The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of the embodiment of figure 4 in the reply filed on 09/10/2026 is acknowledged.
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 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 1-2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (2017/0200915) in view of Cloud et al. (2005/0256603).
Regarding claim 1, Lee et al. teach in figure 4A and related text a method of manufacturing a foldable display device, the method comprising:
preparing a display panel DP that comprises a folding area and a non-folding area, the display panel having a front surface and a back surface opposite each other;
coupling a window WD on the front surface of the display panel and coupling an auxiliary layer POL on the back surface of the display panel;
wherein a width of the window at the folding area is greater than a width (in at least the edge of the window at the non-folding area) of the window at the non-folding area.
Lee et al. do not explicitly state that concurrently cutting the display panel, the window, and the auxiliary layer that are located at the non-folding area.
Cloud et al. teach in related text concurrently cutting plurality of layers.
Lee et al. and Cloud et al. are analogous art because they are directed to plurality of layers and one of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success to modify Lee et al. because they are from the same field of endeavor.It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to concurrently cutting the display panel, the window, and the auxiliary layer that are located at the non-folding area, as taught by Cloud et al., in Lee et al.’s device in order to simplify the processing steps of making the device.
The combination is motivated by the teaching of Cloud et al. who point out that mass production techniques include cutting multiple layers at the same time.
Regarding claim 2, in the combined device, when concurrently cutting the display panel, the window, and the auxiliary layer that are located at the non-folding area, the display panel, the window, and the auxiliary layer that are located at the folding area are not cut, because the folding area is not cut at all.
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O.N. /ORI NADAV/
9/22/2026 PRIMARY EXAMINER
TECHNOLOGY CENTER 2800
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