Problem & Context:

A Japanese functional materials company wanted to identify potential new functionalities that could be added to Pressure Sensitive Adhesives (PSA) to make them more valuable to their customers. Contrast improvement, for example, in small-to-medium sized displays in mobile devices is conventionally delivered through a combination of PSA and optical films. The client team was interested in understanding if such functionality and other such advanced features could be delivered using PSA.

SciTech Patent Art Approach & Deliverables:

The 2-member team at SciTech Patent Art with deep expertise in optical displays was chartered to work on the project. Deep web searches were conducted by the team to source information on display devices, particularly the composition and functions of its components such as optical films, polarizers, etc. Recent technical publications and patents on PSA were studied, and a few references that explicitly mention the addition of the newly identified functions to PSA itself were identified. The references were on PSA functionalities that were conventionally attributed to other optical films, used in conjunction with PSA. Information on such improvements was captured, and a list of unique ideas on technical modes of imparting extra functionalities to PSA was generated. A summary listing such new approaches, along with excerpts from documents such as description, claimed benefits, etc., was prepared.

The project was completed in 2 months and costed $14,000