The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 08, 1998
Filed:
Jun. 21, 1996
Mikio Imaeda, Bisai, JP;
Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, Nagoya, JP;
Abstract
A heat-expandable solid image forming sheet includes a base sheet, a heat-expandable layer formed of a material containing foaming particles on the base sheet and capable of expanding when heated, and a protective layer formed by a coating process on the heat-expandable layer. The base sheet has a strength higher than that of the protective layer in order to suppress the rise of a solid pattern toward the base sheet. The base sheet may be a PET film having a tensile strength of 0.5 kg/cm.sup.2 or above expressed by stress induced therein at 1% elongation at 100.degree. C. An image is formed using a light-absorptive material on the protective layer that absorbs light energy and converts the absorbed light energy into heat. When the heat-expandable solid pattern forming sheet carrying the image is irradiated with light, portions of the heat-expandable layer corresponding to the image are heated by the heat generated from the light-absorptive material. These heated portions expand and rise toward the protective layer to form a solid pattern corresponding to the image.