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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 3/12/24 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 1-9 and 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dai et al., CN 111900188.
Regarding claim 1, Dai teaches a display base plate, comprising a plurality of sub-pixels (see Figure 4 and Abstract), the display base plate comprises: a substrate (31), and a pixel defining layer (311) disposed at a side of the substrate, wherein the pixel defining layer comprises a first retaining wall (312), a second retaining wall (313) and a third retaining wall (315); wherein the first retaining wall and the second retaining wall are configured to form an opening area of the sub-pixel (314; the third retaining wall is disposed at a side of the first retaining wall facing away from the substrate (see Figure 10), and an orthographic projection of the third retaining wall on the substrate is located within a range of an orthographic projection of the first retaining wall on the substrate (id); a surface of a side of the first retaining wall away from the substrate is higher than a surface of a side of the second retaining wall away from the substrate (top of 312 is higher than top of 313), and is lower than a surface of a side the third retaining wall away from the substrate (top of 312 is lower than top of 315). Dai does not specifically teach that the first retaining walls separate subpixels of different colors and the second retaining walls separate subpixels of the same color. However, Dai does teach that ink may be formed in the subpixel openings over the second retaining walls (313, see Figure 6) such that ink flows into adjacent subpixels separated by the second retaining wall. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing that the subpixels separated by the second retaining wall would be subpixels of the same color, and subpixels separated by the first retaining wall would be subpixels of different colors.
Regarding claim 2, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further teaches in the row direction, the orthographic projection of the third retaining wall on the substrate is located within the range of the orthographic projection of the first retaining wall on the substrate (see Figure 4). Dai does not specifically teach that same color pixels are arranged along a column direction. However, Dai does teach that ink may be formed in the subpixel openings over the second retaining walls (313, see Figure 6) such that ink flows into adjacent subpixels separated by the second retaining wall. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing that the subpixels separated by the second retaining wall would be subpixels of the same color, and subpixels separated by the first retaining wall would be subpixels of different colors.
Regarding claim 3, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 2 and further teaches wherein in the row direction, the orthographic projection of the third retaining wall on the substrate is located within the middle of the orthographic projection of the first retaining wall on the substrate (315 is in the middle of 312, see Figure 4).
Regarding claim 4, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 2 and further teaches wherein in the column direction, the orthographic projection of the third retaining wall (315) on the substrate is located within a range of an orthographic projection of the second retaining wall (313) on the substrate (see Figure 4); or, in the column direction, the orthographic projection of the third retaining wall (315) on the substrate completely overlaps with an orthographic projection of the second retaining wall (313) on the substrate (id at Figure 4); or, in the column direction, the orthographic projection of the third retaining wall on the substrate covers an orthographic projection of the second retaining wall on the substrate (id at Figure 4).
Regarding claim 5, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 2 and further teaches wherein in the column direction, the orthographic projection of the third retaining wall on the substrate covers an orthographic projection of the opening area on the substrate (see Figure 12, orthographic projection of 315 covers at least part of opening formed by 312).
Regarding claim 6, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 2 and further teaches wherein the third retaining walls respectively located at sides of the two adjacent first retaining walls facing away from the substrate are arranged symmetrically with respect to the symmetry axis; wherein an extension direction of the symmetry axis is the column direction, and the two first retaining walls are disposed adjacent to each other in the row direction (see Figure 4, first retaining walls 312 and third retaining walls 315).
Regarding claim 7, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 2 and further teaches wherein a plurality of the third retaining walls (315) are spaced apart from each other in the column direction (see Figure 4), and a space between the two adjacent third retaining walls is larger than or equal to a size of the opening area of at least one sub-pixel (equal to the size of the opening 314).
Regarding claim 8, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 7 and further teaches wherein in the column direction, the space between the two adjacent third retaining walls is less than or equal to the size of ten sub-pixels (Figure 4, space between two adjacent 315 walls is less than the size of ten sub-pixels).
Regarding claim 9, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 2. Further, it is the position of the examiner that lacking criticality and unexpected results, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to optimize the distance between the orthographic projection boundary of the third retaining wall and the orthographic projection boundary of the first retaining wall, in order to ensure no cross color contamination, while ensuring as much light emission as possible from each sub-pixel.
Regarding claim 11, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further teaches wherein the first retaining wall comprises a first material layer and a second material layer (see Figure 9, layers 3121 and 3122) which are disposed in a stacked manner, and the second material layer is located at a side of the first material layer facing away from the substrate (id at Figure 9); wherein the first material layer has a lyophilic property and the second material layer has a lyophobic property (see Spec regarding description of first embodiment, first material of first retaining wall, and material of second retaining wall are both lyophilic, and second material of first retaining wall, along with material of third retaining wall, are lyophobic).
Regarding claim 12, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further teaches the second retaining wall has a lyophilic property (see Spec regarding description of first embodiment, first material of first retaining wall, and material of second retaining wall are both lyophilic, and second material of first retaining wall, along with material of third retaining wall, are lyophobic).
