Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Yoshiharu Abe

Tetsuro Hanahara

Shigetaka Douzono

Eiji Kodo

Kenji Inoue

Takefumi Inoue

Takayuki Ishikawa

Shinji Okuma

Nobuhiro Yamaue

Tetsuya Koma

Hirofumi Komiya

Tatsuya Tsuda

Minoru Hato

Koji Tanabe

Kenichi Matsumoto

Yasuchika Kudo

Akira Nakanishi

Kenji Nishimura

Toshiharu Fukui

Koji Sako

Masaki Nakase

Susumu Inatsugu

Yoshinobu Nakagawa

Yusho Nakase

Tetsuo Murakami

Yasutaka Yamamoto

Masaaki Yamabayashi

Takao Matsui

Yuichi Yamamoto

Kuniharu Matsuoka

Kazuji Ota

Naoyuki Yayama

Masahiko Asano

The touch panel has a light-transmissive upper substrate, a light-transmissive lower substrate, and a bonding layer. The lower surface of the upper substrate is formed thereon with an upper conductive layer. The top surface of the lower substrate is formed thereon with a lower conductive layer facing the upper conductive layer with an air gap. The bonding layer is formed on at least one of inner edges of the lower surface of the upper substrate and the top surface of the lower substrate, and additionally has an open groove communicating with the air gap. The makeup provides a touch panel reliably operable with a simple structure.

Touch panel

A touch panel includes a first substrate, a first resistance layer on a surface of the first substrate, a second substrate, a second resistance layer on a surface of the second substrate, a spacer having substantially a frame shape provided between outer peripheries of the first and second substrates, a sheet having a surface attached to the surface of the second substrate with a first adhesive layer, and a second adhesive layer on the surface of the sheet. The second resistance layer faces the first resistance layer by a predetermined gap between the second and first resistance layers. The second adhesive layer has an adhesion property weaker than that of the first adhesive layer. This touch panel can be attached onto a display element again easily.

Touch panel, method of manufacturing the same, and input device using the same

A touch panel and an electronic device using the touch panel have satisfactory, reliable operability. The touch panel is used for an operating section of the electronic device. In this touch panel, upper and lower substratesandhave upper and lower electrode layers, respectively, and face with an established spacing. Respective center portions of the substratesandprotrude upward like a dome.

Touch panel and electronic equipment using the same

A switch device is configured by engaging a plurality of switches in a cam section of an operating member in a manner such that a detecting section can detect positions of operation of the operating member based on electric ON/OFF states of the switches. With this arrangement, it is possible to detect the positions of operation of the operating member by only detecting the electric ON/OFF states of the switches wherever the position of operation the operating member may be. Consequently, a switch device that is simple in construction and capable of reliably detecting positions of operation of the operating member can be provided.

Switch device

According to the switch of the present invention, a lubricant containing a base oil, a soft resin polymer, and a surface active agent is applied between a fixed tab and a contact strip that undergo sliding operation in response to vertical movement of an operating part. The soft resin polymer of the composition works effective in minimizing wear of the contacting surfaces of the fixed tab and the contact strip. At the same time, including the surface active agent in the composition can prevents the lubricant from flowing to an undesired section. The lubricant with the composition above can provide a switch with a reliable switch-on/off operation.

Switch

A lever switch includes a common contact and a fixed contact both prepared on at least an inner bottom face, or any one of inner faces of walls surrounding the inner bottom face, and a movable contact which touches or leaves at least one of the common contact or the fixed contact when a lever rotates. Terminal sections of the common contact and the fixed contact extend through walls of the housing. This structure allows the lever switch to fix those terminal sections to a wired board, thereby preventing the lever switch from coming off from the wired board. As a result, the lever switch can work with reliability.

Lever switch

A lighted switch sheet of the invention has a structure, which comprises a sheet having a plurality of movable contacts of a hemispherical shape disposed in a plurality of fixing holes, and an EL element affixed on an upper surface of the sheet. The EL element has an optically transmitting substrate provided with an optically transmitting electrode layer, light-emitting layer and back electrode layer formed in an overlapping manner on an underside surface thereof, and through holes of a size slightly smaller than an outer diameter of the movable contacts formed above their respective movable contacts. The invention provides for the lighted switch sheet with a small number of structural components and a simple structure at low cost.

