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 .
Applicant’s election without traverse of the invention Group I and identified claims 1-13 in the reply filed on 04/01/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 14-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.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 04/01/2026.
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.
Claims 1-7, 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over FANG et al. (US 20120161148 A1; hereafter FANG) in view of Ichikawa et al. (US 20150048398 A1).
As of Claim 1: FANG teaches a nanorod light-emitting device comprising: a semiconductor light-emitting structure having a nanorod shape (¶0030 and note that plurality of nanorod structures 112 ); and an epitaxial passivation layer provided on the surface activation layer (¶0027 and note that a lateral epitaxial growth process is performed to form a nitride semiconductor layer 120 on the patterned nitride semiconductor layer 102a (the nanorod structures 112 and the block patterns 110), in which a plurality of nanopores 122 are formed between the nitride semiconductor layer 120 and the patterned nitride semiconductor layer 102a).
Ichikawa is a similar or analogous system to the claimed invention as evidenced Ichikawa teaches would have prompted a predictable variation of FANG by applying Ichikawa’s known principal of a surface activation layer provided on a sidewall of the semiconductor light- emitting structure (¶¶0038,0047,0062-0063 and note that surface activation that is not dependent on the sputter device, a heating process and an optical cleaning process or the like by the use of irradiation with ultraviolet rays and ozone are proposed. These processes for surface activation may be carried out only on either one of the light-emitting element 1 and the wavelength conversion member 7, or may be carried out on both of them, and selection may be properly carried out depending on the kinds of materials for use in forming the substrate 2 of the light emitting element 1 and the wavelength conversion member 7).
In view of the motivations such firmly bonding to the semiconductor thereby provide a light-emitting device that is provided with an optical member firmly bonded to a semiconductor light-emitting element (hereinafter, referred to as a light-emitting element) and has a high light extraction efficiency and one of ordinary skill in the art would have implemented the claimed variation of the prior art system of FANG.
Therefore, the claimed invention would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
As of Claim 2: FANG in view of Ichikawa further teaches the surface activation layer is plasma-treated and configured to have surface roughness in a range of about 5 A to about 50 A (FANG ¶¶0017,0025,0027,0029,0032).
As of Claim 3: FANG in view of Ichikawa further teaches the surface activation layer has a thickness in a range of about 1 nm to about 5 nm (Ichikawa ¶¶0047,0077).
As of Claim 4: FANG in view of Ichikawa further teaches the surface activation layer comprises InGaN and AIN (FANG ¶0015 and note that the nitride semiconductor material 102 includes gallium nitride (GaN), aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN), aluminium nitride (AlN), indium gallium nitride (InGaN) or a combination thereof).
As of Claim 5: FANG in view of Ichikawa further teaches the epitaxial passivation layer has a lattice matching epitaxy relationship or a domain matching epitaxy relationship with the semiconductor light-emitting structure (FANG ¶0034).
As of Claim 6: FANG in view of Ichikawa further teaches the epitaxial passivation layer comprises at least one of ZrO, SrO, MgO, BaO, Ce02, Gd2O3, CaO, HfO2, TiO2, AIOx, BaN, SiN, TiN, CeN, AIN, ZnSe, ZnS, AIGaN, or AlxGai-xAs (x > 0.9) (FANG ¶¶0027,0032-0034).
As of Claim 7: FANG in view of Ichikawa further teaches the epitaxial passivation layer has a thickness in a range of about 5 nm to about 20 nm (FANG ¶0027 and note that nitride semiconductor layer 120 is not greater than 50 .mu.m.).
As of Claim 10: FANG in view of Ichikawa further teaches the epitaxial passivation layer is configured to have a roughness in a range of about 5 A to about 50A (FANG ¶¶0027,0028).
Claims 8, 9, 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over FANG et al. (US 20120161148 A1; hereafter FANG) in view of Ichikawa et al. (US 20150048398 A1), and further in view of Xu et al. (US 20180122963 A1; hereafter Xu).
