Ex parte Arakawa

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Aug 28, 1998

08103174 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 28, 1998)

Application for patent filed August 6, 1993. 1
According to appellant, the application is a continuation of
Application 07/564,515, filed August 9, 1990.
1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today
(1) was not written for publication in a law journal and
(2) is not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 32
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
__________
Ex parte SATOSHI ARAKAWA
__________
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,1741
__________
ON BRIEF
__________
Before THOMAS, BARRETT, and TORCZON, Administrative Patent
Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
2
Appellant appeals to the Board from the examiner's final
rejection of claims 2 to 5 and 8 to 12, which constitute all
the claims remaining in the application.
Representative claim 5 is reproduced below:
5. A flat type display apparatus comprising;
a substrate;
an active display device, on said substrate, having a
plurality of picture elements arranged in a two dimensional
matrix form, wherein each of the plurality of picture elements
of said active display device emits a back light having a
light intensity;
a transmission type passive display device, superposed on
said active display device, having a plurality of picture
elements arranged in a two dimensional matrix form, wherein
each of the plurality of picture elements of said transmission
type passive display device having a light transmittance; and
a control circuit for independently controlling the light
transmitting of each of the picture elements of said
transmission type passive display device so as to cause each
of the picture elements to assume one of a plurality of
gradation levels and the light intensity of each of the
picture elements of said active display device so as to take
on one of a plurality of intensities.
The following references are relied on by the examiner:
Bly 4,170,771 Oct. 9, 1979
Yoshimura 4,574,315 Mar. 4,
1986
Shiraishi et al. (Shiraishi) 5,144,292 Sep. 1,
1992
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
3
(filed July 17, 1986)
Claims 2 to 5 and 8 to 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103. As evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies upon
Bly in view of Yoshimura, further in view of Shiraishi.
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellant and the
examiner, reference is made to the briefs and the answers for
the respective details thereof.
OPINION
For the reasons expressed by the examiner in the Answer,
and for the additional reasons presented here, we will sustain
the prior art rejection of all claims on appeal under 35
U.S.C. § 103. To round-out the examiner's detailed
analysis of the claimed invention and appellant's arguments,
as well as the teachings and suggestions of the references
relied upon, we add the following.
To the extent appellant argues that the purposes of the
references relied upon by the examiner are different from the
appellant’s disclosed purpose, this is not pertinent to the
issue and is essentially irrelevant if the prior art teachings
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
4
would have led the artisan to construct an arrangement having
the claimed structural features. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331,
216 USPQ 1038 (Fed. Cir. 1983) and In re Kronig, 539 F.2d
1300, 190 USPQ 425 (CCPA 1976). The law of obviousness does
not require that references be combined for reasons
contemplated by an inventor, but only looks to whether the
motivation or suggestion to combine references is provided by
prior art taken as a whole. In re Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309, 24
USPQ2d 1040 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In an obviousness
determination, the prior art need not suggest solving the same
problem set forth by appellant. In re Dillion, 919 F.2d 688,
692-93, 16 USPQ2d 1897, 1901 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (in banc)
(overruling in part In re Wright, 848 F.3d 1216, 1220, 6
USPQ2d 1959, 1962 (Fed. Cir. 1988)), cert. denied, 500 U.S.
904 (1991).
The top of page 5 of the Brief indicates that appellant
regards Bly's teachings and showings that an active display
device A and a passive display device P are independently
controlled in synchronism with each other in such a manner as
to display images defined by picture elements. Independent
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
5
claim 5 requires that the picture elements be arranged in a
two dimensional matrix form. In the paragraph at the top of
column 2 of Bly, lines 6-12, various types of display
approaches are generally taught including scan modes
permitting "pixel-at-a-time" scanning modes. The showing of
the M matrix from the perspective of the viewer's eye at 62 in
Figure 1 would have clearly indicated to the artisan a two
