Invalidity dossier
US 4714983
Added 9/23/2026, 1:11:01 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US 4,714,983 — "Uniform Emission Backlight"
Title: Uniform emission backlight
Patent number: US4714983A
Inventor: Warren R. Lang
Original assignee: Motorola, Inc.
Current assignee (as listed): Motorola Solutions Inc (Google notes listed assignees may be inaccurate and that it performed no analysis)
Filing date / priority date: 1985-06-10 (priority date stated as an assumption)
Publication (grant) date: 1987-12-22
Application number: US06/743,226
Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration 2005-06-10
Purpose: The invention relates generally to light emitting devices, and more specifically to back lighting devices useful with liquid crystal displays and the like. It aims to improve backlighting uniformity — essentially the elimination of "hot spots," or areas of higher illumination relative to other areas — using relatively simple devices so an inexpensive backlight can be provided, and without significant sacrifice in overall illumination intensity. A further stated object is allowing viewing of information on a transflective liquid crystal display despite absent ambient light.
Plain-language scope (from the excerpt): The described arrangement includes a lamp, a transparent member, and an opaque material. The transparent member has a polished top surface opposing a frosted bottom surface and a cavity into which the lamp is inserted. The opaque material resides on the top surface, opposing the lamp, covering an area over which light from the lamp could otherwise escape the transparent member without first being reflected from other surfaces. That area is described as a function of a critical angle characterizing the transparent member and the distance of the lamp inside the transparent member from the top surface. The backlight plate may be glass or clear acrylic plastic, and is located under an LCD, with zebra strips beside the plate and beneath portions of the LCD. Figures 1–6 depict exploded, cross-sectional, partial cross-sectional, side, bottom, and second-embodiment views. Classifications include G02B6/00 and G02F1/133615 (edge-illuminating devices).
What the excerpt does not establish: The full claims, complete description, and any prior-art references are omitted, so exact claim scope, dependencies, and cited art cannot be verified from the supplied text. The excerpt does not establish the accuracy of assignee listings or legal status, and no litigation, ownership-transfer, validity, or prior-art conclusions are drawn here.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:53:13 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.