DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention III in the reply filed on 6/1/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 9 and 18 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 6/1/2026.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 103
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(s) 1, 2, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hashimoto (KR20190037177A) in view of Tsukamoto (US2022/0045039A1).
Hashimoto discloses the claimed invention as follows (limitations not disclosed by Hashimoto are crossed out, below):
Claim 1. A light-emitting element transfer system (1, Fig. and 5) comprising:
a raw film cutting device (7, Figs. 5 and 8) configured to form a transfer member by cutting a raw film (Ah);
a circuit board support member (4, Figs. 1 and 5) configured to support a circuit board (S); and
a transport head (5, Figs. 1 and 5) configured to adsorb the transfer member and transfer the light-emitting elements on the transfer film onto the circuit board by using the adsorbed transfer member (see Fig. 1).
Claim 2. The light-emitting element transfer system of claim 1, wherein the transfer member includes a base layer and a stamp layer, which is disposed on one surface of the base layer, and the stamp layer is formed of an adhesive or sticky material. The limitations in italics are drawn to the structure of the transfer member, and do not further limit the structure of the system.
Claim 19. The light-emitting element transfer system of claim 1, wherein each of the light- emitting elements includes an n-type semiconductor, an active layer, a p-type semiconductor, a first contact electrode, and a second contact electrode.
Claim 20. The light-emitting element transfer system of claim 1, wherein the circuit board includes flux applied to one surface thereof.
Hashimoto discloses the claimed invention, except for the claimed stretching device.
However, it is known in the art to provide such stretching devices, to increase the spacing between semiconductor devices to a desired vale, prior to further processing. See for example Figs. 5A1 to 5B2 of Tsukamoto, showing how a transfer film 919 with semiconductor devices thereon is stretched using the device including 921 and 924. Components can then be picked up for subsequent steps.
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found it obvious to modify the apparatus of Hashimoto to include such a stretching device, to set a proper spacing between the elements E, when disposed on the film Ac, with predictable results.
Claim(s) 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hashimoto and Tsukamoto, further in view of Wang (US20140110469A1).
Hashimoto as modified above renders obvious the claimed invention, except for the limitations of claims 16 and 17.
Wang discloses a glass substrate handling system including cassettes 10 for holding glass substrates 30 such as for display panel manufacturing. The forklift can move horizontally as well as vertically to move substrates to and from cassettes 10.
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found it obvious to modify the apparatus of modified Hashimoto to include cassettes for storing glass substrates such as C and S, and to further provide a forklift system capable of transporting such substrates to and from cassettes as necessary, with predictable results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 21-23 are allowed.
Claims 3-8 and 9-15 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.
Conclusion
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/LIVIUS R. CAZAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3729
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