is not 0° in irradiation of a photo alignment film with polarized light, and a method for manufacturing a liquid crystal display device by using the polarized light irradiation device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 2017
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2022
    Assignee: SHARP KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Seiji Fujiwara, Takashi Sonoda, Nobufumi Tomimaru, Hitoshi Watanabe, Shinichi Terashita, Fumikazu Shimoshikiryoh
  • Patent number: 11264223
    Abstract: A method is disclosed comprising providing a biological sample on a swab, directing a spray of charged droplets onto a surface of the swab in order to generate a plurality of analyte ions, and analysing the analyte ions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2022
    Assignee: Micromass UK Limited
    Inventors: Zoltan Takats, Emrys Jones, James Ian Langridge, Michael Raymond Morris, Tamas Karancsi, Steven Derek Pringle, Julia Balog, Daniel Simon, Lajos Godorhazy, Daniel Szalay, Keith Richardson, Phillip Robert Bennett, David Alan Macintyre, Pamela Pruski
  • Patent number: 11133169
    Abstract: Apparatus is disclosed comprising a first ion source (210) arranged and adapted to emit a spray of charged droplets (211) and a detector or sensor (203) arranged and adapted automatically to detect, sense or determine one or more first parameters or properties of the spray of charged droplets (211) as the spray of charged droplets (211) impacts upon a surface of the detector or sensor 203. The apparatus further comprises a control system (204) arranged and adapted to adjust, correct and/or optimise one or more second parameters or properties of the spray of charged droplets (211) based on the one or more first parameters or properties of the spray of charged droplets (211) detected, sensed or determined by the detector or sensor (203).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2017
    Date of Patent: September 28, 2021
    Assignee: Micromass UK Limited
    Inventors: Emrys Jones, Richard Chapman, Steven Pringle
  • Patent number: 10460999
    Abstract: A metrology device includes a light source and an image sensor. The light source is configured for providing an X-ray illuminating a wafer. The image sensor is configured for detecting a spatial domain pattern produced when the X-ray illuminating the wafer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2019
    Assignee: TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Su-Horng Lin, Chi-Ming Yang
  • Patent number: 7123323
    Abstract: In a liquid crystal display device having a pixel board on which light shielding film 3, first insulating film 10, semiconductor layer, second insulating film 11 serving as a gate insulating film and gate wires 4 are formed, a source region, a drain region and a channel region or both of a channel region and LDD (Light doped drain) region being formed in the semiconductor layer, the light shielding film 3 is made of a conductive material, and contact holes 6 for connecting each gate line and the light shielding film are provided in the neighborhood of the side surface of the channel region or/and the LDD region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2001
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2006
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventors: Nobuaki Honbo, Kazuhide Yoshinaga, Hiroyuki Sekine
  • Patent number: 7106409
    Abstract: A glass substrate of a display panel onto which an organic electroluminescence (EL) element or the like is formed is sealed by affixing the glass substrate and a sealing member such as a sealing glass onto which an adhesive has been applied. During this process, the temperature of the adhesive is controlled by, for example, controlling the temperature of the nitrogen gas to fill a chamber through a temperature adjusting device, so that the viscosity of the adhesive is adjusted. In this manner, quick and precise sealing of the display substrate by the sealing member and the adhesive can be achieved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2002
    Date of Patent: September 12, 2006
    Assignee: Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Hideki Matsuoka
  • Patent number: 7072006
    Abstract: A liquid crystal display device irradiates a light of a light source from a backside of a liquid crystal panel. A light-guiding plate provided under the liquid crystal panel guides the light of the light source to the liquid crystal panel by transmitting the light therethrough. An optical sheet is arranged between the liquid crystal panel and the light-guiding plate. A backlight housing accommodates the light-guiding plate and the optical sheet. The optical sheet has a protruding part extending outwardly from a periphery thereof. The backlight housing has an opening at a position corresponding to the protruding part.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2002
