Patent 7785503 was granted and assigned to Zeon (liturgy) on August, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An optical film composed of a thermoplastic resin film obtained by using a melt extruding machine, characterized in that said thermoplastic resin film satisfies a relation of the formula below over the whole surface of the film when an angle made by the extruding direction of the thermoplastic resin film from the melt extruding machine and a slow phase axis at each point is α, and a retardation amount at each point is Re, is provided. [sin2 2α]×[sin2(π·Re/550)]≦4.0×10−5. According to the present invention, an optical film wherein there is no problem on a residual solvent, optical distortion is small, and there is no problem of color unevenness and color absence of a liquid crystal display obtained by using the optical film as a protective film of a polarizer is provided.