DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed. The examiner proposes: OLED DISPLAY WITH SPACER ADJACENT TO PIXEL WITH CHAMFERED CORNER
Drawings
FIG. 3 illustrates layer 1100 above layer 1200 and layer 1300 above layer 1100. According to [0065] of the specification, these are “a first electrode 1100, a light- emitting layer 1300 and a second electrode 1200 that are arranged in a stacked manner”. Thus FIG. 3 illustrates a device with a light emitting layer above two electrodes. It is not clear how such a device would function; if it would function, that functioning is not explained of enabled in the specification; also, this arrangement seems inconsistent with the explanation in [0065].
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 2 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 2 recites that “a ratio of a length of a portion of at least one of the two sides that is cut off to a length of the side is 0.2-0.8.” The recited “to a length of the side” could refer to the length before or after the conceptual cutting off. For present purposes the examiner will assume that that it refers to before the cutting off.
Claim 11 recites that “at least part of the spacers are distributed at the intervals between the first corner portions of the openings configured to define sub-pixels of different colors and the openings adjacent to the first corner portions.” It is not clear what is meant by “the first corner portions of the openings configured to define sub-pixels of different colors”. The recited “first corner portions” refers back to claim 1, which recites that “a corner portion of the opening comprises a first corner portion formed by cutting off one vertex angle”. The specification and the other claims only recite/disclose first corner portions of a single-colored pixel type. Furthermore, it is not clear what the colors are “different” from – each other? The claim meanings are not discernable in a way that is consistent with the claim language and the specification.
Claim 11 has not been rejected over the prior art because, in light of the 35 U.S.C. 112 rejections supra, there is sufficient uncertainty that it would not be proper to reject the claims on the basis of prior art. As stated in In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 134 USPQ 292 (CCPA 1962), a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 should not be based on considerable speculation about the meaning of terms employed in a claim or assumptions that must be made as to the scope of the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-9, 20, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Zhou, CN 107871774.
Claim 1: Zhou discloses
a base substrate (201);
a plurality of sub-pixels (21-23) located on the base substrate, the plurality of sub-pixels comprising a plurality of light-emitting regions (FIG. 10);
a pixel defining layer (25) located on the base substrate, the pixel defining layer comprising a plurality of openings to define the plurality of light-emitting regions (FIG. 11); and
a plurality of spacers (241+242) located at a side of the pixel defining layer away from the base substrate and distributed at an interval between adjacent openings, wherein,
a shape of at least one of the plurality of openings (23) is a polygon with at least one vertex angle cut off, and a corner portion of the opening comprises a first corner portion formed by cutting off one vertex angle included between two sides of the polygon from the polygon (FIG. 10; an octagon is a rectangle with four corners cut off or a hexagon with two corners cut off);
at least one of the plurality of spacers is arranged at an interval between the first corner portion and the opening adjacent to the first corner portion, and a connecting line between a geometric center of the opening where the first corner portion is located and a geometric center of the opening adjacent to the first corner portion passes through the first corner portion and the spacer.
PNG
media_image1.png
686
676
media_image1.png
Greyscale
Claim 2: Zhou does not disclose the exact dimensions or aspect ratio of the subpixels. However, if the octagonal subpixel 23 is a regular octagon, then the ratio of the side to the cut off portion is approximately 0.41:
PNG
media_image2.png
442
250
media_image2.png
Greyscale
If it is an elongated octagon, such as is pictured, then it will be lower. The wide range of claimed ratios will capture a large number of shapes that would have been suggested by Zhou. Changes in relative dimension or shape are not typically a source of patentable distinction absent unexpected results. MPEP 2144.o4.
Claim 3: Zhou has multiple spacers positioned as recited in claim 1, which is what the examiner understands claim 3 to recite.
Claim 4: the number of the openings having the first corner portion is not less than the number of the plurality of spacers (FIG. 10).
Claim 5: the openings having the first corner portion are configured to define the light- emitting regions of the sub-pixels of at least one color (FIG. 10).
Claim 6: the openings having the first corner portion comprise a same type of openings. They are the same type in that they are of the same color (“third colour”) and of the same shape.
Claim 7: Zhou discloses
the openings that have the first corner portion and are configured to define the light-emitting regions of the sub-pixels of the same color comprise at least two types of openings (the first type is subpixels 23 on the top row and the second type is subpixels on the bottom row, FIG. 10),
in different types of openings (top row of figure 10 vs bottom row of figure 10), vertices of the first corner portions point to vertices of the corner portions opposite to the first corner portions in different directions,
PNG
media_image3.png
416
504
media_image3.png
Greyscale
and at least part of the plurality of spacers are distributed at the intervals corresponding to the same type of openings.
The examiner understands “intervals corresponding to the same type of openings” as referring to an interval (space) between two of the same type of openings.
