US Patent Issued to 3M Innovative Properties on Nov. 18 for "Backlight with multiple microreplicated optical films" (Japanese, American Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,474,607, issued on Nov. 18, was assigned to 3M Innovative Properties Co. (St. Paul, Minn.).

"Backlight with multiple microreplicated optical films" was invented by Hideaki Shirotori (Yokohama, Japan), Kazuhiko Toyooka (Yamagata, Japan), Sayaka Kado (Yamato, Japan) and Gary T. Boyd (Woodbury, Minn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A backlight to a display includes an array of discrete light sources and a plurality of optical films disposed between the display and the light sources. Each film includes a regular array of intersecting ridges defining a plurality of through-holes. Each of the through-holes extends between first and second open ...