U.S. Patent No. 7,889,430, issued on February 15, 2011 to Ostendo Technologies, Inc. of Carlsbad, CA, discloses an LED-based illumination system for rear projection displays.
Rear projection display (RPD) devices generate images using a small imager having many pixels that can be individually turned off and on to project a much larger image onto a screen spaced away from the imager. For example, one type of imager is a digital micro-mirror (DMM) device which has hundreds of thousands of microscopic mirrors that can be individually moved to reflect light from an illumination source either to the screen or not, effectively turning the pixel on or off. According to the ’430 patent, the geometric extent or “etendue” of the light emitted from conventional illumination sources (e.g., LEDs) is significantly larger than that for the imager, resulting in poor efficiency of such a conventional RPD device. The ’430 patent discloses an illumination system that “folds” the etendue of the illumination source so that it better matches that of the imager.
According to its website, Ostendo “develops next generation Solid State Lighting (SSL)-based display technologies and products.” The company is mostly known for its CRVD™ 43″ curved desktop monitor display that utilizes the company’s gallium nitride (GaN) based LED technology. Unlike the flat panel LED displays that are widely available, the CRVD™ display is a rear projection display.
According to the USPTO database, Ostendo owns 14 U.S. patents, including the ’430 patent, but only six of these U.S. patents appear deal with imaging technology. Dr. Hussein El-Ghoroury, Ostendo’s CEO, is listed as the sole inventor or co-inventor on all six of Ostendo’s imaging-based patents. Ostendo’s other eight U.S. patents appear to deal with telecommunications unrelated to Ostendo’s current technology, and were obtained from Ellipsis Digital Systems, Inc., for which Dr. El-Ghoroury served as CEO, and was its most prolific inventor.
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