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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
With regard to claim 19: The claim makes reference to an unclaimed and variable value (the distance between the film structure and a projection device), assigns undefined ranges for that value (short and long), and makes structural limitations of the projection film seeming dependent upon whether that value is within one of those two ranges. The claim however is ambiguous about the interrelation between the screen and the projector making it unclear when the limitations of the claim would be met.
The examiner suggests splitting claim 19 into two claims, one for each range of included angles. An explicit statement that the projection film is “designed for use with a long focal length projection device” or “designed for use with a short focal length projection device”, similar to the example given in MPEP 2173.05(b) citing Ex parte Brummer, 12 USPQ2d 1653 (Bd. Pat. App. & Inter. 1989)) could be present, but would not be particularly required for the claim to be definite.
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.
Claims 1, 8-9, 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Shinbo (US Patent 7,538,943 B2).
With regard to claim 1: Shinbo discloses in the embodiment of Figure 13 (which is implemented in a rear projection screen arrangement as shown in Figures 1-2), which forms a transparent projection film structure which comprises a base later (lenticular lens array layer 202) and a patterned light-guiding layer 1301 (the Fresnel lens, which is a light guiding layer because it changes the angle of the incoming light as noted in column 7 lines 30-31, and is patterned due to the regular arrangement of lens elements on the surface), the patterned light guiding layer being arranged disposed on the base layer (see Figure 2, the Fresnel lens is arranged against base layer 202). The patterned light guiding layer of Shinbo is drawn in cross section in Figure 13 and explicitly disclosed as having light guiding units (prism bodies 1310) which have hollow areas formed between them (due to flat section 1317), see column 13 lines 34-67. Shinbo further discloses a scattering layer 203 which is disposed on the base layer (see Figure 2) and which comprises a plurality of scattering particles (see column 8 lines 42-43), with the film structure being such that at least some of the plurality of scattering particles are positioned to correspond to the patterned light-guiding layer (see column 9 lines 42-53 describing the path of light after it exits the light exiting surface of the Fresnel lens, with particles in the diffusing layer being along that light path).
With regard to claim 8: In the film structure of Shinbo the patterned light-guiding layer and the scattering layer are disposed on opposite sides of the base layer, as best seen in Figure 2.
With regard to claim 9: The scattering layer is disposed on a surface of the base layer of Shinbo (as shown in Figure 2) to cover the entire surface of the base layer (as shown in Figure 1 the scattering layer covers the entire front area of the screen).
With regard to claim 17: The light guiding units of the screen of Shinbo are wedge-shaped in cross section as shown in Fig 13.
With regard to claim 18: The light guiding units of Shinbo are disclosed as forming an asymmetric structure, with the “lower” light entrance surface having a flat profile and the “upper” light reflection surface having a curved profile (see column 8 lines 16-27).
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 12 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shinbo in view of Yamagushi et al (US Patent 6,785,048 B2).
With regard to claims 12 and 15: Shinbo does not disclose the haze value of the patterned light guiding layer (the Fresnel lens), and thus does not disclose that the haze of the patterned light-guiding layer is less than or equal to 15%. Shinbo also does not teach that the transparency of the base layer (the lenticular array) is 30-90% with a haze less than or equal to 5%. The materials of the Fresnel lens and the lenticular array are not disclosed however both are disclosed as not having diffusive particles within them in order to improve the optical performance of the screen (see column 8 lines 44-53).
Yamagushi teaches that for best image quality a Fresnel lens sheet should be formed out of a transparent, non-diffusive, material (defined as having a haze of 10% or less, see column 26 line 56 through column 27 line 3) and further discloses that in order to prevent scintillation (speckle) a lenticular array member should position a diffusive member away from the focal point of the lens array. This is because intense illumination of diffusive particles near the focal point is the apparent cause of the speckle phenomenon (see column 24 lines 27-40) and the solution taught is to have the portion of the lens array which is near the focal point be transparent (see column 24 lines 29-60, and examples given make use of a transparent lens array to which a diffusive layer is attached noted in column 31 lines 17-35).