As of Claim 8: Xu is a similar or analogous system to the claimed invention as evidenced Xu teaches would have prompted a predictable variation of FANG by applying Xu’s known principal of an amorphous passivation layer on the epitaxial passivation layer (¶¶0067,0068).
In view of the motivations such as thinning the substrate thereby substantially improve light emission efficiency of the device and one of ordinary skill in the art would have implemented the claimed variation of the prior art system of FANG.
Therefore, the claimed invention would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
As of Claim 9: FANG in view of Ichikawa in view of Xu further teaches the amorphous passivation layer has a thickness in a range of about 20 nm to about 70 nm (Xu ¶¶0082,0083).
As of Claim 11: FANG in view of Ichikawa in view of Xu further teaches a distributed Bragg reflective layer on the epitaxial passivation layer (Xu ¶¶0087,0088).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over FANG et al. (US 20120161148 A1; hereafter FANG) in view of Ichikawa et al. (US 20150048398 A1), and further in view of TARASCH et al. (US 20100133529 A1; hereafter TARASCH).
As of Claim 12: TARASCHI is a similar or analogous system to the claimed invention as evidenced TARASCHI teaches would have prompted a predictable variation of FANG by applying TARASCHI’s known principal of the semiconductor light-emitting structure comprises: a first semiconductor layer doped to a first conductivity type; an emission layer provided on the first semiconductor layer; and a second semiconductor layer provided on the emission layer and doped to a second conductivity type different from the first conductivity type (¶¶0048,0053,0076 and note that the semiconductor portion of the light-emitting device includes a plurality of semiconductor layers and an active layer 8 disposed between the plurality of semiconductor layers. The plurality of semiconductor layers may comprise a first conductivity-type semiconductor layer 6 (e.g., n-type or p-type) and a second conductivity-type semiconductor layer 10 (e.g., p-type or n-type), and the active layer 8 may be disposed between semiconductor layer 6 and semiconductor layer 10. First conductivity-type semiconductor layer 6 may include a plurality of layers with different compositions and/or doping levels, such as one or more cladding layers, one or more contact layers, and/or one or more waveguiding layers (e.g., for laser diode structures). Second conductivity-type semiconductor layer 10 may include a plurality of layers with different compositions and/or doping levels, such as one or more cladding layers, one or more contact layers, and/or one or more waveguiding layers (e.g., for laser diode structures).).
In view of the motivations such as thinning the substrate thereby substantially improve light emission efficiency of the device and one of ordinary skill in the art would have implemented the claimed variation of the prior art system of FANG.
Therefore, the claimed invention would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DO (US 20220310884 A1) in view of FANG et al. (US 20120161148 A1; hereafter FANG).
As of Claim 13: DO teaches a display (¶0089) apparatus comprising: a plurality of pixel electrodes; a common electrode corresponding to the plurality of pixel electrodes (¶¶0005,0186); and a plurality of nanorod light-emitting devices connected between the plurality of pixel electrodes and the common electrode , wherein each of the plurality of nanorod light-emitting devices (¶¶0072-0074).
FANG is a similar or analogous system to the claimed invention as evidenced FANG teaches would have prompted a predictable variation of DO by applying FANG’s known principal of a semiconductor light-emitting structure having a nanorod shape; a surface activation layer provided on a sidewall of the semiconductor light-emitting structure; and an epitaxial passivation layer provided on the surface activation layer (¶0027 and note that a lateral epitaxial growth process is performed to form a nitride semiconductor layer 120 on the patterned nitride semiconductor layer 102a (the nanorod structures 112 and the block patterns 110), in which a plurality of nanopores 122 are formed between the nitride semiconductor layer 120 and the patterned nitride semiconductor layer 102a).
In view of the motivations such as providing a plurality of nanopores are located between the nitride semiconductor layer and the patterned nitride semiconductor layer thereby improve luminous efficiency and one of ordinary skill in the art would have implemented the claimed variation of the prior art system of DO.
Therefore, the claimed invention would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Conclusion
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/MEKONNEN D DAGNEW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2638
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