Patent ID: 8123388

Claim:
A vehicle headlamp, comprising: (i) a semiconductor-type light source having a light emitting chip shaped like a planar rectangle; and (ii) a lens adapted to illuminate light from the light emitting chip of the semiconductor-type light source toward a forward direction of a vehicle, as a light distribution pattern having cutoff lines, wherein: a center of the light emitting chip is positioned at or near a reference focal point of the lens and is positioned on or near a reference axis of the lens; a light emitting face of the light emitting chip is oriented toward a forward direction of the reference axis of the lens; a long side of the light emitting chip is parallel to a horizontal axis orthogonal to the reference axis of the lens or is inclined with respect to the horizontal axis; an incidence surface of the lens is made of a conical curved face; an emission surface of the lens is made of a free curved face controlled to be curved so that a protection image of the light emitting chip, which is emitted from the emission surface of the lens face, is not convexly curved in an upward direction from the cutoff line on a screen light distribution of the light distribution pattern and so that a part of the projection image of the light emitting chip is substantially in contact with the cutoff line; and the free curved face of the emission surface of the lens includes a first quadrant, a second quadrant, a third quadrant, and a fourth quadrant which are divided by a vertical axis and a horizontal axis orthogonal to each other and passing through an origin, with a reference axis of lens serving as the origin in a front view, and is made of a free curved face on which: in a case where the first quadrant and the second quadrant are compared with each other in a symmetrical position relationship with respect to the vertical axis, a portion of about ⅓ or more of the first quadrant is higher than the second quadrant in a forward direction of the reference axis of the lens; and in a case where the first quadrant and the fourth quadrant are compared with each other in a symmetrical position relationship with respect to the horizontal axis, the portion of about ⅓ or more of the first quadrant is lower than the fourth quadrant in the forward direction of the reference axis of the lens.