Ex Parte CUI et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 30, 2014

11947115 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 30, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
11/947,115 11/29/2007 Jianing CUI LSH-0026 1334
26868 7590 10/30/2014
Hasse & Nesbitt LLC
8837 Chapel Square Drive
Suite C
CINCINNATI, OH 45249
EXAMINER
CHIEM, DINH D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2883
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/30/2014 PAPER
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte JIANING CUI and CHUNPING LONG
____________

Appeal 2012-009840
Application 11/947,115
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before PETER F. KRATZ, ROMULO H. DELMENDO, and
BEVERLY A. FRANKLIN, Administrative Patent Judges.

KRATZ, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–17. We have jurisdiction pursuant to
35 U.S.C. § 6.
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a thin film transistor
liquid crystal display (TFT LCD). Claim 1, the sole independent claim on
appeal, is illustrative and reproduced below:
1. A thin film transistor liquid crystal device (TFT LCD),
comprising:
- a TFT array substrate, comprising
a gate line extending in a first direction,
a data line extending in a second direction perpendicular to the
first direction, and
Appeal 2012-009840
Application 11/947,115

2
a TFT disposed in a pixel area defined by the gate line and the
data line crossing with each other and comprising a source/drain electrode
extending in the second direction;
- a color filter substrate; and
- a post spacer disposed between the TFT substrate and the color filter
substrate and located in a region at least partially surrounded by a
surrounding region defined by the source/drain electrode, the data line, and
the gate line, wherein the region has a step difference with the surrounding
region defined by the source/drain electrode, data line and gate line that
limits movement of the post spacer.

The Examiner relies on the following prior art references as evidence
in rejecting the appealed claims:
Choi US 2004/0109125 A1 June 10, 2004
Tanaka US 2004/0229139 A1 Nov. 18, 2004
Park US 2006/0226426 A1 Oct. 12, 2006

Davis, D., "Friction,"
http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfadd/1150/04Nwtn/frict.html, (2002).

Appellants' Admitted Prior Art (AAPA) (Figures 1a and 1b).

The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection:
Claims 1, 9–12, and 14–17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
being unpatentable over Applicants’ admitted prior art (AAPA) in view of
Park. Claims 2–5, 7, and 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over AAPA in view of Park and Tanaka. Claim 6 stands
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA in
view of Park, Tanaka, and Choi. Claim 13 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA in view of Park and Choi.
We reverse the stated rejections. Our reasoning follows.
Appeal 2012-009840
Application 11/947,115

3
In the first stated obviousness rejection, the Examiner has determined
that the applied AAPA fails to teach a TFT LCD having a post spacer
located in a region at least partially surrounded by a surrounding region
wherein the “surrounding region is defined by the source/drain electrode, the
data line, and the gate line” and wherein the region has a step difference with
the surrounding region (claim 1; Ans. 6).
The Examiner turns to Park to address this determined deficiency in
the teachings of the applied AAPA (Ans. 7). However, Parks does not teach
that the disclosed spacer 114 is located between a TFT substrate and a color
filter substrate in a region that is at least partially surrounded by a
surrounding region as defined in appealed claim 1. In this regard, the spacer
114 of Park is located in opening 107, which opening is located over gate
line 101 (Figs. 7 and 8; ¶¶ 40–43, 53–59). Thus, Park does not teach a
surrounding region having a step difference, which surrounding region is
defined by the source/drain electrode, the data line, and the gate line, as
argued by Appellants (App. Br. 17). While we recognize that the Examiner
takes a broad view of a three-dimensional surrounding region in responding
to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner has not reasonably articulated how a
gate line can be both part of the region with a certain relative step height
where the spacer is located as in Park and also be a defining part of a
surrounding region having a different step height, as required by claim 1
(Ans. 16). In other words, when claim 1 is read as a whole in light of
Appellants’ Specification, as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill
in the art, the broadest reasonable construction of the surrounding region is a
specified region that surrounds the post spacer location region as it would be
viewed in a plan view, such as depicted in Applicants’ drawing Figure 3a
Appeal 2012-009840
Application 11/947,115

4
and having a different step height, such as depicted in drawing Figure 3b.
Otherwise, the different step heights associated with the different regions as
specified in claim 1 (which step height limitation for each region brings in
the third dimension) would have no meaning.
Accordingly, the Examiner’s proposed combination of the AAPA and
Park falls short of being suggestive of subject matter which would have been
encompassed by the rejected claims. Thus, the Examiner has not presented a
prima facie case of obviousness with respect to the claims subject to the first
stated rejection. Nor does the Examiner articulate how the additional prior
art applied against certain dependent claims in the other obviousness
rejections makes up for the deficiency in the base rejection.
It follows that we shall reverse the Examiner’s stated obviousness
rejections on this appeal record.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s decision to reject the appealed claims is reversed.

REVERSED

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