Regarding claim 13, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further teaches at least part of the third retaining wall has a lyophobic property (see Spec regarding description of first embodiment, first material of first retaining wall, and material of second retaining wall are both lyophilic, and second material of first retaining wall, along with material of third retaining wall, are lyophobic).
Regarding claim 14, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further teaches the display base plate further comprises an organic material layer (316, see Figure 9) disposed in the opening area; a surface of a side of the organic material layer facing away from the substrate is higher than a surface of the side of the second retaining wall away from the substrate (see Figures 9 and 10, organic material layer is higher than second retaining wall 313), and is lower than a surface of the side of the first retaining wall away from the substrate (lower than 312).
Regarding claim 15, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further it is the position of the examiner that lacking criticality or unexpected results, it would have been an obvious matter of routine experimentation and design choice to optimize the relative height of each retaining wall in order to prevent unwanted color crossing while still allowing for the maximum brightness and efficiency from each sub-pixel.
Regarding claim 16, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 2 and further it is the position of the examiner that lacking criticality or unexpected results, it would have been an obvious matter of routine experimentation and design choice to optimize the relative thickness of each retaining wall in order to prevent unwanted color crossing while still allowing for the maximum brightness and efficiency from each sub-pixel.
Regarding claim 17, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further teaches the orthographic projection shape of the third retaining wall on the substrate comprises at least one of the following: a triangle, a rectangle, a square, a diamond, a trapezoid, a parallelogram, an ellipse and a circle (see Figures 10-12, rectangle, trapezoid).
Regarding claim 18, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 1 and further teaches a display device (Abstract).
Regarding claim 19, Dai teaches a preparation method of a display base plate, wherein the display base plate comprises a plurality of sub-pixels, the preparation method comprises: providing a substrate (Figure 3, substrate 31); forming a pixel defining layer (311, see Figure 4) on a side of the substrate, wherein the pixel defining layer comprises a first retaining wall (312), a second retaining wall (313) and a third retaining wall (315); wherein the first retaining wall and the second retaining wall are configured to form an opening area of the sub-pixel (314), the third retaining wall is disposed on a side of the first retaining wall facing away from the substrate (see Figure 10), and an orthographic projection of the third retaining wall on the substrate is within a range of an orthographic projection of the first retaining wall on the substrate (id at Figure 10); a surface of a side of the first retaining wall away from the substrate is higher than a surface of a side of the second retaining wall away from the substrate (see Figure 10, top of 312 is higher than top of 313), and is lower than a surface of a side of the third retaining wall away from the substrate (top of 312 is lower than top of 315). Dai does not specifically teach that the first retaining walls separate subpixels of different colors and the second retaining walls separate subpixels of the same color. However, Dai does teach that ink may be formed in the subpixel openings over the second retaining walls (313, see Figure 6) such that ink flows into adjacent subpixels separated by the second retaining wall. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing that the subpixels separated by the second retaining wall would be subpixels of the same color, and subpixels separated by the first retaining wall would be subpixels of different colors.
Regarding claim 20, Dai teaches the invention as explained above regarding claim 19 and further teaches the step of forming the pixel defining layer on the side of the substrate comprises: by adopting a one-time patterning process, synchronously forming the first retaining wall, the second retaining wall and the third retaining wall at a side of the substrate (see Spec regarding Figure 8, indicating that the patterning may take place separately or simultaneously); or, by adopting a first patterning process, synchronously forming the first retaining wall and the second retaining wall at a side of the substrate, and by adopting a second patterning process, forming the third retaining wall at a side of the first retaining wall facing away from the substrate (id); or, by adopting three patterning processes respectively, forming the second retaining wall, the first retaining wall and the third retaining wall sequentially on a side of the substrate (id).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dai in view of Hou, CN 108010954.
Regarding claim 10, Dai teaches the invention as explained above, and further teaches the materials of the retaining walls are photoresist (see Spec regarding Figure 8, mask and exposure and development process, which necessarily means the material is a photoresist). Dai further teaches the material of the first and third retaining walls are more lyophobic than the material of the second retaining wall (see Spec regarding first embodiment of the invention, the bottom portion of the first retaining wall, and the entire second retaining wall are formed of lyophilic material, but the top portion of the first retaining wall, and all of the third retaining wall, are formed of lyophobic material). Dai is silent as to the photoresist material being fluorinated.
However, in the same field of endeavor of display devices, Hou teaches that fluorine increases the lyophobic property of a material layer (see Spec regarding Figure 6). Further, it would have been well known to those of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing that fluorine would increase the lyophobicity of a photoresist material. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to utilize a fluorinated photoresist for the material of the first and third retaining walls in the Dai device in order to increase the lyophobicity relative to the second retaining wall.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Hou et al., CN 104282729 teaches a display device comprising a lyophilic and lyophobic pixel defining layer, but fails to teach a third barrier wall within the pixel defining layer.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARY-ELLEN BOWMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5383. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday; 7:00 am-5:00 pm.
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, James Greece can be reached at (571) 272-3711. 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.
MARY ELLEN BOWMAN
Examiner
Art Unit 2875
/MARY ELLEN BOWMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2875