DETAILED ACTION
This correspondence is in response to the communications received October 30, 2023. Claims 1-20 are pending.
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 .
Applicant’s Claim to Figure Comparison
It is noted that this comparison is merely for the benefit of reviewers of this office action during prosecution, to allow for an understanding of the examiner’s interpretation of the Applicant’s independent claims as compared to disclosed embodiments in Applicant’s Figures. No response or comments are necessary from Applicant.
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Regarding claim 1, the Applicant discloses in Fig. 3, a display panel, comprising:
a driving backplane (100), comprising a base substrate (101, ¶ 0057);
a light-emitting device (200) on a side of the driving backplane;
a package structure (800) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the light- emitting device,
wherein the package structure comprises an inorganic package structure (300) and an organic package structure (400),
the inorganic package structure (300) being closer to the driving backplane (100) than the organic package structure (400); and
a color stop layer (500) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure,
wherein the color stop layer (500) is attached to the inorganic package structure (connects to 300), and
in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate, a maximum thickness of the organic package structure is less than a thickness of the inorganic package structure (400 less thick than 300).
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, 9-11, 16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ha et al. (US 2020/0280023) in view of Kim et al. (US 12,501,770) in view of Lee et al. (US 2022/0077427).
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Regarding claim 1, the prior art of Ha discloses in Figs. 1B, 2 and 3, a display panel (see title, “DISPLAY DEVICE”), comprising:
a driving backplane (“base member BS”, ¶ 0050, which includes the Fig. 3’s “TFT”, where Fig. 2, shows the TFT that is connected to ED in Fig. 2, is identified as ‘TFT2’, which is described in ¶ 0059, as “a driving thin film transistor TFT2”. Therefore, the functional purpose of the TFT in the backplane is for “driving” the light emitting layer), comprising a base substrate (“base layer SUB”, ¶ 0065);
a light-emitting device (“light emitting element ED”, ¶ 0075) on a side of the driving backplane (ED on top surface side of BS);
a package structure (“sealing member EN”, ¶ 0050) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the light-emitting device (EN is on a side away from BS of ED),
wherein the package structure (EN) comprises an inorganic package structure (“first inorganic layer IOL1”, ¶ 0099, so the thickness of IOL1 “is about 0.5 µm to about 1.5 µm”) and an organic package structure (“the organic layer OL”, ¶ 0101, where this layer has a thickness of, “from about 0.5 μm to about 1.3 μm”),
the inorganic package structure (portion IOL1 of EN) being closer to the driving backplane (closer to BS) than the organic package structure (portion OL of EN is farther away from BS than IOL1); and
in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate (vertical direction), a maximum thickness of the organic package structure is less than a thickness of the inorganic package structure (from ¶ 0099, the maximum possible thickness of OL that is 1.3 μm, is a thickness that is less than the possible maximum thickness of IOL1 that is 1.5 µm).
Ha does not disclose,
“a color stop layer on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure,
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure”.
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Kim discloses in Fig. 3,
a color stop layer (layer of materials including QD1, QD2, col. 12, line 51 to col. 13, line 9. The “color stop” meaning has been interpreted as a layer that manipulates the light emitting from OLED into a final wavelength output as desired by the display designer, hereinafter referred to as ‘CSL’) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure (CSL on opposite side of the equivalent organic layer 520 away from backplane equivalent with base 100 and TFT T1),
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure (CSL attaches to 510 by way of at least equivalent organic layer 520. This is the same configuration as presented by Applicant, so this configuration appears to be both satisfied by the literal reading of the claim language and by the supporting disclosure of the figures).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“a color stop layer on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure,
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure”, as disclosed by Kim in the system of Ha, for the purpose of protecting the active light emitting devices from external environment and mechanical damage, and further for the purpose of manipulating the light emitted from OLED into a final wavelength output as desired by the display designer. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Second, Ha does not disclose,
“A display panel” (the preamble).
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Lee discloses in Fig. 1,
a display panel (“display panel 100”, ¶ 0074).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“a display panel”, as disclosed by Lee in the system of Ha, for the purpose of providing a full device package and electrical system to support the display device. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 9, the prior art of Ha et al. disclose the display panel according to claim 1, and Ha discloses in Fig. 3, wherein both the light-emitting device (ED) and the color stop layer (combined teaching with Kim showing in Fig. 3, a color stop layer QD1, QD2 over the emitting devices 300) are disposed in a display region of the display panel (DA, col. 11, lines 28-29), and in the display region, the organic package structure covers the inorganic package structure (in display region of Ha, OL covers IOL1).