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2006
    Assignee: Fujitsu Display Technologies Corporation
    Inventors: Eiji Nitto, Shinpei Nagatani, Hirofumi Miyamoto, Koshu Yonemura
  • Patent number: 7050137
    Abstract: The invention relates to a substrate for use in a liquid crystal display of a CF-on-TFT structure in which a color filter is formed on the side of an array substrate in which a switching element is formed, and has an object to provide a substrate for use in a liquid crystal display, which enables simplification of a manufacturing process typified by a photolithography process and has high reliability. The substrate for use in the liquid crystal display is constructed to include external connection terminals which include first terminal electrodes electrically connected to gate bus lines led out from a plurality of pixel regions arranged on a glass substrate in a matrix form, second terminal electrodes formed of forming material of a pixel electrode and directly on the glass substrate, and electrode coupling regions for electrically connecting the first and the second terminal electrodes, and which electrically connect an external circuit and the gate bus lines.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2006
    Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Atuyuki Hoshino, Shiro Hirota, Naoto Kondo, Tetsuya Fujikawa, Masahiro Kihara, Katsunori Misaki, Seiji Doi, Tomoshige Oda, Akira Komorita, Akihiro Matsui, Manabu Sawasaki, Masahiro Ikeda, Takashi Takagi, Tomonori Tanose, Takuya Saguchi, Hidetoshi Sukenori, Hiroyasu Inoue
  • Patent number: 7042534
    Abstract: Light is input into an incident surface portion from a fluorescent lamp, and most of the light propagates in repetition directions. Since a length of an emission portion of the fluorescent lamp is shorter than that of the incident surface portion, there are areas to which no light propagates and dark portions generate in the repetition directions of a string of prisms. Since these dark portion generate out of the display area, a display quality is improved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2006
    Assignee: NEC LCD Technologies, Ltd.
    Inventor: Fumihiko Fujishiro
  • Patent number: 7019801
    Abstract: The reflective display device of the invention includes: a display layer; an optical element placed on an observer side of the display layer; and a reflection element placed on a side of the display layer opposite to the observer side. The optical element has a principal plane including a plurality of tilt faces tilted with respect to the display plane. Light incident on the display layer through the optical element and reflected by the reflection element is allowed to outgo in a direction roughly normal to the display plane.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2001
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2006
    Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Shun Ueki, Kiyoshi Minoura, Masahiko Tomikawa
  • Patent number: 7006184
    Abstract: Disclosed is a display comprising a bend aligned nematic liquid crystal cell, a polarizer, and a compensation film containing a positively birefringent material oriented with the optic axis tilted in a plane perpendicular to the liquid crystal cell surface plane. Such displays exhibit an improved viewing angle characteristic.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2002
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2006
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Xiang-Dong Mi, Tomohiro Ishikawa
  • Patent number: 6999156
    Abstract: In accordance with the invention, a tunable subwavelength resonant grating filter comprises a liquid crystal cell having a pair of major surface walls. One wall of the cell is a coated subwavelength grating of a SRGF. The coating comprises a polymer layer to fill the grating trenches and a surfactant layer to facilitate uniform alignment of the liquid crystal material. The refractive index of the LCD material in the cell can then be electrically or thermally adjusted to tune the resonant wavelength.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2006
    Inventors: Stephen Y. Chou, Allan S. P. Chang, Hua Tan, Jim Jiam Wong, Wei Wu, Rich Zhaoning Yu
  • Patent number: 6995819
    Abstract: A semi-transmissive liquid crystal display device of the present invention is so configured that a diffraction film and a light scattering layer are provided on a color-filter substrate on the side thereof on which a display screen resides, and the light scattering layer is disposed nearer a liquid crystal layer than the diffraction film. The semi-transmissive liquid crystal display device thus configured has improved viewing-angle characteristics in the transmissive mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2002
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2006
    Assignee: NEC LCD Technologies, Ltd.