A person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found the claimed ranges of transparency and haze to be obvious in light of Yamagushi’s teaching that a Fresnel lens and lenticular array should be transparent (which Yamagushi indicates means additionally having a haze value of 10% or less) in order to reduce the occurrence of speckle due to focused light impacting diffusive regions of the elements.
Claims 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shinbo in view of Suzuki et al (US Patent 7,116,476 B2).
With regard to claim 19: Shinbo does not disclose that the included angle between the base and the hypotenuse sides of the light guiding units is within the claimed range or dependent upon the distance between the transparent projection film structure and the projector.
Suzuki however teaches that the angles of the prism structures should be altered based upon the incident angle of the projection light (which would be dependent upon the projection distance as noted in column 4 lines 4-9) in order to optimize the transmissivity of the screen (see column 4 lines 10-20 describing the general goal and column 23 line 45 through column 26 line 11 describing the optimization process in the design, note that the Greek character alpha corresponds to the hypotenuse/base included angle as shown in Figure 8 and is a critical part of the optimization process as it controls the amount of totally internally reflected light).
A person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found the claimed ranges of included angles obvious as a matter of routine optimization of the Fresnel lens unit prism structures to a particular projector throw distance to improve transmittance via a process such as that discussed in Suzuki.
With regard to claim 20: Suzuki teaches that transmittance of a Fresnel lens contributes to image brightness (see column 3 lines 42-58), and teaches example calculations using example index of refraction of 1.5 (see column 24 lines 60-65). A person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found it obvious to maximize the transmittance of the Fresnel lens of Shibo in order to maximize the brightness of the screen, and further would have found it obvious to use a material having an index of refraction within the claimed range as Suzuki indicates that a material having such an index of refraction is capable of being optimized using the process discussed in Suzuki (increasing the expected likelihood of success of the optimization).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7, 10-11, 13-14, and are 16 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With regard to claims 2-7: In prior art projection film structures which are a “transparent projection film structure” (indicating that at least some light can pass through the film and exit the other side) and have what can reasonably be termed “hollow” spaces between light-guiding units (that is, regions without any other material filling the space between light guiding units as the plain meaning of the term “hollow” indicates an empty space or region) and a scattering layer formed of scattering particles, do not have nor indicate that a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found obvious a scattering layer disposed on the same side of the base layer as the patterned light layer. The prior art which includes light guiding layers formed with light guiding units primarily teaches incorporating scattering particles into the bulk of light guiding elements as in Chen (US PGPub 2019/0294037 A1, note that Chen does not have hollow portions).
With regard to claims 10-11: In prior art projection film structures which are a “transparent projection film structure” (indicating that at least some light can pass through the film and exit the other side) and have what can reasonably be termed “hollow” spaces between light-guiding units (that is, regions without any other material filling the space between light guiding units as the plain meaning of the term “hollow” indicates an empty space or region) and a scattering layer formed of scattering particles, do not have nor indicate that a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found obvious a reflective layer disposed on the on the patterned light layer. Yang (CN 111290211 A) for example does teach the inclusion of a reflective layer (in Figure 2, element 23) in a transparent film structure, but does not teach the inclusion of a diffusive or scattering layer made of particles instead using rough surfaces to achieve a light scattering function. Other arrangements which provide a reflective layer disposed on a light-guiding layer made up of light guiding units are not transparent, see Maruta (US Patent 10,248,016 B2).
With regard to claims 13 and 14: The prior art does not teach a particular relationship between the width of hollow areas and the thickness of light guiding units. Nor the inclusion of a protective layer above a patterned light guiding layer (in the uses discussed in prior art film structures, the light guiding layer is typically already protected by being enclosed within a structure, as in Shinbo).
With regard to claim 16: The prior art does not teach a configuration in which the hollow areas are formed having the claimed shape. The hollow areas in the prior art are generally irregular shapes which are defined by the leftover space between regularly packed guiding units, as in Yakushiji et al (US PGPub 2006/0126173 A1) Figures 5-6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Leon W Rhodes Jr whose telephone number is (571)270-5774. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM - 6:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Walter Lindsay can be reached at (571) 272-1674. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LEON W RHODES, JR/Examiner, Art Unit 2852