Patent ID: 7553060

Claim:
A backlight apparatus of a sidelight type comprising: a light guide plate having an incident face on a lateral face; and a light source unit having a plurality of substrates; wherein each the plurality of the substrates is respectively disposed on the incident face side of the light guide plate such that a face of each of the plurality of substrates is parallel with a main face of the light guide plate; the plurality of substrates are arranged adjacent to one another in a thickness direction of the light guide plate; a plurality of light emitting devices are mounted in columns on each of the substrate faces of the plurality of the substrates such that light emitted from the plurality of light emitting devices is directed to the incident face; two adjacent substrates among the plurality of the substrates are disposed such that mounting faces of the two adjacent substrates face each other; and a first group of the plurality of light emitting devices that are mounted on one of the two adjacent substrates and a second group of the plurality of light emitting devices that are mounted on the other one of the two adjacent substrates are mounted in positions that are not overlapped with each other in the thickness direction of the light guide plate.