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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application CN 201910517111.2 filed in the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) on June 14, 2019 and receipt of a certified copy thereof.
Claim Objections
Claim 10 is objected to because of the following informality:
Claim 10 does not recite a subject matter of the claim.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 of this title, 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 1-5 are rejected are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan et al. US 2019/0113208.
Regarding claim 1, Chan teaches a light source assembly (e.g., Fig. 7, [51]-[53]; Fig. 1, [21]-[32]), comprising:
a substrate (e.g., 20, Fig. 7);
a light-emitting element (e.g., 22, Fig. 7) disposed on the substrate;
an optical film (e.g., 70, 38 and/or 36, Fig. 7) disposed on the light-emitting element; and
a diffuser film (e.g., 34, Fig. 7) between the optical film and the light-emitting element, wherein a distance between the diffuser layer and the light-emitting element is present (e.g., Fig. 7), and a thickness of the light-emitting element is less than the distance (e.g., Fig. 7, [26]).
Chan does not explicitly teach wherein a haze of the diffuser layer is greater than 85%, and a distance between the diffuser layer and the light-emitting element is in a range from 0mm to 10mm.
Chan, however, recognizes that the haze of the diffuser film is in a range between 80% and 99% (e.g., [29]), which overlaps the claimed range, and the optical distance between the layer 30 (including the diffuser layer 34) and the substrate 20 is in a range between 0 mm and 10 mm (e.g., [27], Fig. 7; Fig. 1), which implies a range of the distance between the diffuser layer 34 and the light-emitting element 22 is close to the range of the optical distance.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to optimize and control the assembly of Chan to have the claimed ranges since it has been held that where the criticality of the claimed ranges is not shown, and the claimed ranges overlap or are merely close to the ranges in the prior art, a prima facie case of obviousness exists. MPEP §2144.05.
Regarding claim 2, Chan teaches the light source assembly of claim 1, wherein the optical film comprises a wavelength transformation layer (e.g., 38, Fig. 7, [31]).
Regarding claim 3, Chan teaches the light source assembly of claim 1, further comprising a reflective layer (e.g., 24, Fig. 7) disposed on the substrate.
Chan does not explicitly teach wherein a top surface of the reflective layer is lower than a top surface of the light-emitting element from a cross-sectional view.
Chan, however, recognizes that a reflective layer 24 has its top closer to the optical film set 30 than the top of the light-emitting element 22, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto, and the reflective layers 24 are illustrative and the features of each of the reflective layers 24 may be matched, displaced, or combined, and additional variations are possible, without limitation (e.g., [26], [42]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to optimize and control the of Chan to have the claimed relationships of configurations/heights since it has been held that where the criticality of the claimed relationships is not shown, and selecting the claimed relationships for its conventional use would have been a common sense choice by one skilled in the semiconductor art. MPEP §2143.
Regarding claim 4, Chan teaches the light source assembly of claim 1, wherein the optical film comprises a prism lens (e.g., 70, Fig. 7, [51]).
Regarding claim 5, Chan teaches the light source assembly of claim 4, wherein the prism lens is a brightness enhancement film (BEF) or a dual brightness enhancement film (DBEF) (e.g., [51]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-9 and 11 are allowed at this time, pending updated search before the Examiner's next response, because the prior art of record neither anticipates nor render obvious the limitation of the base claim 6 that recites “a diffuser layer disposed between the optical film and the light-emitting element, wherein a haze of the diffuser layer is greater than 85%, a distance between the diffuser layer and the light-emitting element is in a range from 0mm to 10mm, and a thickness of the light-emitting element is greater than the distance” in combination with other elements of the base claim 6.
Claim 10 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the claim objection, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bo Bin Jang whose telephone number is (571) 270-0271. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Eva Montalvo can be reached at (571) 270-3829. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BO B JANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2818 December 27, 2025
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