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 § 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 8-12, 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ashton (US 20030206512 ) in view of Morford (US 6775034)
Ashton discloses
1. A writing device, the device comprising:
one or more emitters (102, 104) positioned to emit an energy beam into a recording layer (106) of a tape to physically alter the recording layer of the tape (par. 26, 35);
(Ashton discloses storage medium 106 is a thin layer of phase change material which is coated or deposited onto photodiode 109 … the storage medium has a thickness between 25 and 1000 nanometers; par. 29, 32;
Ashton is silent to a tape;
however, a tape is well understood as a narrow band and it has been recognized that changing size and shape is an obvious matter; see MPEP 2144.04;
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to extend the prior art teachings so that the recording in a tape form can be used as storage medium in a device of desired length, i.e. in a large display device or a thumb memory device.
a controller (210) controlling the one or more emitters and configured to write one or more pixels of information in 1 nm increments on the recording layer of the tape
(Ashton, par. 18, 23: Each point emitter may have a radius of curvature in the range of approximately 1 nanometer .. Each emitter may access bits in tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of storage areas. For example, the emitters scan over the storage areas with a periodicity of about 1 to 100 nanometers between any two storage areas;
Ashton is silent to pixels;
Morford discloses a similar recording medium 106 that is scanned by scanner 10 for replicating images from light reflected from the recording medium (claims 1-23, abstract); the recording medium 106 includes altered storage areas as pixels; c7-8: 42-2;
therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Morford so that information written to the recording medium can be captured as image)
2.1, wherein the one or more emitters emits an energy beam into the tape (Ashton, Figs. 4-5).
3.1, wherein the one or more emitters comprises one or more microtips (Ashton, Fig. 4-5).
8.1, wherein the controller includes a processor which performs parsing, compiling, and pixelating operations on informational input provided to the controller (this feature is an obvious extension of the prior art’s teachings since the controller needs to determine which storage areas of the recording medium 106 be modified to form an indicia image).
9.1, wherein the tape includes a recording layer (see discussion regarding claim 1 above).
10.9, wherein the recording layer is permanently altered by the writing device (the recording is considered permanent until removed otherwise)
11.10, wherein the permanent alternation forms one or more pixels in the recording layer of the tape (storage areas as pixels)
12.11, wherein the one or more pixels create one or more characters in the recording layer of the tape (Morford, Fig. 4).
17.1, wherein the one or more pixels have a resolution in the range of between 1 nanometer and 1 micrometer (Ashton, par. 18, 23).
18.17, wherein the one or more pixels are arranged to make a character with a height of between 100 nanometers and 1 millimeter (Ashton, par. 18, 23).
19.17, wherein the resolution of a character written by the writing device is in a range between 100 nanometers and 1 millimeter (Ashton, par. 18, 23).
20.1, wherein the tape is disposed in a storage device and is a non-magnetic tape (par. 30-31)
Claim(s) 4-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ashton (US 20030206512 ) in view of Song (US 20020080099)
Re claim 4.3, Ashton is silent to wherein the microtips are disposed on a resistive layer.
Song discloses a field emission device (Fig. 1, par. 6) being a conventional field emission display device includes a lower plate and a upper plate facing to each other, wherein the lower plate and the upper plate are vacuum-packaged. The lower plate includes a glass substrate 101, a cathode electrode 102 made of metal deposited on the glass substrate 101, a resistance layer 103 made of doped amorphous silicon on the cathode electrode 102, a cone-type field emission tip 104 made of a metal(mainly, molybdenum), which is partially deposited on the resistance layer 103, and a gate insulation layer 105 and a gate electrode 106 which are used to apply electric field to the field emission tip 104. The upper plate includes a glass substrate 121, a transparent electrode 122 formed on the glass substrate 121, a red, green, or blue phosphor 123 partially formed on the transparent electrode 122 (par. 6). See also Fig. 2, par. 9.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Song
5.4, wherein the resistive layer is disposed on a cathode conductor layer (layer 102 in Song, Figs. 1-2, par. 6, 9).
6.5, wherein the cathode conductor layer is disposed on a glass layer (layer 101 in Song, Figs. 1-2, par. 6, 9).
7.6, wherein the one or more microtips are arranged in rows and columns across one of the one or more emitters and wherein the controller controls each individual one of the one or more emitters (Ashton, par. 23).
Claim(s) 13-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ashton (US 20030206512 ) in view of Lunt (US 20090195716)
Re claim 13.9, Ashton is silent to wherein the tape includes an adhesion promotion layer.
Lunt discloses [0035] Referring again to FIG. 2A, the adhesion promotion layer 206 may be provided to improve adhesion of the recording layer 204 and the substrate 202, or between any other layer(s). The use of the adhesion promotion layer 206 depends on the type of material used for the substrate 202 and the recording layer 204. The material used in the adhesion promotion layer 206 may include any type of natural or synthetic materials, including metals, alloys, polymers, copolymers, ceramics, or organic small-molecules, or adhesives including any type of drying, contact, hot melt, light curing, reactive, pressure sensitive or other adhesives. For example, a Cr layer may be used as the adhesion promotion layer for a recording layer of Au alloy. [0036] The lubricant layer 208 may be optionally provided to prevent the recording layer 204 from being scratched or otherwise damaged.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Lunt in order to promote adhesion between layers of the recording medium.
14.9, wherein the tape includes a lubricant layer 208 (Lunt, Fig. 2, par. 36).
15.9, wherein the tape includes a substrate layer 202 (Lunt, Fig. 2).
16.15, wherein the substrate layer is a plastic layer (Lunt, par. 23, 35-38).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot in view of new ground of rejection.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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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/THIEN T MAI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
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