Jewellery illumination

Details Jewellery illumination Jewellery illumination

2000-05-09

2002-08-13

Philogene, Haissa (Department: 2821)

Electric lamp and discharge devices: systems

Special application

C315S20000A, C315S291000, C315S307000, C315S362000, C362S104000, C362S800000, C362S806000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06433483

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention concerns improvements relating to jewelry illumination, and more particularly, though not exclusively, relates to improvements concerning an article of jewelry including a jewel and having a light source incorporated in the article for illuminating the jewel.
A jewel stone is an optical system that is manufactured from material that is not opaque to light. It may be a natural mineral or a manufactured artificial mineral or optical compound. The design is such that when illuminated and viewed from the front the light falling upon it is largely refracted, internally reflected and returned to the front so that the jewel stone appears bright. The refraction and reflection process may also change the color of the light emitted after passing through the jewel stone and re-emerging. Jewelry including one or more jewel stones is generally designed so that it does not pass light from the front to the rear. Thus when illuminated from the front and viewed from the rear, the jewel stones appear dull.
The process of design and manufacture of jewelry often involves cutting the mineral into carefully designed angles and facets that are intended to achieve the desired optical effects of causing the front surface to sparkle or scintillate as the refraction and reflection occurs. Such optical effects occur when the jewel stones catch external light at certain incident angles and reflect or diffuse the light.
FIGS.
28
(
a
)-(
c
) show side, top and bottom views of a brilliant cut jewel stone
210
. As shown in FIG.
28
(
a
), the top part
212
is called a “crown”, the bottom part
216
is called a “pavilion”, and the connecting part
214
between the crown
212
and the pavilion
216
is called a “girdle”. As shown in FIG.
28
(
b
), the crown
212
comprises the face of the brilliant cut called a “table”
222
and inclined surfaces called “top facets” including “stars”
220
surrounding the table
222
, “bezels”
218
surrounding the stars
220
and “top girdle facets”
224
located between the bezels
218
and girdle
214
. As shown in FIG.
28
(
c
), the pavilion
216
comprises the base called a “culet”
228
and inclined surfaces called “pavilion facets” including “pavilions”
226
surrounding the culet
228
and “bottom girdle facets”
230
located between the pavilions
226
and the girdle
214
.
Such brilliant cut jewel stones may be made from a wide number of materials, for example , diamonds or cubic zirconium which is a material approaching the hardness of diamond and often used as an artificial replacement.
Scintillation is the word generally associated with jewelry that sparkles. The scintillation effect is most pronounced when correctly designed jewels are illuminated with a point source such as a candle and the jewel is moved through some angular rotation. Very small angular movements can provide substantial scintillation by virtue of the multiple internal reflections, refractions and dispersions which are given words such as fire and brilliance.
Each of FIGS.
27
(
a
)-(
f
) shows a cross section of a brilliant cut jewel stone
200
indicating the way in which light
202
falling on a surface
204
of each jewel stone
200
is refracted by the surface
204
, internally reflected by the pavilion facets and then refracted for a second time by the surface
204
as it leaves the front of the jewel stone
200
. When the light falling on the front face of the jewel stone is returned, the jewel stone appears to sparkle.
When proportions of the jewel stone are perfect as shown in FIG.
27
(
a
), all light gets reflected back, either via the table or the top facets, so that brilliance is achieved. However, as shown in FIGS.
27
(
b
) and
27
(
c
), if the pavilion is too deep or too shallow, part of the rays of incoming light “escapes” through pavilion facets. As shown in FIGS.
27
(
d
)-(
e
), if the crown is too low, less refraction occurs by the crown facets. Thus, brilliance is most dependent on the angles of pavilion facets, and fire depends on angles of crown facets.
The sparkling is also due in part to the dispersion of the generally white light and its breakdown into a number of constituent colors, each of which emerges with a slightly different beam angle.
FIG. 29
shows a curve of variation of refraction coefficient for various different colors of light which gives an indication and measurement of this dispersion effect.
Although jewel stones are generally designed to have optical effect, when external light is not strong enough, little optical effect including scintillation effect occurs and the colors of the jewel stones are not readily visible. Further, when there is no relative movement between jewelry, the viewer and external light, jewel stones do not produce any optical effect even if enough ambient light is present.
Artificial illumination of a jewel in an article of jewelry has previously been described in GB 1 352 835, where a translucent jewel can be illuminated intermittently by battery-powered light-emitting diodes provided on the non-viewing side of the article. The LED's can be pulsed by signals from an control circuit which are generated by sensing the wearer's movement, or external sound or light.
Another artificially illuminated article of jewelry is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,835 where a light emitter is provided near a transparent body (jewel). The light emitter is frequency pulse generators and a light detector. When the signal processor receives a low-light signal, the light detector signal being sampled at the frequency of one of the pulse generators, the processor controls the light-emission timing to cause the light emitter to emit light at the frequency of the other frequency generator. Otherwise, the light emitter is not driven and the jewel is not illuminated by the light emitter.
In the prior art, the jewel illumination is at best rather crude. In both GB 1 352 835 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,835, the pulsing of the LEDs is entirely dependent on external conditions such that the illumination lacks consistency. During periods of time where the sensed matter does not change, the illumination is inactive. For example, in GB 1 352 835 when a motion sensing device is employed and the user is stationary, light pulses are not generated. Also in the device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,835 light pulses are not generated in bright light conditions. Furthermore, in low-light conditions, the U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,835 device can only produce a consistent repeating pattern of light pulses at a regular frequency from which it is apparent that there is artificial lighting of the jewel. As digital pulses are used in both of the above described prior art arrangements to drive the LEDs, the duration and the intensities of the light pulses emitted from each LED are constant. The resultant light output does not mimic natural illumination of the jewel.
All of the above features of the prior art devices make the artificial illumination of the jewel used therein readily distinguishable from natural light illumination of a jewel. More particularly, the prior art devices produce illumination light pulses which are either too regular or too irregular to be of effective use in simulating the so called natural optical effects such as sparkle or scintillation of the jewel.
SUMMARY OF THE IVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an article of jewelry where the jewel is artificially illuminated in such a way as to simulate realistic optimum natural illumination. The desired illumination is that which generates simulated natural optical effects in the jewel such as sparkle, scintillation and glow.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided an article of jewelry arranged to simulate natural optical effects, such as sparkle and scintillation, the article comprising: a jewel; a light source incorporated in the article of jewelry for emitting light so as to illuminate the jewel; and means for controlling the light source to emit light pulses which are variable in intensity, thereby simulat

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Jewellery illumination does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Jewellery illumination, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Jewellery illumination will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2955290