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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/10/2025 has been entered.
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 (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 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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Su et al. (US 11,763,776) in view of Koh et al. (US 12,142,219).
Regarding claim 1, Su discloses a display device driving method (fig. 2) of driving a display device (fig. 1, display device DD) that includes a display component including a plurality of pixels (column 2, lines 44-46, “The display panel 300 can be an OLED panel, a LCD panel, a LED panel, a mini LED panel, a micro LED panel, an electronic paper, a plasma display panel, or other display panels”), the display device driving method comprising:
converting a plurality of first luminance signals corresponding to the plurality of pixels to a plurality of second luminance signals (fig. 2, steps S210-S240, in which step S240 includes calculating, by the processor, a second compensation value according to the final stress value and the compensation reduction value); and
driving the display component based on the plurality of second luminance signals (fig. 2, step S250 outputting, by the processor, second output data according to second input data, the second compensation value, and the at least one second operating factor for a display panel to display),
wherein
the converting includes:
calculating a weight (column 3, lines 9-22, “Then, the compensation unit 130 multiples the compensation value C1 from the stress-to-compensation unit 170 with at least one factor F2, and adds the product and the input data IN1 to generate the output data OUT1. The at least one operating factor F2 can be associated with a display brightness value (DBV), a driving frame rate, a temperature, an image loading value, or other parameters of the display panel 300. In some embodiments, the compensation unit 130 multiples the compensation value C1 with a plurality of operating factors F2, and adds the product and the input data IN1 to generate the output data OUT1. The display panel 300 receives the output data OUT1 to display according to the output data OUT1”);
calculating a cumulative value that is an accumulation of a value corresponding to the weight (column 4, lines 6-7, “the final stress value STRESS is stored and accumulated in the storage unit 160”);
calculating, (column 3, lines 23-25, “the processor 210 generates a stress reduction value SR and a compensation reduction value CR according to the input data IN1”); and
calculating the plurality of second luminance signals (column 4, lines 14-22, “In operation S240, the processor 100 calculates a compensation value C2 according to the final stress value STREE and the compensation reduction value CR. For example, the stress-to-compensation unit 170 converts the final stress value STREE into a compensation value C3 according to a look-up table. Then, the stress-to-compensation unit 170 generates the compensation value C2 according to the compensation value C3 and compensation reduction value CR”).
While Su discloses calculating a reduction rate based on the input data, this factor is not based on the cumulative value, it has been known to use a factor based on the cumulative value. Additionally, while Su discloses using adding the factor to the luminance signal, it has been known to multiply a luminance signal by the reduction rate. In a similar field of endeavor of deterioration compensation methods for use on display panels, Koh discloses calculating a weight corresponding to an average picture level of a lighting period of the display component (column 15, lines 8-22, “Furthermore, the luminance aging factor 130, indicative of the expected contribution to the history update 66 due to the luminance outputs of the pixels, may be calculated based on the compensated image data 60 and the global brightness setting 110. Additionally, one or more reference parameters (which may be included as gain parameters 68) such as the average pixel luminance of the image frame 142, the average pixel luminance of the previous image frame 144, and/or an average pixel luminance calibration reference value 146. Indeed, the changes from previous luminance levels to the current luminance levels may contribute to pixel aging, and one or more calibration/reference values (e.g., the average pixel luminance calibration reference value 146) may be used as part of the calculation of the luminance aging factor 130”); calculating, based on the cumulative value, a reduction rate (column 1, lines 40-43, “the estimated aging due to pixels' utilization may be stored, accumulated, and referenced when compensating for burn-in effects on pixel efficiency”); calculating the plurality of second luminance signals by multiplying each of the plurality of first luminance signals by the reduction rate (column 14, lines 13-15, “the compensated gains 118 may be normalized via a normalization factor 122 to generate normalized gains 124” and fig. 12).