Claim 8: the plurality of spacers comprise a plurality of first spacers (sloping up-to-the-right spacers), the plurality of first spacers are distributed at the intervals corresponding to the first corner portions of the same type of openings, and are uniformly distributed (FIG. 10).
Claim 9: Zhou discloses that
the at least two types of openings comprise a first type of openings (with top right corner cut off) and a second type of openings (with bottom left corner cut off), and the plurality of first spacers are distributed at the intervals corresponding to the first corner portions of at least part of the first type of openings;
the plurality of spacers further comprise a plurality of second spacers (sloping down-to-the-right spacers), the plurality of second spacers are distributed at the intervals corresponding to the first corner portions of at least part of the second type of openings and are uniformly distributed,
wherein the at least two types of openings further comprise a third type of openings (with top left corner cut off) and a fourth type of openings (with bottom right corner cut off), and
in two types of openings among the first type of openings, the second type of openings, the third type of openings, and the fourth type of openings (first and second), directions in which vertices of first corner portions point to vertices of corner portions opposite to the first corner portions are opposite to each other, and
in two types of openings among the first type of openings, the second type of openings, the third type of openings, and the fourth type of openings (third and fourth), directions in which vertices of first corner portions point to vertices of corner portions opposite to the first corner portions are opposite to each other (FIG. 10).
Note that as all of the pixels 23 are rectangles that have all four of their corners cut off, all of the pixels 23 fall into all four types of openings.
Claim 20: Zhou discloses that a distance between the spacer and the first corner portion located at one side of the spacer is a first distance, and a shortest distance between the spacer and the corner portion of the opening located at the other side of the spacer is a second distance, and the first distance is not less than the second distance. Zhou FIG. 10 illustrates the spacers as being symmetric, and thus neither side would be . This arrangement (the even and symmetric layout of the elements) would be reasonably conveyed to those in the art by Zhou.
Claim 28: Zhou discloses a display apparatus (“display device, abstract), comprising the display substrate according to claim 1.
Claims 1, 5, 12, 21, 22, 24, 26, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Heo, US 2021/0408163 A1.
Claim 1: Heo discloses
a base substrate (100);
a plurality of sub-pixels located on the base substrate, the plurality of sub-pixels comprising a plurality of light-emitting regions (RGB);
a pixel defining layer (150) located on the base substrate, the pixel defining layer comprising a plurality of openings to define the plurality of light-emitting regions (FIG. 2); and
a plurality of spacers (260) located at a side of the pixel defining layer away from the base substrate and distributed at an interval between adjacent openings, wherein,
a shape of at least one of the plurality of openings is a polygon with at least one vertex angle cut off (an octagon, which is a rectangle or a hexagon with corners cut off), and a corner portion of the opening comprises a first corner portion formed by cutting off one vertex angle included between two sides of the polygon from the polygon;
at least one of the plurality of spacers is arranged at an interval between the first corner portion and the opening adjacent to the first corner portion, and a connecting line between a geometric center of the opening where the first corner portion is located and a geometric center of the opening adjacent to the first corner portion passes through the first corner portion and the spacer.
PNG
media_image4.png
436
448
media_image4.png
Greyscale
Claim 5: the openings (R) having the first corner portion are configured to define the light-emitting regions of the sub-pixels of at least one color (red).
Claim 12: Heo discloses
wherein each of at least two openings closely adjacent to at least one spacer comprises the first corner portion, and the first corner portion of each of the at least two openings is the corner portion of the opening closest to the spacer,
PNG
media_image5.png
436
448
media_image5.png
Greyscale
Wherein each of the plurality of subpixels comprises a light emitting element, the light-emitting element comprises a first electrode (180), a light-emitting layer (122) and a second electrode (110) which are arranged in a stacked manner (FIG. 2),
wherein the second electrode (110) is located at a side of the light-emitting layer facing the base substrate (100) (FIG. 2), and the second electrode comprises a main electrode (the part of 110 not including the connection portion extending from it), and a shape of the main electrode of the sub-pixels corresponding to at least part of the openings having the first corner portion is approximately the same as a shape of the opening (FIG. 1).
Note that all of the shapes of the electrodes 110 and the emission parts R, G, and B (which correspond to the openings) are the same.
Note: the term “main electrode” is not a common term in the art. The examiner understands this to be the part of the electrode close to the light emitting layer.
