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:
Aug. 10, 1999
Filed:
Jun. 19, 1996
Ronald F Rykowski, Woodinville, WA (US);
Richard E Albrecht, Durham, NC (US);
Radiant Imaging, Inc., Duvall, WA (US);
Abstract
The present invention comprises a lighting unit having a light source emitting light, a reflector placed behind the light source for reflecting the emitted light, and a lens held in front of the light source. The lens is substantially flat and circular. The lens has a predetermined structure that comprises a light-emitting surface and a light-incident surface opposing the light-emitting surface. The light-incident surface of the lens is formed into a vertically oriented high-frequency waveform. In the first embodiment of the lens, the light-emitting surface is substantially flat and the high-frequency waveform is obtained from a combination of a first primary waveform and the third harmonic of the first primary waveform; that is, the high-frequency waveform is derived from the equation ##EQU1## The first embodiment of the lens spreads the emitted light with a graduated distribution horizontally about 20 degrees as measured from the edge of the lens. In the second embodiment of the lens, the light-emitting surface is formed into a vertically oriented low-frequency waveform derived from the equation ##EQU2## The light-incident surface is formed into a vertically oriented high-frequency waveform obtained from a combination of a second primary waveform and the third and fifth harmonics of the second primary waveform. That is, the high-frequency waveform of the second embodiment is derived from the equation ##EQU3## The second lens embodiment spreads the emitted light with a graduated distribution horizontally about 45 degrees as measured from the edge of the lens.