Ex Parte Okumoto

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 9, 2016

13781404 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 9, 2016)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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.
13/781,404 02/28/2013 Kazunori OKUMOTO 005700-ME0027 9555
78198 7590 12/13/2016
StiiHehaker & Rraokett PP EXAMINER
12700 Sunrise Valley Drive ALBRECHT, PETER M
Suite 102
Reston, VA 20191 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2811
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/13/2016 ELECTRONIC
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.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
info@ sbpatentlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KAZUNORI OKUMOTO
Appeal 2015-004954
Application 13/781,404
Technology Center 2800
Before KAREN M. HASTINGS, N. WHITNEY WILSON, and
MICHAEL G. McMANUS, Administrative Patent Judges.
McMANUS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Examiner finally rejected claims 1—7 and 9—15 of Application
13/781,404 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious. Final Act. (May 19,
2014). Appellant1 seeks reversal of these rejections pursuant to 35 U.S.C.
§ 134(a). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6.
For the reasons set forth below, we reverse.
BACKGROUND
The present application relates to a wiring structure for use with a thin
film transistor display. It is stated that certain prior art wiring suffered from
1 Mitsubishi Electric Corporation is identified as the real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 2.
Appeal 2015-004954
Application 13/781,404
a phenomenon known as “film peeling” or “film floating” where an
insulating layer separates from a transparent conductive film layer. Spec. 2.
The wiring structure of the present invention is intended to reduce the
likelihood of such separation while also providing preferable electrical
connectivity between the transparent conductive film and a metal film, a thin
film transistor (“TFT”) array substrate including the same, and a liquid
crystal display device. Spec. 4.
Claim 1 is representative of the pending claims and is reproduced
below:
1. A wiring structure comprising:
a first insulating film;
a first conductive film formed on and over said first insulating
film; and
a first transparent conductive film formed on and over said first
conductive film, wherein
said first transparent conductive film covers at least one part of
an end surface of said first conductive film and extends from
the end surface toward the first insulating film to make contact
with the first insulating film, and
an angle formed at a comer part of said first transparent
conductive film in a region where said first transparent
conductive film makes contact with said first insulating film is
larger than 90 degrees and smaller than 270 degrees or the
comer part has an arc shape.
Appeal Br. (Claims App.) 11.
REJECTIONS
On appeal, the Examiner maintains the following rejections:
1. Claims 1—3, 7, 13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as obvious over Nagano et al. (US 2010/0187532 Al, pub. July 29, 2010)
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Appeal 2015-004954
Application 13/781,404
(“Nagano”) in view of Hata et al. (US 6,936,861 B2, iss. Aug. 30, 2005)
(“Hata”). Final Act. 2.
2. Claims 4—6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
over Nagano and Hata in view of Masutani et al. (US 2008/0131668 Al,
pub. June 5, 2008) (“Masutani”). Id. at 5.
3. Claims 9 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Nagano and Hata in view of Hayashi et al. (US 2012/0113376
Al, pub. May 10, 2012). Id. at 6.
4. Claims 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
over Nagano, Hata, and Hayashi in view of Masutani. Id. at 8.
DISCUSSION
Rejection 1. The Examiner rejected claims 1—3, 7, 13 and 15 as
obvious. Id. at 2. In support of such rejection, the Examiner finds that
Nagano teaches a device where a first transparent conductive film covers an
end surface of a conductive film and extends to contact an insulating film
and that Hata teaches a first transparent conductive film which makes
contact with a first insulating film and has an arc shape. Id. at 3; Answer 3—
4.
Appellant argues that Hata's translucent electrode (7), which the
Examiner equates to the recited "first transparent conductive film," does not
cover any part of an end surface of the conductive film nor extend from the
end surface to contact an insulating film. Appeal Br. 7. Rather, Appellant
contends, the translucent electrode (7) covers an aluminum nitride (AIN)
buffer layer (2) which acts as an insulating layer. Id. Further, Appellant
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Application 13/781,404
asserts, the translucent electrode (7) extends to semiconductor layer (3)
rather than an insulating film as required by the claims.2 Id.
