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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I, Species II and claims 1-9 in the reply filed on 7/27/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 10-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Invention II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 7/27/2026.
Information Disclosure Statement
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant's Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) from PTO-1449. The IDS has been considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-7 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yamazaki et al. (US 2015/0077162 A1).
Re Claim 1, Yamazaki teaches a display device comprising:
a base layer (100, Fig. 1D, para [0055]);
a light-emitting element (432, Fig. 17A, paras [0237-0238]) disposed on the base layer (100, also see Fig. 19 on how a light emitting layer is formed on a base substrate, along with a control circuit); and
a pixel circuit (431, Figs. 1A-1D, 17A and 19, para [0238]) disposed between the base layer (100) and the light-emitting element (432), and electrically connected to the light-emitting element (Fig. 17A),
wherein the pixel circuit includes a first transistor (431, Figs. 1A-1D and 17A, para [0238]),
the first transistor (431, Fig. 1D, para [0238]) includes
a metal oxide semiconductor pattern (130, Fig. 1D, paras [0055] and [0060]) having a drain region, a source region, and a channel region disposed between the source region and the drain region (Fig. 1D, paras [0055] and [0058]),
a first gate (150, Fig. 1D, para [0055]) disposed on the metal oxide semiconductor pattern (130, Fig. 1D), overlapping the channel region (see Fig. 1D), and having a plurality of conductive layers (150 can be a three-layer structure, titanium/aluminum/titanium stacked on each other, para [0073]), and
a gate insulation pattern (102, Fig. 1D, para [0055]) disposed between the metal oxide semiconductor pattern (130) and the first gate (150), and overlapping the channel region (see Fig. 1D),
an uppermost layer among the plurality of conductive layers (uppermost surface of 150, Fig. 1D) is divided into a first part (marked “1st part” in annotated Fig. 1D below) adjacent to the drain region, a second part adjacent to the source region (marked “2nd part” in annotated Fig. 1D below), and a third part (marked “3rd part” in annotated Fig. 1D below) between the first part and the second part,
each of an upper surface of the first part (upper surface of “1st part” in annotated Fig. 1D below) and an upper surface of the second part (upper surface of “2nd part” in annotated Fig. 1D below) forms a step (see annotated Fig. 1D below) with an upper surface of the third part (upper surface of “3rd part” in annotated Fig. 1D below), and
on a cross-section perpendicular to the base layer (Fig. 1D), a sum of widths of the upper surface of the first part (width “w1”, marked in annotated Fig. 1D below) and the upper surface of the second part (width “w2”, marked in annotated Fig. 1D below) in one direction is smaller than a width of the upper surface of the third part (width “w3”, marked in annotated Fig. 1D below, where w1+w2 < w3, see annotated Fig. 1D below) in the one direction.
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Re Claim 2, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 1, wherein a side surface of the first gate (a side surface of 150, Fig. 1D) and a side surface of the gate insulation pattern (a side surface of 102, Fig. 1D) form a continuous slope (see Fig. 1D).
Re Claim 3, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 1, wherein a thickness of the third part (marked “t3” in annotated Fig. 1D above) is larger than a thickness of each of the first part (marked “t1” in annotated Fig. 1D above) and the second part (marked “t2” in annotated Fig. 1D above).
Re Claim 4, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 1, wherein the first gate (150, Fig. 1D, para [0055]) comprises:
a first layer disposed on the gate insulation pattern, and including a first material; and a second layer disposed on the first layer, and including a second material different from the first material, the first material having lower resistivity than the second material (150 can be a three-layer structure, titanium/aluminum/titanium stacked on each other, para [0073], where the first layer is the aluminum layer and the second layer is titanium layer disposed on the first layer, also see annotated drawing of gate layer below. Furthermore, the first material aluminum has a lower resistivity than the second material titanium).
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Re Claim 5, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 4, wherein the first material comprises aluminum, and the second material comprises titanium (first material is aluminum and the second material is titanium, see claim 4 above).
Re Claim 6, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 4, wherein the first gate further comprises a third layer disposed between the gate insulation pattern and the first layer, and including a third material different from the first material, the third material having higher resistivity than the first material (150 can be a three-layer structure, titanium/aluminum/titanium stacked on each other, para [0073], where the bottom third layer made of titanium will be disposed between the gate isolation structure and the middle first layer comprised of aluminum, see annotated drawing of gate layer above. Third material titanium has higher resistivity than the first material aluminum).
Re Claim 7, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 6, wherein the first material comprises aluminum, and each of the second material and the third material comprises titanium (first material is aluminum, while second and third material is titanium, see claims 4 and 6 above).
Re Claim 9, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 1, wherein the third part (“3rd part” in annotated Fig. 1D above) comprises a first side surface (marked “1st side surface” in annotated Fig. 1D above) adjacent to the first part (“1st part” in annotated Fig. 1D above), and a second side surface (marked “2nd side surface” in annotated Fig. 1D above) adjacent to the second part (“2nd part” in annotated Fig. 1D above), the first side surface connects the upper surface of the first part and the upper surface of the third part (“1st side surface” connects upper surfaces of “1st part” and “3rd part”, see annotated Fig. 1D above), and the second side surface connects the upper surface of the second part and the upper surface of the third part (“2nd side surface” connects upper surfaces of “2nd part” and “3rd part”, see annotated Fig. 1D above).
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 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamazaki et al. (US 2015/0077162 A1) as applied to claim 6 above, and further in view of Saitoh et al. (US 2014/0361294 A1).
Re Claim 8, Yamazaki teaches the display device of claim 6, but does not explicitly disclose the thicknesses of the sub-layers of the three-layered stacked gate electrode (150, Fig. 1D, para [0073]) and hence does not disclose that the first layer has a larger thickness than the second layer and the third layer.
Related art, Saitoh teaches a same three-layered stacked gate electrode comprising of the same stacking materials Ti/Al/Ti (para [0070]), where the middle aluminum layer can be 500 nm while the outer titanium layers can be 100 nm, satisfying the claim limitation.
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, absent unexpected results, to use the known thicknesses of the gate layers into the device of Yamazaki as disclosed by Saitoh, which will yield predictable result. The use of known thicknesses for the stacked gate layer for its known purpose of forming a control-gate for a transistor is prima facie obvious. Also see KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
Conclusion
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/P.D./Examiner, Art Unit 2898 /JULIO J MALDONADO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2898
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