    Inventors: Wakahiko Kaneko, Hidenori Kusanagi
  • Patent number: 6995816
    Abstract: Disclosed is a polarizer package comprising an integrated combination of an absorbing layer and a compensator. Two of the identical polarizer packages can be crossed and used in a transmissive optical device. This polarizer package can also be used in combination with a reflective plate and a quarter wave plate in a reflective optical device. Such polarizer packages exhibit an improved viewing angle characteristic across all wavelengths of interest, has a large tolerance for compensators to be aligned relative to their preferred directions, and can be used within an LCD or emissive display system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2002
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2006
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Xiang-Dong Mi, David Kessler, Andrew F. Kurtz, Tomohiro Ishikawa
  • Patent number: 6994478
    Abstract: Rotate-and-pull mechanisms for fiber optic modules. The rotate-and-pull mechanisms have a lever-actuator to unlatch and withdraw a fiber optic module from a cage assembly or a module receptacle. The lever-actuator pivotally couples to the fiber optic module so that when lever-actuator is rotated about its pivot point, the lever-actuator causes the second actuator to release the fiber optic module from the cage assembly. The lever-actuator includes an actuating-tab to cause the second actuator to move when the lever-actuator is rotated. By pulling the lever-actuator away from the cage assembly, the fiber optic module is withdrawn from the cage assembly. A belly-to-belly mounting configuration is introduced for the rotate-and-pull release fiber optic modules.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2006
    Assignee: JDS Uniphase Corporation
    Inventors: Liew C. Chiu, Ron C. Pang, Yong P. Sim, Kee S. Tan, Tat T. Ming
  • Patent number: 6992731
    Abstract: The present invention is directed to a lens having a variable light transmission in response to variations in incident light intensity. The lens is useful for providing eye protection from variations in ambient light intensity. The present invention is directed to shade devices having lenses which have a variable degree of light transmission which automatically changes in response to the intensity of incident light or at the selection of a user of the eye glasses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2000
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2006
    Inventor: Mitchell Joseph Aiosa Morris
  • Patent number: 6985199
    Abstract: A pair of dummy orientation film patterns are provided for an orientation film used for aligning LC molecules in an LCD device. For a rubbing treatment of the orientation film, a rubbing cloth is cleaned by one of the dummy orientation film patterns before rubbing the orientation film, and also cleaned by the other of the dummy orientation film patterns after rubbing the orientation film thereby preparing next rubbing treatment for the next LCD device. The dummy orientation film pattern has a thickness larger than the thickness of the orientation film.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2006
    Assignee: NEC LCD Technologies, Ltd.
    Inventor: Masayuki Takachi
  • Patent number: 6980260
    Abstract: While illuminating light is separated into a first wavelength component illuminating light and second and third wavelength component illuminating lights by a dichroic mirror, the first illuminating light is reflected off a first liquid crystal display element to form a first wavelength component image light which is then reflected off or passed through the polarizing surface of a first polarizing beam splitter, whereas one of the second and third wavelength component illuminating lights has its polarizing surface 90°-converted by a ½ phase difference plate, the other one is passed through the plate without having its polarizing surface converted, the second and third wavelength components are separated from each other by a second polarizing beam splitter and respectively reflected off second and third liquid crystal display elements to obtain second.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2002
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2005
    Assignee: Sano Fuji Koki Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Shigeru Kato, Hiroki Kameyama
  • Patent number: 6977700
    Abstract: A transflective liquid crystal display has a liquid crystal cell having a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between a pair of transparent substrates each provided with an electrode. A first polarizer is disposed on a viewer's side of the cell. At least one optical retardation compensator is disposed between the polarizer and the cell. A transflector is disposed behind the viewer's side of the liquid crystal layer. A circular polarizer is provided behind the viewer's side of the transflector. The circular polarizer comprises a second polarizer and an optical anisotropic element having a phase difference of approximately ¼ wavelength in the visible light region. The optical anisotropic element has a liquid crystal film with a fixed nematic hybid orientation structure and a stretched film.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 4, 2001
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2005
    Assignee: Nippon Oil Corporation
    Inventors: Tetsuya Uesaka, Eiji Yoda, Takehiro Toyooka
  • Patent number: 6977694
    Abstract: An upper frame comprises a base part, end parts and side walls. The base part has a picture-frame shape continuous in the circumferential direction. The base part has four inner limbs, and the end parts extend from the inner limbs. In a state in which the end parts do not press a liquid crystal display panel, the end parts are bent relative to the base part in the direction of the liquid crystal display panel which is to be placed, i.e., in the direction in which the liquid crystal display panel is to be pressed. Considering the relation to the side walls, each of the end parts forms an acute angle. The side walls are pendent from outer limbs of the base part at a substantially right angle and are continuous in the circumferential direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 17, 2001
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2005
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Yoshifumi Natsuyama