Regarding claim 10, the prior art of Ha et al. disclose the display panel according to claim 9, wherein in the display region, a face, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure is parallel to the base substrate (the face of OL of Ha, which faces away from BS, and is parallel with surfaces of BS).
Regarding claim 11, the prior art of Ha et al. disclose the display panel according to claim 1, further comprising:
a pixel definition layer (PDL, “pixel defining film PDL”, ¶ 0054), a first electrode layer (“first electrode EL1”, ¶ 0075), a light-emitting functional layer (“the intermediate layer CL may include a light emitting layer EML.”, ¶ 0091), and a second electrode layer (“a second electrode EL2”, ¶ 0075);
wherein the first electrode layer comprises a plurality of first electrodes electrically connected to the driving backplane (looking to Fig. 1B, each pixel has a light emitting element and a corresponding TFT to drive that light emitting element, so an array of these pixels, include a plurality of first electrode layers that connect to the corresponding TFT of the backplace); and
the pixel definition layer comprises a plurality of pixel openings in one-to-one correspondence to the plurality of first electrodes (PDL for each 300), wherein portions, in the same pixel opening, of the plurality of first electrodes, the light-emitting functional layer, and the second electrode layer form the light-emitting device (300 composed of EL1, CL and EL2).
Regarding claim 16, the prior art of Ha et al. disclose the display panel according to claim 12,
wherein a plurality of light-emitting devices are defined in the display panel (Ha discloses in Figs. 1B and 3, where each pixel includes a light emitting device ED and an array of pixels is shown), and the color stop layer comprises a plurality of color stop blocks in one-to-one correspondence to the plurality of light-emitting devices (the combination rejection of claim 1 shows that the pixels can utilize a color filter as shown by Kim in Fig. 3, as layers QD1, QD2),
wherein an overlapped region is present between an orthogonal projection of each of the plurality of color stop blocks on the driving backplane and an orthogonal projection of corresponding light-emitting device on the driving backplane (the color filters are on the outgoing emission direction of the panel, and are also above the light emitters, which are on the driving TFTs).
Regarding claim 18, the prior art of Ha et al. disclose the display panel according to claim 12, and Ha discloses in Fig. 3,
wherein the driving backplane (BS) further comprises:
a plurality of pixel driving circuits (TFT per pixel) on the side of the base substrate (SUB) that are electrically connected to the plurality of first electrodes (EL1) in one-to-one correspondence (one TFT per EL1 of the plurality of pixels in the display).
Regarding claim 19, the prior art of Ha discloses in Figs. 2 and 3, a method of manufacturing a display panel (see title, “DISPLAY DEVICE”), comprising:
forming a light-emitting device (“light emitting element ED”, ¶ 0075) on a side of a driving backplane (“base member BS”, ¶ 0050, which includes the Fig. 3’s “TFT”, where Fig. 2, shows the TFT that is connected to ED in Fig. 2, is identified as ‘TFT2’, which is described in ¶ 0059, as “a driving thin film transistor TFT2”. Therefore, the functional purpose of the TFT in the backplane is for “driving” the light emitting layer);
forming a package structure (“sealing member EN”, ¶ 0050) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the light-emitting device (EN is on a side away from BS of ED),
wherein the package structure (EN) comprises an inorganic package structure (“first inorganic layer IOL1”, ¶ 0099, so the thickness of IOL1 “is about 0.5 µm to about 1.5 µm”) and an organic package structure (“the organic layer OL”, ¶ 0101, where this layer has a thickness of, “from about 0.5 μm to about 1.3 μm”),
the inorganic package structure (portion IOL1 of EN) being closer to the driving backplane (closer to BS) than the organic package structure (portion OL of EN is farther away from BS than IOL1); and
the driving backplane (“base member BS”, ¶ 0050, which includes the Fig. 3’s “TFT”, where Fig. 2, shows the TFT that is connected to ED in Fig. 2, is identified as ‘TFT2’, which is described in ¶ 0059, as “a driving thin film transistor TFT2”. Therefore, the functional purpose of the TFT in the backplane is for “driving” the light emitting layer) comprises a base substrate (“base layer SUB”, ¶ 0065);
in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate (vertical direction), a maximum thickness of the organic package structure is less than a thickness of the inorganic package structure (from ¶ 0099, the maximum possible thickness of OL that is 1.3 μm, is a thickness that is less than the possible maximum thickness of IOL1 that is 1.5 µm).
