Ex Parte Ma et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 13, 2015

12911197 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 13, 2015)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte JIAYING MA, QUINN SANFORD, and
MING CHENG
____________

Appeal 2013-002050
Application 12/911,197
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before PETER F. KRATZ, JEFFREY T. SMITH, and
KAREN M. HASTINGS, 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 1–5. We have jurisdiction pursuant to
35 U.S.C. § 6.
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a backlit display device.
The backlit display device includes a display panel, a back reflector stack,
and an array of light sources located between the display panel and the back
reflector stack.

Appeal 2013-002050
Application 12/911,197

2
Claim 1, the sole independent claim on appeal, is illustrative and
reproduced below:
1. A backlit display device, comprising:
a display panel;
a back reflector stack comprising a plurality of diffusive
areas disposed over a reflective layer to form a plurality of
reflective areas interspersed with the diffusive areas; and
an array of light sources disposed between the display
panel and the back reflector stack; wherein projections of the
light sources in the array of light sources onto the back reflector
stack are aligned with the diffusive areas of the back reflector
stack, and wherein projections of openings between the light
sources in the array of light sources are aligned with the
reflective areas of the back reflector stack.

The Examiner relies on the following prior art references as evidence
in rejecting the appealed claims:
Kim et al. US 2005/0265042 A1 Dec. 1, 2005
Su et al. US 7,033,057 B2 Apr. 25, 2006
Mori et al. US 7,364,336 B2 Apr. 29, 2008

The Examiner maintains the following grounds of rejection:
Claims 1, 3, and 5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by Su. Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Su in view of Kim. Claim 4 stands rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Su in view of Mori.
After review of the opposing positions of the Examiner and
Appellants as to the merits of the Examiner’s maintained rejections brought
before us in this appeal, we determine that Appellants have not identified
reversible error in the Examiner’s rejections. Accordingly, we affirm the
Appeal 2013-002050
Application 12/911,197

3
stated rejections for substantially the reasons set forth by the Examiner (Ans.
2–5).
Concerning the anticipation rejection, Appellants argue the rejected
claims together as a group. Accordingly, we focus on claim 1 as the selected
representative claim in deciding this appeal as to the Examiner’s anticipation
rejection.
Appellants argue that the device of claim 1 differs from the applied
device of Su because Su does not disclose a plurality of reflective areas
interspersed with diffusive areas as required by the device of claim 1 (App.
Br. 3–4; Reply Br. 3–41). In this regard, Appellants argue that the Examiner
refers to alleged reflective and diffusive areas as areas of the device of Su
that contain particles that change the directions of reflected light, which
results in the Examiner’s references to areas of Figure 3 (and/or Figure 5) of
Su as referring to areas that are all diffusive areas and/or, if the Examiner’s
characterization of Su were correct, it would result in establishing that Su
discloses, at most, one reflective area across the whole reflecting layer (App.
Br. 3–4; Reply Br. 4).
The difficulty with Appellants’ argument is that it does not
particularly address the Examiner’s reasonable reading of the claimed
diffusive areas and reflective areas on different areas of the Figure 3 and/or
Figure 5 embodiments of the device of Su that have differing diffusive
reflective properties as a result of the differing particle sizes or spaces

1 References to a page number of the Reply Brief (Rep. Br.) herein refer to
the page of the Reply Brief which would have been so numbered if the pages
of the Reply Brief were numbered consecutively beginning with assigning
the first page the numeral one.
Appeal 2013-002050
Application 12/911,197

4
occupying those differing areas as described by Su (Final Rejection 2, 3, 5;
Ans. 2–4: Su, col. 3, l. 35 – col. 5, l. 48; Figs, 3, 5).
In this regard, the claim terms “diffusive areas” and “reflective areas”
have not been defined in the subject Specification in a manner so as to
exclude particles from the reflective areas and/or so as to preclude reflection
occurring in the diffusive areas. Consequently, the Examiner has read the
claimed “diffusive areas” as embracing the reflective areas that the
Examiner has determined have more diffusive attributes in the device of Su
(areas beneath the light sources of Su that have more or larger particles ) and
has read the claimed “reflective areas” as embracing the reflective areas of
the device of Su that the Examiner has determined to have lesser levels of
diffusive attributes (areas between or to the sides of light sources of Su that
have lesser numbers of particles or smaller particles).
Appellants’ argument does not specifically address the Examiner’s
application of Su to the representative claim 1 subject matter.
On this record, we affirm the Examiner’s anticipation rejection.
Appellants present no further argument against the Examiner’s
separate obviousness rejections of several dependent claims; rather,
Appellants rely on the arguments they made with respect to the anticipation
rejection of claim 1 in traversing the obviousness rejections (App. Br. 5– 6).
It follows that we shall affirm the Examiner’s obviousness rejections
on this record.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s decision to reject the appealed claims is affirmed.
Appeal 2013-002050
Application 12/911,197

5
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).

AFFIRMED

lp