U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375, USA.
Recent Pat Nanotechnol. 2010 Nov;4(3):137-49. doi: 10.2174/187221010792483672.
Electrophoretic displays (EPDs) have made their way into consumer products. EPDs enable displays that offer the look and form of a printed page, often called "electronic paper". We will review recent apparatus and method patents for EPD devices and their fabrication. A brief introduction into the basic display operation and history of EPDs is given, while pointing out the technological challenges and difficulties for inventors. Recently, the majority of scientific publications and patenting activity has been directed to micro-segmented EPDs. These devices exhibit high optical reflectance and contrast, wide viewing angle, and high image resolution. Micro-segmented EPDs can also be integrated with flexible transistors technologies into flexible displays. Typical particles size ranges from 200 nm to 2 micrometer. Currently one very active area of patenting is the development of full-color EPDs. We summarize the recent patenting activity for EPDs and provide comments on perceiving factors driving intellectual property protection for EPD technologies.
电泳显示（EPD）已经进入消费产品领域。EPD 能够提供类似于印刷页面的外观和形式的显示，通常被称为“电子纸”。我们将回顾 EPD 设备及其制造的最新仪器和方法专利。本文简要介绍了 EPD 的基本显示操作和历史，并指出了发明家面临的技术挑战和困难。最近，大多数科学出版物和专利活动都集中在微分段 EPD 上。这些器件具有高光反射率和对比度、宽视角和高图像分辨率。微分段 EPD 还可以与柔性晶体管技术集成到柔性显示器中。典型的颗粒尺寸范围从 200nm 到 2 微米。目前，专利申请非常活跃的一个领域是全彩 EPD 的开发。我们总结了 EPD 的最新专利活动，并对推动 EPD 技术知识产权保护的感知因素进行了评论。