First, Ha does not disclose,
“forming a color stop layer on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure,
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure, the driving backplane comprises a base substrate”.
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Kim discloses in Fig. 3,
forming a color stop layer (layer of materials including QD1, QD2, col. 12, line 51 to col. 13, line 9. The “color stop” meaning has been interpreted as a layer that manipulates the light emitting from OLED into a final wavelength output as desired by the display designer, hereinafter referred to as ‘CSL’) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure (CSL on opposite side of the equivalent organic layer 520 away from backplane equivalent with base 100 and TFT T1),
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure (CSL attaches to 510 by way of at least equivalent organic layer 520. This is the same configuration as presented by Applicant, so this configuration appears to be both satisfied by the literal reading of the claim language and by the supporting disclosure of the figures).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“forming a color stop layer on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure,
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure”, as disclosed by Kim in the system of Ha, for the purpose of protecting the active light emitting devices from external environment and mechanical damage, and further for the purpose of manipulating the light emitted from OLED into a final wavelength output as desired by the display designer. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Second, Ha does not disclose,
“a power supply assembly, and
a display panel electrically connected to the power supply assembly”.
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Lee discloses in Fig. 1,
a power supply assembly (element 200, “the display driving circuit 200 may supply a power voltage to the power line, and may supply scan control signals to the scan driver. The display driving circuit 200 may be formed as an integrated circuit (IC), and may be mounted on the display panel 100”, ¶ 0074), and
a display panel (“display panel 100”, ¶ 0074) electrically connected to the power supply assembly (connected to 200).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“a power supply assembly, and
a display panel electrically connected to the power supply assembly”, as disclosed by Lee in the system of Ha, for the purpose of providing a means of powering the display. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 20, the prior art of Ha discloses in Figs. 2 and 3, a display panel (see title, “DISPLAY DEVICE”), comprising:
a driving backplane (“base member BS”, ¶ 0050, which includes the Fig. 3’s “TFT”, where Fig. 2, shows the TFT that is connected to ED in Fig. 2, is identified as ‘TFT2’, which is described in ¶ 0059, as “a driving thin film transistor TFT2”. Therefore, the functional purpose of the TFT in the backplane is for “driving” the light emitting layer), comprising a base substrate (“base layer SUB”, ¶ 0065);
a light-emitting device (“light emitting element ED”, ¶ 0075) on a side of the driving backplane (ED on top surface side of BS);
a package structure (“sealing member EN”, ¶ 0050) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the light-emitting device (EN is on a side away from BS of ED),
wherein the package structure (EN) comprises an inorganic package structure (“first inorganic layer IOL1”, ¶ 0099, so the thickness of IOL1 “is about 0.5 µm to about 1.5 µm”) and an organic package structure (“the organic layer OL”, ¶ 0101, where this layer has a thickness of, “from about 0.5 μm to about 1.3 μm”),
the inorganic package structure (portion IOL1 of EN) being closer to the driving backplane (closer to BS) than the organic package structure (portion OL of EN is farther away from BS than IOL1); and
in a direction perpendicular to the base substrate (vertical direction), a maximum thickness of the organic package structure is less than a thickness of the inorganic package structure (from ¶ 0099, the maximum possible thickness of OL that is 1.3 μm, is a thickness that is less than the possible maximum thickness of IOL1 that is 1.5 µm).
First, Ha does not disclose,
“a color stop layer on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure,
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure”.
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Kim discloses in Fig. 3,
forming a color stop layer (layer of materials including QD1, QD2, col. 12, line 51 to col. 13, line 9. The “color stop” meaning has been interpreted as a layer that manipulates the light emitting from OLED into a final wavelength output as desired by the display designer, hereinafter referred to as ‘CSL’) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure (CSL on opposite side of the equivalent organic layer 520 away from backplane equivalent with base 100 and TFT T1),
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure (CSL attaches to 510 by way of at least equivalent organic layer 520. This is the same configuration as presented by Applicant, so this configuration appears to be both satisfied by the literal reading of the claim language and by the supporting disclosure of the figures).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“forming a color stop layer on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the organic package structure,
wherein the color stop layer is attached to the inorganic package structure”, as disclosed by Kim in the system of Ha, for the purpose of protecting the active light emitting devices from external environment and mechanical damage, and further for the purpose of manipulating the light emitted from OLED into a final wavelength output as desired by the display designer. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Second, Ha does not disclose,
“a display panel,
[wherein the display panel comprises:]”.
