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US 5,910,388 AGranted
Method of electrostatically printing image-enhancing particles and said particles
AssigneeMinnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
InventorsBradley R. Ray, William D. Sell
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention relates to a novel method of producing graphics employing image-enhancing particles electrostatically. The invention also relates to novel electrostatically printable image-enhancing particles.
Claims12
An electrostatically printable image-enhancing particle comprising:
- (a) an image-enhancing particle, wherein said image-enhancing particles excludes image-enhancing particles in the form of a flake coated with a layer of black titanium oxide;
- (b) an electrostatically chargeable material attached to at least a portion of an exterior surface(s) of the image-enhancing particle, wherein the electrostatically chargeable material is free of dyes and pigments and wherein the electrostatically chargeable material is selected from the group consisting of transparent materials, translucent materials, opaque materials, and combinations thereof, wherein the electrostatically chargeable material comprises:
- (i) an electrostatically chargeable polymeric material, and (ii) optionally, a charge controlling compound;
- wherein no more than 80% of the exterior surface of each image-enhancing particle may have an opaque electrostatically chargeable material attached thereto;
- wherein the electrostatically printable image-enhancing particle is capable of providing sparkle, color flop, iridescence or luster.
2 more elements
The electrostatically printable image-enhancing particle claim of 1 wherein the electrostatically printable image-enhancing particles have average diameters of about 1 to about 200 microns.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.