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 the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 2-4, 6 and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Claim 2 recites “the monitoring operation being performed once, for every predetermined number of times degradation information acquisition operations are performed, by interrupting the degradation information acquisition operations.” Applicant states on page 5 of Applicant’s response that support may be found in [0056]-[0058] and figure 8. However, Applicant’s original specification refers in [0053], the control unit 2 determines the presence or absence of a short circuit between the first power supply unit ELVDD and the second power supply unit ELVSS, every time obtaining degradation information on a predetermined number of subpixels 51 among the plurality of subpixels 51. [0055] refers to when the monitoring operation interrupts the display operation, the number of rows to be monitored within one frame period has a limit. [0056], an interruption is made once every five rows in the normal current monitoring operation, and the current is monitored for the monitor rows S_mon1 to S_mon4. Thus, Applicant’s disclosure does not mention interruption of the degradation information acquisition operations. In fact, it appears that the monitoring of short circuit is determined every time obtaining degradation information. In addition, it appears that [0055-0056] suggest an interruption of the display operation but do not suggest an interruption of the degradation information acquisition operations. Other claims are rejected due to their dependencies.
Allowable Subject Matter
Prior arts fail to teach all the limitations of Claim 2 (e.g. interrupting the degradation information acquisition operations in combination to other limitations in the claim). However, Claims 2-4, 6, 10-15 are under a 112 rejection as detailed above.
Response to Arguments
In view of Applicant’s amendment, the prior art rejection has been withdrawn. However, claims 2-4, 6, 10-15 are rejected under a 112 as detailed above.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/ROBERTO W FLORES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2621