In view of the teachings of Su and Koh, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have the deterioration modeling based on the method of Koh, within the method of Su, for the purpose of improving pixel efficiency where the gain values of the gain maps may be altered (e.g., via two-dimensional look-up-table (LUT)) based on the desired luminance outputs of the pixels to reduce, negate, or invert the compensation that would otherwise be applied (Koh: column 2, lines 27-57).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Su and Koh further discloses wherein
in the calculating of the weight, the weight is calculated based on an average picture level (APL) of either the plurality of first luminance signals or the plurality of second luminance signals (Koh: column 15, lines 8-22, “Furthermore, the luminance aging factor 130, indicative of the expected contribution to the history update 66 due to the luminance outputs of the pixels, may be calculated based on the compensated image data 60 and the global brightness setting 110. Additionally, one or more reference parameters (which may be included as gain parameters 68) such as the average pixel luminance of the image frame 142, the average pixel luminance of the previous image frame 144, and/or an average pixel luminance calibration reference value 146. Indeed, the changes from previous luminance levels to the current luminance levels may contribute to pixel aging, and one or more calibration/reference values (e.g., the average pixel luminance calibration reference value 146) may be used as part of the calculation of the luminance aging factor 130”).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Su and Koh further discloses wherein
in the calculating of the weight, the weight is calculated based on a maximum luminance of either the plurality of first luminance signals or the plurality of second luminance signals (Su: column 5, lines 13-18, “The original representation value OR can be a maximum value, a minimum value, or an average value of gray level values, gamma codes, saturation values, hue values, brightness values, voltages, currents of the sub-pixels with the same starting voltage range in the region”).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Su and Koh further discloses wherein
in the calculating of the weight, the weight is calculated based on an average of maximum luminances in a predetermined period, the maximum luminances each being the maximum luminance (Koh: column 10, lines 57-60, “the BIC sub-block 62 may utilize one or more gain parameters 68 that augment the gain maps 74 to account for global and/or average display characteristics for the image frame”).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Su and Koh further discloses wherein
in the calculating of the weight, the weight is calculated based on an ambient temperature of the display device (Su: column 3, lines 13-16, “The at least one operating factor F2 can be associated with a display brightness value (DBV), a driving frame rate, a temperature, an image loading value, or other parameters of the display panel 300”).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Su and Koh further discloses wherein
the plurality of pixels include pixels corresponding to a plurality of emission colors, and the calculating of the reduction rate includes: calculating a plurality of color-specific reduction rates each corresponding to a different one of the plurality of emission colors; and selecting, as the reduction rate, a minimum color-specific reduction rate among the plurality of color-specific reduction rates (Su: column 6, lines 30-45, “Sub-pixels with different starting voltage ranges (e.g., red sub-pixels, green sub-pixels, blue sub-pixels are with different starting voltage ranges respectively) correspond to different conversion curves. In some embodiments, the look-up tables can be established according to an operation mode. For example, a first operation mode is used to compensate brightness values of regions to original brightness values of the regions, a second operation mode is used to compensate brightness values of regions to be aligned with the brightness value corresponding to a smallest stress value (the brightness value corresponding to the smallest stress value is not compensated), and a third operation mode is used to compensate brightness values of regions to be aligned with the brightness value corresponding to a largest stress value (the brightness value corresponding to the largest stress value is not compensated)”).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Su and Koh further discloses a display device (Su: fig. 1, display device DD) that includes a display component including a plurality of pixels (Su: column 2, lines 44-46, “The display panel 300 can be an OLED panel, a LCD panel, a LED panel, a mini LED panel, a micro LED panel, an electronic paper, a plasma display panel, or other display panels”), the display device comprising elements to perform the method of claim 1 and is therefore interpreted and rejected based on similar reasoning.
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Su and Koh further discloses wherein the reduction rate decreases as the cumulative value increases (Koh: column 5, lines 16-29, “Furthermore, the increase in pixel voltage and/or current supplied to the pixel to offset the expected decrease in pixel efficiency due to aging, may exacerbate the parasitic capacitance's effect, leading to an inverse burn-in effect, where, as the pixel ages and normal aging compensation is applied, the pixel appears to exhibit increased pixel efficiency. In other words, at low luminance outputs, the gain that would otherwise be applied to compensate for the burn-in related aging of the pixel may overcompensate the image data for the pixel value leading to image artifacts. Therefore, in some embodiments, the gain values of the gain maps may be altered based on the desired luminance outputs of the pixels to reduce, negate, or invert the compensation that would otherwise be applied” also see claim 6, “decreasing the gain value”).
Claim 9 is within the scope of claim 8 and is therefore interpreted and rejected based on similar reasoning.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 and 7 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
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/BENJAMIN C LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2629