Lighted switch sheet and lighted switch unit using the same

An EL element includes a light-transmitting substrate, a light-transmitting electrode layer over a first surface of the substrate, a luminescent layer over the light-transmitting electrode layer, a back electrode layer over the luminescent layer, and a waterproof insulating layer covering the light-transmitting electrode layer, the luminescent layer, and the back electrode layer. The EL element and a lighting unit have excellent resistance against water. The light-transmitting electrode layer, the luminescent layer, and the back electrode layer end before an outer periphery of the substrate as well as before an end face of the substrate at each hole or notch in the substrate. This arrangement provides the EL element and the lighting unit with the excellent resistance against water.

EL element and illumination comprising it

A slide switch is fabricated by having a coiled spring, which has coil-end seating portions at both ends totaling &#xbe; to 1 turn, contained in a case or an operating member such that the operating member is biased by the spring. By virtue of such a configuration, the spring is prevented from bulging out at its center portion or coming off the containing portion. Thus, a slide switch which can be fabricated easily while also saving manpower can be provided.

Slide switch and manufacturing method of the same

A lighting apparatus is configured by disposing an EL element inside a stationary housing including, about its top side, an operating part including a plurality of arranged push buttons as well as inside a movable housing openably mounted to the stationary housing and having a display part at its surface, and connecting a control circuit to the EL elements, the operating part and the display part. The control circuit controls light emission of the respective EL elements of the stationary housing and the movable housing to illuminate the operating part and the display part, so that the lighting apparatus simple in structure is capable of various illuminations.

Lighting apparatus

An EL element includes plural light-emitting regions for illuminating corresponding push buttons, and is disposed beneath the push buttons. The EL element is connected to a switching contact and a controller. An light-emitting operation of the EL element is controlled by the controller to illuminate a certain push button. The keyboard including the above components can provide multiple functions for illuminating the push buttons although having a simple structure.

Illumination type keyboard

An EL element includes plural light transmitting front-electrodes forming plural lines by wiring and plural back-electrodes forming plural lines by further wiring. The front-electrodes are angled relative to the back-electrodes and a light-emitting layer is disposed between the front-electrodes and the back-electrodes. The EL element combined with a controller works as a lighting unit, which controls light emission at any place, so that a variety of lighting is realized by the lighting unit.

EL element lighting unit employing the same EL element

A cup-shaped elastic member forces push button upwardly that has indication part A formed thereon. Light transmitting electrode layer B, light-emitting layer C, and back electrode layer E are sequentially formed on light transmitting sheet A to form EL element , and the EL element is disposed on the upper or lower face of membrane switch . This structure can provide an inexpensive illuminated keyboard switch that allows clear illumination of the push button and uses a smaller number of components.

Illuminated keyboard switch

An illumination type push button switch includes EL element mounted to a bottom surface of board below switch contact . Board has through-holes A and B near the contact. EL element , which is capable of lighting plural push buttons simultaneously by surface-light emission, emits light via through-holes A and B of board to light push buttons and . The illumination type push button switch thus lighting the push buttons clearly includes a small number of components and is inexpensive.

Illuminated button switch

A lever switch includes a case having a common contact and fixed contacts provided on inner wall opposite to each other. A movable contact made from elastic metal and shaped like the letter &ldquo;M&rdquo; has an intermediate section that comes into contact with the common contact. A first arm extends from each one of both ends of the intermediate section. Each one of the ends of the first arms forms a folding-back section, and a second arm is formed at the end of the folding-back section. A contact formed at the end of the second arm comes into contact with the inner wall of the case. Rotation of the lever slides a slider on the bottom plate of the case, and a pushing section provided at each one of both ends of the slider brings the contact into contact with the fixed contact or leaves the contact from the fixed contact.

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Osaka, Japan

Yoshiharu Abe