Review this prior art and click on the thumbs up (or down) to indicate whether this submission should be forwarded to IP Australia.
If you login then you can add an annotation by typing in the box at the bottom of the screen to comment on the relevance of the prior art to the claims of the patent application.
| Summary / Description | A woven fiber-optic sheet (1) has warp strands (2) formed by sheathed bundles of fine optic-fibers (4). The fibers (4) of each strand (2) are broken pseudo-randomly, different ones at different locations along its length so that light transmitted into the strands (2) from a source (7) escapes from the various locations (8) to radiate through the transparent sheathing (5). Decorative effect is intensified by periodic light-color change being a rotating multi-color filter (9) to distribute different colors to different strands (2). |
| Type of Prior Art | Issued Patents - US |
| Country | United States of America |
| Patent/Application # | 6,628,885 |
| Kind Code | United States (US) - United STATES Patent - A |
| Patentee Name | Mark Ian Wilkie and Sarah Bilbey |
| Relevant Pages, Columns, or Lines | col 2 line 20 to col 3 line 20 |
| URL | |
| Filing Date | September 30, 2003 |
| Additional Information | (above date is issue date, not filing date) |
| Notes | |
Excerpt According to one aspect of the invention a fibre-optic assembly for providing distributed emission of light comprises a multiplicity of fibre-optic strands retained together, wehre in strand comprises a sheated bundle of optic fibres with discontinuities in the fibres distributed at space locations along the strand.The use of sheated bundles of optic fibres as the fibre-optic strands, and accommodating discontinuities in the fibres within the sheathing, enables fine optical fibres to be used and the discontinuites to be provided simply by breaks in the fibres. The structural integrity of hte fibre-optic strands is maintained by the strand-sheathing, and the difficult task of notching or scratching individual fibres as taught by U.S. Patent No. 4,234,907 is avoided... |
An optical display comprising:
a plurality of strands arranged in spaced apart relationship;
each strand having a plurality of waveguides with each guide having an output at a different position along the length of the respective strand;
each waveguide having an input end; and
a light driver supplying light to the input end of each waveguide so light can propagate along the waveguide and exit at the outputs.
| Relevance | - plurality of strands/spaced apart: see col 2 lines 40-48 - strand having plurality of waveguides/ output at diff position: see col 2 lines 49-51 AND col 2 lines 60-66 - waveguide input end: see col 2 lines 56-58 - light driver ... : see col 2 lines 56-58 (e.g. "source 7" is light source) |
The optical display of claim 1, wherein each strand contains a plurality of nodes and the output of each fibre is located at a respective node.
| Relevance | "breaks" on col 2 line 62 are, in effect, "nodes" |
The optical display of claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the output comprises the output end of the waveguide.
| Relevance | see bottom of col 2 and top of col 3 |
The optical display of anyone of claims 1 to 3, wherein each waveguide comprises an optical fibre.
| Relevance | see above citations |
The optical display of anyone of claims 1 to 4, wherein each node comprises a diffusing acrylic bead.
| Relevance | breaks in fiber comprise a point of light diffusion which is the function performed by the diffusing bead |
An optical display comprising:
a plurality of spaced apart strands, each strand comprising;
a support element for supporting a plurality of optical fibres;
a plurality of diffuser elements on the support element, the diffusers being spaced apart along the length of the strand; and
a plurality of optical fibres supported by the support element, each of the plurality of optical fibres having a terminating end located at a respective diffuser element of the strand, wherein when light is provided to the optical fibres and propagates along the optical fibres, the light exits the terminating end of the fibres at the respective diffuser elements to thereby create an optical display.
| Relevance | see claim 1 and related citations |
United States