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Lee discloses in Fig. 1,
a power supply assembly (element 200, “the display driving circuit 200 may supply a power voltage to the power line, and may supply scan control signals to the scan driver. The display driving circuit 200 may be formed as an integrated circuit (IC), and may be mounted on the display panel 100”, ¶ 0074), and
a display panel (“display panel 100”, ¶ 0074) electrically connected to the power supply assembly (connected to 200).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“a display panel,
[wherein the display panel comprises:]”, as disclosed by Lee in the system of Ha, for the purpose of providing a full device package and electrical system to support the display device. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 9-11, 19, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ha et al. (US 2020/0280023) in view of Kim et al. (US 12,501,770) in view of Lee et al. (US 2022/0077427) in view of Ouyang et al. (US 2021/0391398).
Regarding claim 12, the prior art of Ha et al. disclose the display panel according to claim 11, however Ha does not disclose the thickness of the light emitting layer, so then Ha cannot disclose, “wherein in the direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the maximum thickness of the organic package structure is less than a thickness of the light-emitting functional layer.”
Ouyang discloses in paragraph 0053, “the light emitting layer 7 is an organic light emitting material, and the thickness thereof is preferably 0.2 μm to 0.5 μm.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“wherein in the direction perpendicular to the base substrate, the maximum thickness of the organic package structure is less than a thickness of the light-emitting functional layer.”, as disclosed by Ouyang in the system of Ha, for the purpose of providing proportionally appropriately sized emitting film and a protective material layer that can protect but also allow efficient light emission. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Claims 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ha et al. (US 2020/0280023) in view of Kim et al. (US 12,501,770) in view of Lee et al. (US 2022/0077427) in view of Suzuki et al. (US 2022/0115629).
Regarding claim 17, the prior art of Ha et al. disclose the display panel according to claim 16, however Ha does not disclose,
“further comprising:
a plurality of micro-lenses on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the color stop layer,
wherein the plurality of micro-lenses are in one-to-one correspondence to the plurality of light- emitting devices, and
an overlapped region is present between an orthogonal projection of each of the plurality of micro-lenses on the driving backplane and an orthogonal projection of corresponding light-emitting device on the driving backplane.”
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Suzuki discloses in Fig. 11,
further comprising:
a plurality of micro-lenses (“lens member 50”, ¶ 0147, “The lens member (on-chip micro lens)”, ¶ 0062) on a side, facing away from the driving backplane (11 with transistors 20), of the color stop layer (CFR, CRG, CRB, etc.),
wherein the plurality of micro-lenses (plural 50) are in one-to-one correspondence to the plurality of light-emitting devices (vertically coincide with one emitter of 31, 32, 33), and
an overlapped region is present between an orthogonal projection of each of the plurality of micro-lenses (50) on the driving backplane (11 with transistors 20) and an orthogonal projection of corresponding light-emitting device on the driving backplane (emitter of 31, 32, 33 on 11 with transistors 20).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to use the limitation of,
“further comprising:
a plurality of micro-lenses on a side, facing away from the driving backplane, of the color stop layer,
wherein the plurality of micro-lenses are in one-to-one correspondence to the plurality of light- emitting devices, and
an overlapped region is present between an orthogonal projection of each of the plurality of micro-lenses on the driving backplane and an orthogonal projection of corresponding light-emitting device on the driving backplane.”, as disclosed by Suzuki in the system of Ha, for the purpose of improving the light output by focusing the emissions. (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-8 and 13-15 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.
“2. (Original) The display panel according to claim 1, wherein the inorganic package structure comprises:
a first inorganic package structure and a second inorganic package structure that are laminated, and
a compactness of the second inorganic package structure is greater than a compactness of the first inorganic package structure.”
Claims 3-8 have been objected to, due to their dependence upon claim 2.
“13. (Original) The display panel according to claim 11, wherein the organic package structure comprises:
a first organic package structure and a second organic package structure, wherein an orthogonal projection of the first organic package structure on the driving backplane is within an orthogonal projection of the first electrode layer on the driving backplane,
an overlapped region is present between an orthogonal projection of the second organic package structure on the driving backplane and an orthogonal projection of the pixel definition layer on the base substrate, and
in the direction perpendicular to the base substrate, a thickness of the first organic package structure is greater than or equal to a thickness of the second organic package structure.”
Claims 14 and 15 have been objected to, due to their dependence upon claim 13.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Eduardo A Rodela whose telephone number is (571)272-8797. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8:30-5:00pm ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yara B Green can be reached on (571) 270-3035. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/EDUARDO A RODELA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2893