Apple Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 22, 2020

15484979 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 22, 2020)

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.
15/484,979 04/11/2017 Ligang Wang P28909US2 9114
65015 7590 09/22/2020
Treyz Law Group
15279 N. Scottsdale Rd., Suite 250
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
EXAMINER
CHANG, AUDREY Y
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2872
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/22/2020 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):
docket@treyzlawgroup.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LIGANG WANG, ZHENBIN GE, XIANWEI ZHAO,
AVERY P. YUEN, and STEPHEN C. COOL
Appeal 2020-004305
Application 15/484,979
Technology Center 2800
Before TERRY J. OWENS, BEVERLY A. FRANKLIN, and
JAMES C. HOUSEL, Administrative Patent Judges.
OWENS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–3, 5–10, and 12–20. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Apple Inc. (Appeal
Br. 2).
Appeal 2020-004305
Application 15/484,979

2
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to electronic devices having scratch-resistant
antireflection coatings. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. An electronic device, comprising:
a visible light camera;
a transparent member that overlaps the visible light camera;
and
a visible light antireflection coating on the transparent
member that includes a stack of thin-film interference filter layers
including an uppermost thin-film interference filter layer and a
lowermost thin-film interference filter layer that is between the
uppermost thin-film interference layer and the transparent
member, wherein the uppermost thin-film interference filter layer
is a silicon oxide layer having a thickness of less than 80 nm; and
a graded index adhesion layer between the lowermost
thin-film interference filter layer and the transparent
member, wherein the graded index adhesion layer changes
composition smoothly between the lowermost thin-film
interference filter layer and the transparent member.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Cutherell US 2006/0017706 A1 Jan. 26, 2006
Nose US 2008/0158702 A1 July 3, 2008
Cho US 7,483,212 B2 Jan. 27, 2009
Lee US 9,013,795 B2 Apr. 21, 2015
Mashimo US 2015/0138638 A1 May 21, 2015
Yang US 9,478,698 B2 Oct. 25, 2016

Appeal 2020-004305
Application 15/484,979

3
REJECTIONS
The claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 1032 as follows:
claims 1–3, 5, and 6 over Mashimo in view of Yang and Cho; claims 7 and 8
over Mashimo in view of Yang, Cho, and Lee; claim 9 over Mashimo in
view of Yang, Cho, Lee, and Cutherell; claims 10 and 15 over Mashimo in
view of Nose; claims 12–14 over Mashimo in view of Nose and Lee; and
claims 16–20 over Mashimo in view of Lee.
OPINION
The Appellant argues claims 1, 10, 13, and 16 (Appeal Br. 7–13). We
therefore limit our discussion to those claims. Claims that depend from them
stand or fall with the respective claims we address. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2013).
Claim 1
Claim 1 requires an electronic device having a graded index adhesion
layer which changes composition smoothly between a lowermost thin-film
interference filter layer and a transparent member.
Yang discloses a light-emitting device (2) having, between a
transparent substrate (20) and a semiconductor light-emitting stack (23), a
bonding layer (21) comprising first (211) and second (212) bonding layers
with a continuous or gradient refractive index variation (col. 2, ll. 3–13;
col. ll. 21–32; Fig. 3).

2 “Section 103 forbids issuance of a patent when ‘the differences between
the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the
subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention
was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject
matter pertains.’” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406 (2007).
Appeal 2020-004305
Application 15/484,979

4
Cho discloses a semiconductor light-emitting device comprising a
layer (11) made of a first material and a layer (14) made of a second material
between which is a graded-refractive index layer (12) comprising
configuration layers 12a–12e whose composition changes by multi-target
co-deposition gradually from the first material to the second material such
that the graded-refractive index material (12)’s refractive index continuously
changes from the first material layer (11)’s refractive index to the second
material layer (14)’s refractive index (col. 5, ll. 36–44, 55–62; col. 6, ll. 32–
34; Fig. 1).
The Appellant argues that Cho does not disclose a layer which
changes composition smoothly but, rather, discloses a stack of discrete
configuration layers with a compositional change between each sequential
layer (Appeal Br. 9).
Cho’s illustration of the refractive index in Figure 1(b) and the
composition in Figure 1(c) as changing continuously instead of changing
stepwise at each of the configuration layers (12a–12e) in Figure 1(a), and
Cho’s disclosures that the graded-refractive index layer (12)’s refractive
index can change continuously and that its layers “may be formed by multi-
target co-deposition with a composition of (the first material)x(the second
material)1-x(0