Surface-conduction electron-emitter display

There are other reasons we haven't seen SED/FED hit the market than just the patents.

Contrast 2010: https://www.auo.com/en-global/New_Archive/detail/news_IR_201...

"AU Optronics Corp. announced today that AUO has entered into an agreement with Field Emission Technologies (FET) and FET Japan, Inc. (FETJ), to purchase certain assets and to transfer certain technology from FET, a leader in FED (field emission displays) technology whose 39.8% of shareholding is owned by Sony Corporation. In the transaction, AUO will acquire certain assets that include patents, know-how, inventions, and relevant equipment related to FED technology and materials. The fast response time, high efficiency, brightness, and contrast of FED technology not only compare favorably with traditional CRT technology but also outperform in terms of image quality and power efficiency. FED technology will be focused on high-end display application for future development. Apart from OLED, FED technology will be a new application option in the flat display industry, which will become a strong support for AUO's unique competence in the future."

and 2012: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/taiwan-based-au-optronics-cor...

"AU Optronics Corporation, a Taiwan-based liquid crystal display (LCD) producer, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco to pay a $500 million criminal fine for its participation in a five-year conspiracy to fix the prices of thin-film transistor LCD panels sold worldwide, the Department of Justice announced. Its American subsidiary and two former top executives were also sentenced today. The two executives were sentenced to serve prison time and to pay criminal fines for their roles in the conspiracy. The $500 million fine matches the largest fine imposed against a company for violating the U.S. antitrust laws."

... except that the patentee lost.

>On 25 July 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed the lower court's decision and provided that Canon's "irrevocable and perpetual" non-exclusive licence was still enforceable and covers Canon's restructured subsidiary SED.[23] On 2 December 2008, Applied Nanotech dropped the lawsuit, stating that continuing the lawsuit "would probably be a futile effort".[17]

>In spite of their legal success, Canon announced at the same time that the financial crisis of 2008 was making introduction of the sets far from certain, going so far as to say they would not be launching the product at that time "because people would laugh at them".[

I expect it would be on par with CRT tech in both respects, just for also having electron-excited phosphors. It seems OLED + everything ultimately competes with CRT for contrast/color/speed-- rather like programming languages' best-case compute performance usually being "nn% as fast as C." The least optimal thing about the image (for me) was it not being perfectly rectangular and stable, while everything else nails that right down, including this.

It is pretty neat... the market turning away is roughly as disappointing as a phosphor-based flat display is appealing. I feel like its reduced complexity and power usage could make it ideal for HMDs-- if/f it shrinks well. And probably nobody cares. :shrug: