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 § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ohyama (US 2014/0042409 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device comprising: a reflecting electrode (10); a light emitting element layer (9); a circular polarization layer (11); and a selective reflection layer (6) provided between the light emitting element layer (9) and the circular polarization layer (11), at least part of which is configured to have the same or opposite direction of rotation as or to the circular polarization layer (¶s[0047]).
Regarding claim 2, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the selective reflection layer (6) is configured to have different transmissibility depending on the direction of rotation of light (¶[0042]).
Regarding claim 3, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the selective reflection layer (6) has a twisted chiral structure, and includes a chiral optical structure having a pitch of several tens or hundreds of nm (¶[0042]).
Regarding claim 4, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the chiral optical structure has an optical effect of rotating incident light to the left or the right (¶[0050]).
Regarding claim 5, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the chiral optical structure includes a helical optical rotation structure (¶[0042]).
Regarding claim 6, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the chiral optical structure is a chiral molecule, a liquid crystal having a refractive index anisotropy [Symbol font/0x44]n, or a mesogenic molecule (¶[0042]).
Regarding claim 7, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the selective reflection layer (6) is configured in such a way that the reflection wavelength width ([Symbol font/0x44]k- chiral) of the chiral optical structure is greater than the emission wavelength width ([Symbol font/0x44]k- emission) of the light emitting element layer (¶[0055]).
Regarding claim 8, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the position of the center wavelength of the reflection wavelength width of the chiral optical structure includes a wavelength position of 200 nm to 2,000 nm (¶[0055]).
Regarding claim 9, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the chiral optical structure is configured to reflect light corresponding to a chiral photonic band gap reflection wavelength (¶[0042]).
Regarding claim 10, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the chiral optical structure has a first directional rotation structure in which, of unpolarized incident light generated from the light emitting element layer, first direction circularly polarized light is reflected toward the light emitting element layer and second direction circularly polarized light which is opposite to the first direction is transmitted (¶[0047-0048]).
Regarding claim 11, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the circular polarization layer (11) is configured to have a left circular polarization property or a right circular polarization property so as to suppress reflection of external light, and to have at least one phase retardation relative to a linear polarizer (¶s[0049]).
Regarding claim 12, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the circular polarization layer (11) has the second direction polarization property so that the second direction polarized light rotating in the same direction as the circularly polarized light of the circular polarization layer passes therethrough (¶[0049]).
Regarding claim 13, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the first direction polarized light, which is a circular polarization component rotating in the same direction as the chiral optical structure, is reflected from the selective reflection layer (6), and the first direction polarized light is converted into the second direction polarized light which rotates in the opposite direction to the chiral optical structure and is reflected from the reflecting electrode (10, Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 14, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein the light whose direction of circular polarization is converted and which is reflected as the second direction polarized light rotates in the opposite direction to the chiral optical structure and rotates in the same direction as anti-reflective circularly polarized light for which the linear polarizer (3) and a phase retardation layer (2) are stacked, and the light is released as the light passes through the light emitting element layer (9), the selective reflection layer (6), and the circular polarization layer (11, Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 15, Ohyama discloses a circularly polarized light emitting display device wherein primary circularly polarized light generated from the light emitting element layer (9) and secondary circularly polarized light reflected from the selective reflection layer (6) and the reflecting electrode (10) are released at different times and combined together, and the combined circularly polarized light has the same direction of polarization rotation as a polarization anti-reflection layer of a circular polarizer (11) including a linear polarizer (3) and the phase retardation layer (2), thereby improving the light emission efficiency of the light emitting display without optical loss caused by the polarizer (Fig. 2).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16-20 are 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:
Regarding claim(s) 16, the references of the Prior Art of record fail to teach or suggest the combination of the limitations as set forth in claim(s) 16, and specifically comprising the limitation of the selective reflection layer includes a chiral liquid crystal layer so that refractive indices n1 and n2 appear repeatedly during rotation.
Regarding claim(s) 17-20, claims(s) 17-20 is/are allowable for the reasons given in claim(s) 16 because of its/their dependency status from claim(s) 16.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Muramatsu et al. (US 10,998,528 B2) discloses an organic EL image display device including a light emitting element substrate; and a circularly polarizing plate, the light emitting element substrate includes a reflecting layer and an organic electroluminescent layer group arranged in a matrix on the reflecting layer; and a polarization separation layer provided between the organic electroluminescent layer group and the circularly polarizing plate.
The rejections above rely on the references for all the teachings expressed in the text of the references and/or one of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably understood or implied from the texts of the references. To emphasize certain aspects of the prior art, only specific portions of the texts have been pointed out. Each reference as a whole should be reviewed in responding to the rejection, since other sections of the same reference and/or various combinations of the cited references may be relied on in future rejections in view of amendments.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mariceli Santiago whose telephone number is (571) 272-2464. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James R. Greece, can be reached on (571) 272-3711. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Mariceli Santiago/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2879
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