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 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.
Claim(s) 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qu (US 2019/0221769) in view of Lim et al. (US 2020/0185650).
Regarding claim 1, Qu teaches a light emitting display apparatus, comprising: a substrate (01; Paragraph [0122]) including a display area and a non-display area (Paragraph [0051]) at a periphery of the display area (04/EL04; Paragraph [0073]); a plurality of subpixels provided in the display area (04/EL04; Paragraph [0073]); and a blocking structure provided between the plurality of subpixels (10; Paragraph [0080-0082]) to prevent penetration of water between the plurality of subpixels (Paragraph [0082]). Qu fails to teach wherein the blocking structure reflects light incident from an emission region of the display area.
In the same field of endeavor, Lim teaches a display device with blocking structures between subpixels wherein the subpixel electrodes (Fig. 1, 311; Paragraph [0040]) and blocking structure (Fig. 1, 400 & 450; Paragraph [0047]) are reflective in order to prevent light from neighboring subpixels from mixing (Paragraph [0047]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Qu to have the subpixel electrodes and blocking structures be reflective in order to prevent light from neighboring subpixels from mixing, as disclosed by Lim.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-21 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.
Specifically, in claim 2, the requirement that the blocking structure comprises at least one groove between the plurality of subpixels, and a reflection layer at a lateral surface of the at least one groove is neither taught nor suggested by the prior art of record.
Claims 3-21 are objected to based on their dependence from claim 2.
Other Prior Art Cited
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Kimura (US 2017/0117337), Ye (US 2022/0190042), and Lee (US 2021/0351248) teach display devices with blocking structures between subpixels, but fail to teach or suggest the requirements of claim 2.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANNE M HINES whose telephone number is (571)272-2285. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 8:00-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James Greece, can be reached on 571-272-3711. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Anne M Hines/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2879