In response, the Examiner finds that the limitation requiring that the
transparent conductive film make contact with the insulating film is met as
Hata teaches and depicts translucent electrode (7) that “makes direct
physical contact with insulating film 2/16.” Answer 2; see Hata, Fig. 1. The
Examiner further clarifies that the limitation "said first transparent
conductive film covers at least one part of an end surface of said first
conductive film” is met by Nagano rather than Hata. Id. at 3. Appellant has
failed to show error in these findings.
Appellant additionally notes that the claims require a transparent
conductive film that both covers a conductive film and makes contact with
an insulating film. Appeal Br. 8; Reply 2. Appellant argues that the
rejection articulated by the Examiner “disregard[s] some limitations”
because the Examiner did not cite to a structure in a single reference that
meets both limitations. Reply 2 (citing MPEP 2141.02(11) (providing that
one may not distill invention to its “gist” or “thrust”). This argument is
unavailing. The Examiner addressed each limitation in the rejection, thus no
limitation was “disregarded.”
2 In the Reply, Appellant presents the new argument that the electrode of
Hata is not transparent. Reply 1—2. An argument omitted from the Appeal
Brief will not be considered when filed in a Reply Brief, absent a showing of
good cause explaining why the argument could not have been presented in
the Appeal Brief. See Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1477 (BPAI
2010) (informative) as well as 37 C.F.R. § 41.37 and § 41.41. Here, there is
no such showing.
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Application 13/781,404
The Appellant also argues that the Examiner has not articulated a
proper basis why a person of ordinary skill in the art would have combined
the relevant teachings of Nagano and Hata. Specifically, Appellant asserts
that Hata teaches to prevent the cracking of the semiconductor layer by
placing a buffer layer between the pad electrode and semiconductor layer.
Appeal Br. 9; Hata, col. 7:54—63. Appellant argues that such teaching is not
relevant to Nagano because “the structures at issue of Nagano do not include
contact pads.” Appeal Br. 9. In the Answer, the Examiner finds as follows:
In this case, the primary reference, Nagano, does disclose a
reliability problem ("the occurrence of a break") with the
metallic source line 44, which is cited as "the first conductive
film" in claims 1, 13 and 15 ... . It is conceivable that the
reliability problem for Nagano's source lines was somehow
related to the electrical connection of the source lines 44 to the
external wiring 49___It would not be unreasonable to assume
that one or more conventional wire bonding operations were
performed to electrically connect the external wiring 49 to the
display driving circuit 46.
Answer 5 (emphasis added). The rejection as stated is speculative. “The
Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its
rejection. It may not. . . resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or
hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies” in the cited references. In re
Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154USPQ 173, 178 (CCPA 1967).
Moreover, Nagano indicates that its structure will reduce the
likelihood of loss of signal. That is, Nagano purports to identify a solution
rather than a problem. Specifically, Nagano provides that its structure
“offers an advantage of suppressing the occurrence of a break of the source
line 44,” and that “[i]t is thereby possible to prevent the disruption of the
display signal in the event that the source line 44 is broken.” Nagano, 1 62.
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Application 13/781,404
This teaching would seem to lead one of skill in the art to employ the
structure of Nagano rather than Hata. Accordingly, we find that Appellant
has demonstrated reversible error in the Examiner’s finding a person of skill
in the art would have combined the teachings of Nagano and Hata in the
manner necessary for the rejection. . In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 986 (Fed.
Cir. 2006)
In view of the foregoing, we need not reach Appellant’s argument
regarding whether an apparatus that embodies the teachings of Nagano and
Hata would be operable. Appeal Br. 9—10.
Rejections 2 — 4. The Examiner rejected claims 4—6, 9—12 and 14
over Nagano in view of Hata and further in view of certain other cited
references as noted above. Each of these combinations relies upon the
combination of Nagano and Hata. As we find no adequate statement of a
motivation to combine the teachings of these references, we are constrained
to reverse Rejections 2—A for the reasons set forth above.
CONCLUSION
The rejections of claims 1—7 and 9-15 as obvious are reversed.
REVERSED
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