Claim 14: Heo discloses
14. (Currently Amended) The display substrate according to 1, wherein
the plurality of sub-pixels comprise a plurality of first color sub-pixels (R), a plurality of second color sub-pixels (G) and a plurality of third color sub-pixels (B),
the plurality of first color sub-pixels and the plurality of third color sub-pixels are alternately arranged along both a row direction and a column direction to form a plurality of first pixel rows and a plurality of first pixel columns (FIG. 9D),
the plurality of second color sub-pixels are arranged in an array along both the row direction and the column direction to form a plurality of second pixel rows and a plurality of second pixel columns (FIG. 9D),
the plurality of first pixel rows and the plurality of second pixel rows are alternately arranged along the column direction and staggered from each other in the row direction, and the plurality of first pixel columns and the plurality of second pixel columns are alternately arranged along the row direction and staggered from each other in the column direction (FIG. 9D);
the plurality of openings comprise a plurality of first openings (R), a plurality of second openings (G) and a plurality of third openings (B), wherein the plurality of first openings are configured to define the light-emitting regions of the plurality of first color (red) sub-pixels, the plurality of second openings are configured to define the light-emitting regions of the plurality of second color (green) sub-pixels, and the plurality of third openings are configured to define the light-emitting regions of the plurality of third color (blue) sub-pixels;
at least one of the first opening, the second opening or the third opening comprises the first corner portion (FIG. 9D),
at least part of the plurality of spacers are distributed at the intervals between two adjacent openings arranged along at least one of the column direction or the row direction (FIG. 9D).
Claim 21: a connecting line between corner portions opposite to each other of two openings located at two sides of the spacer (260m) in at least one of the row direction or the column direction and closely adjacent to the spacer is located at a side of a geometric center of the spacer away from the first corner portion.
PNG
media_image6.png
364
508
media_image6.png
Greyscale
Claim 22: two openings adjacent in at least one of the row direction or the column direction both comprise the first corner portion, and the first corner portions of the two openings are two corner portions closest to each other.
PNG
media_image7.png
436
448
media_image7.png
Greyscale
24. (Currently Amended) The display substrate according to claim 1, wherein
a largest size of at least one spacer (260h) in a direction parallel to the connecting line between the geometric center of the opening where the first corner portion is located and the geometric center of the opening adjacent to the first corner portion is a first size, and a largest size of the at least one spacer in a direction perpendicular to the connecting line is a second size, and the first size is smaller than the second size,
PNG
media_image8.png
494
316
media_image8.png
Greyscale
wherein the display substrate comprises a display area, at least part of the plurality of spacers and the plurality of sub-pixels are located in the display area, and a ratio of the number of spacers each located at the interval between the first corner portion and the opening adjacent to the first corner portion to the number of spacers located in the display area is not less than 50%. The spacers 260h are between each R-B pixel pair, and thus the percentage of spacers 260 between the first corner portion (of R) and the opening adjacent to the first corner portion (of B) is 100%.
Claim 26: the light-emitting layers of the sub-pixels of the same color have a same shape and a same size (FIG. 9D), and
a distance between a boundary of the light-emitting layer on the pixel defining layer and the first corner portion corresponding to the light-emitting layer is different from distances between the boundary of the light-emitting layer on the pixel defining layer and other corner portions corresponding to the light-emitting layer.
PNG
media_image9.png
312
502
media_image9.png
Greyscale
Claim 28: Heo discloses a display apparatus (“display device”, abstract), comprising the display substrate according to claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou in view of Heo.
Claim 12: Zhou discloses
wherein each of at least two openings closely adjacent to at least one spacer comprises the first corner portion, and the first corner portion of each of the at least two openings is the corner portion of the opening closest to the spacer (FIG. 10),
Wherein each of the plurality of subpixels comprises a light emitting element, the light-emitting element comprises a first electrode, a light-emitting layer and a second electrode which are arranged in a stacked manner (“Organic light emitting display device is a self-emissive display device of organic light emitting diode (OLED), organic light emitting diode (OLED) includes a hole injection electrode, an electron injection electrode, and an organic emission layer formed therebetween.” [0002]),
Zhou does not show the electrodes, and thus does not disclose their shape or arrangement. However, what is claimed was well-known in the art. See Heo, which discloses a second electrode (110) is located at a side of the light-emitting layer facing the base substrate (100) (FIG. 2), and the second electrode comprises a main electrode (the part of 110 not including the connection portion extending from it), and a shape of the main electrode of the sub-pixels corresponding to at least part of the openings having the first corner portion is approximately the same as a shape of the opening (FIG. 1). Note that all of the shapes of the electrodes 110 and the emission parts R, G, and B (which correspond to the openings) are the same. It would have been obvious to have had these same shapes as a space saving measure and in order not to waste electrode material.
Note: the term “main electrode” is not a common term in the art. The examiner understands this to be the part of the electrode close to the light emitting layer.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16 and 17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. The examiner did not find the claimed arrangements and spacings of the pixels and spacers, in light of the overall claimed invention.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and is listed in the attached Notice of References Cited.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PETER BRADFORD whose telephone number is (571)270-1596. The examiner can normally be reached 10:30-6:30.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jacob Choi can be reached at 469.295.9060. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/PETER BRADFORD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2897