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 .
Claim Status
Claims 1-3 are pending:
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 03/16/2023 is/are being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because
Reference characters not shown:
11, 12, 13
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 § 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon (US 2021/0146476) in view of Park (US 2021/0122673) and Kumar (US 2016/0158886).
Claim 1
Kwon discloses:
“A method of processing a … panel (best seen Fig3, substrate 7) comprising a … substrate (best seen Fig3, wafer 71) and a … layer (best seen Fig3, circuit layer 73) disposed on one surface of the glass substrate (best seen Fig3, circuit layer is disposed on the bottom surface of wafer 71) …, the method comprising:
a deformed portion formation step in which (Fig1B, S2; Para66 Bessel beam is used; Para44/Fig3, laser 1 is used to form an internal weak region in focal region G), in order to process the … substrate (best seen Fig3, weak region at focal G is processed in wafer 71), a deformed portion (best seen Fig3, weak region at focal G is in wafer 71) is formed inside the … substrate through irradiation with a Bessel beam (Fig3/Para66 Bessel beam is used) along a planned processing line on the … substrate (Fig3/6-8, focal region G is along planned crack lines G’ and G’’ that eventually lead to the crack between separated substrate sections 81/83 – separation best see Fig8); and
…
wherein, in the deformed portion formation step, irradiation with the Bessel beam (Fig3/Para66 Bessel beam is used) is performed with half or more of the overall length of the Bessel beam positioned at the … substrate side with respect to an interface between the … substrate and the … layer (Para44/Fig3, more than half of the Bessel beam height is positioned at the bottom interface between wafer 71 and circuit layer 73, see height of laser ray L1/L1’ overlap between focal points X3/X1).”
Kwon is silent to a required material for either wafer 71 or circuit layer 73. Kwon suggests (Para34) that circuit layer 73 include circuitry.
Kumar teaches (Fig6, layers n.1/2, laser formed weak regions 68; Para113, weak laser L may be formed using the Bessel laser profile; Para103, possible layers are optical display and a flow of glass) that it is known in the art to form a combination of a glass layer on top of an optical display layer that has internal weak regions formed via a laser (Fig5a laser 12 forms weak regions 24/26/28/30 in Fig5b) prior to separation (Fig5i film 14 has opening 66).
Park teaches (Fig1, S110 internal deformation, S120 surface etching; Para35, Bessel laser; Fig2a, Bessel laser L formed internal deformation region M of glass substrate 10; Para46/47,Fig2b/c, glass substrate 10 is etched from the external surfaces inwards towards internal deformation region M) that it is a known in the art glass substrate separation method to submerge the internally deformed glass substrate into an etching solution 60 in order to etch the glass substrate in a direction from the outer surfaces of the glass substrate towards the internal deformed region M such that deformed region M is removed at a much higher etching removal rate.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the arrangement of Kwon to select an upper glass layer for the wafer 71 subcomponent and to select an optical display layer for the circuit layer 73 of Kwon as Kumar teaches that the glass layer on optical display layer stacked layer arrangement is a known in the art combination of layers in the art of internal material weaking via Bessel lasers, and such a layer material selection would have to be made by one of ordinary skill in the art in order to actually practice the disclosure of Kwon; and it would have been obvious to substitute the grinding material removal method step of Kwon for the etching material removal step as taught by Park and as mapped above, as such a substitution would merely be a simple substitution one known in the art material removal method for another, and the resulting arrangement the reasonable expectation of successfully providing Kwon with known in the art substrate layer material selections as taught by Kumar with known in the art final material removal step of etching as taught by Park in order to separate the component parts 81/83 of Kwon, and as a result of placing an optical display layer adjacent to the glass layer, the etching eats through the glass layer in the direction from the top of the glass layer inwards towards the interface surface between the glass layer and the optical display layer.
Claim 3
The modified arrangement of Kwon by the teachings of Park and Kumar discloses: “The method according to claim 1, wherein, in the deformed portion generating step, irradiation with the Bessel beam (Kwon: Fig3/Para66 Bessel beam is used) is performed such that the deformed portion (Kwon: Fig3, weak region at focal region G in wafer 71) is formed to a length smaller than a thickness of the glass substrate (Kwon: Fig3/4, height of weak region at focal region G is smaller than the thickness of wafer 71; glass property is disclosed by the combination as discussed in claim 1).”
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon (US 2021/0146476) in view of Park (US 2021/0122673) and Kumar (US 2016/0158886), in further view of Zhang (US 11,112,634)
Claim 2
The modified arrangement of Kwon by the teachings of Park and Kumar discloses the arrangement of Claim 1.
The modified arrangement of Kwon by the teachings of Park and Kumar is silent to any explicit discussion regarding reflectance.
Zang teaches (Abstract, C4L29-42) that it is known to have the glass substrate of a display device to have a lower refraction index relative to the display layer in order to result increase the visual transmittance of the display layer through the glass substrate due to reduced glass substrate reflectance.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to ensure that the refraction index of the glass substrate of the modified arrangement of Kwon by the teachings of Park and Kumar is less than the refraction index of the display layer of modified arrangement of Kwon by the teachings of Park and Kumar, as Zang teaches such a selection provides the advantage of improved visual transmittance of the display layer through the glass substrate, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have to make such a refraction index material property selection in order to actually practice the disclosure of the modified arrangement of Kwon by the teachings of Park and Kumar, and the resulting arrangement has the reasonable expectation of successfully providing the modified arrangement of Kwon by the teachings of Park and Kumar with improved visual clarity of the display layer through the glass substrate due to reduced glass substrate reflectance.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN HUNTER JR whose telephone number is (571)272-5093. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-18.
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/JOHN S HUNTER, JR/Examiner, Art Unit 3761