Patent ID: 8720524

Claim:
A blinds device for covering a window, comprising: a plurality of parallel translating screens, each translating screen being disposed within a plane, the plane of each translating screen being substantially parallel to the planes of the other translating screens, the planes of each translating screen being substantially parallel to a plane defined by the window, each of said translating screens being composed of substantially opaque material; each of said translating screens comprising light-permitting regions disposed on the translating screen, wherein a ratio of the light-permitting regions to the substantially opaque material, located between the light permitting regions, for a particular translating screen is proportional to a number of translating screens in the plurality of parallel translating screens to independently manipulate light penetration and view transparency through the blinds device; each of said translating screens being separated by a spacing from each adjacent translating screen of said plurality of parallel translating screens; a spacing mechanism for adjusting the spacing between the parallel translating screens in a frist direction, the first direction being normal to the plane of each parallel translating screen; an alignment mechanism for adjusting an alignment of the light-permitting regions of each of the translating screens relative to the light-permitting regions of the other translating screens in a second direction, the second direction being at a substantially right angle to the first direction; the spacing mechanism being adapted to uniformly adjust the spacing between the translating screens in the first direction without altering the alignment of the light-permitting regions of each translating screen relative to the light-permitting regions of the other translating screens; and the alignment mechanism being adapted to adjust the alignment of the light-permitting regions of each screen in the second direction without altering the spacing between the adjacent translating screens; wherein the combination of adjusting the spacing and adjusting the alignment enable independent adjustment of an amount of light permitted through the light-permitting regions from a first light source versus a second light source located at a different position than the first light source, and further wherein neither the spacing mechanism nor the alignment mechanism alters the substantially parallel relationship of each translating screen to the window.