dimensional matrix form was the resulting image presented to
the user 62. Additionally, with respect to the discussion of
Figure 2, the language at column 2, lines 51 through 55
indicate to the artisan and the reader that a video type scan
was attempted to be duplicated in the circuit arrangement of
Figure 2. This in addition to the other teachings and
showings in Bly clearly would have suggested to the artisan a
video-type scan or a raster scanned picture element based
approach was obvious to the artisan. In any event, the
evidence provided by the examiner in the form of Yoshimura's
teachings and the noted portions relied upon by the examiner
clearly would have indicated to the artisan that a few years
later in the art as compared with Bly, Yoshimura indicates
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
6
that matrix displays existed such that they included a
plurality of picture elements or pixels. The column 1, lines
11 through 16 reference relied upon by the examiner in
Yoshimura indicates that LCD as well as EL-type displays, the
two utilized by appellant, both existed in a matrix form of
picture elements. Yoshimura’s Figure 3 shows a two
dimensional array of picture elements otherwise indicated as
display elements in his other figures.
Clearly, from an artisan's perspective then, the
collective teachings of Bly and Yoshimura would have indicated
to the artisan that it was known in the art to arrange such
display types as LCD and EL having two dimensional forms of
picture elements. Furthermore, the selective controllability
of both Bly and Yoshimura would have also indicated to the
artisan that each of the picture elements would have been
desirably controllable.
Thus, appellant's reliance upon column 1, lines 25 to 35
of Bly to indicate that Bly teaches away from a two
dimensional array picture element is initially misplaced in
our view. We do not regard such teaching as a true teaching
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
7
away as Bly's general disclosure merely relates to one
dimensional array displays being placed in an orthogonal
relationship. Bly does not expressely state that a two
dimensional matrix of picture elements should not be used
according to his teachings. In the same manner disclosed and
broadly claimed, Bly clearly shows an active matrix in the
form of an EL display providing back lighting to a passive-
type LCD display P in Figure 1 for the viewer 62 to see.
Shiraishi confirms this overall basic structural arrangement.
We do not agree that Bly may be fairly said to teach away.
The examiner has properly weighed the teaching value of
Yoshimura in context anyway. Moreover, Shiraishi’s two
dimensional EL-LCD sandwiched display further confirms this
assessment. See at least Figure 3.
At the top of page 6 of appellant's Brief it stated that
Shiraishi merely discloses the conventional practice of
providing
a single backlighting element for a passive display. This
statement confirms what the art relied on generally shows,
that it was known in the art to provide backlighting for a
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
8
passive display. We have just indicated our view, in
contradistinction to appellant's assertion at the bottom of
page 6 of the Brief that Bly does not teach the use of an
active element as a backlight for a passive display, that it
does in fact show this in Figure 1 anyway. In any event, the
collective teachings of the three references relied upon by
the examiner would have clearly indicated the obviousness of
extending the backlighting teachings of Bly and Shiraishi to
the two dimensional matrix orientations taught by Yoshimura
such as to be able to individually control each of the
individual pixel elements in such a two dimensional array.
Dependent claim 8 recites that the active display device
is controlled in such a manner as to improve luminance
resolution of the entire apparatus. This is generally what
the teachings and showings in Shiraishi indicate since it is
the backlighting active display element in the form of an
electroluminescent backlighting array which is separately
controlled according to the lamp off, the lamp dim, the lamp
standard, the lamp bright codes from the latch 20 through the
decoder 21 and the E-L panel voltage generating circuit 23 in
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
9
Figure 4 of Shiraishi in accordance with the flow chart of
Figure 5. Increasing the luminosity levels in a such a manner
clearly would have increased luminance resolution to the
extent broadly set forth in claim 8 on appeal. Furthermore,
column 4, lines 10 through 13 of Shiraishi indicate that the
luminosity levels are user adjustable based upon the lighting
environment in which the data processing device of this
reference is used.
As to the features of dependent claim 10, it appears that
the showings and discussion in Bly generally would have
indicated to the artisan a one-to-one correspondence of the
number of picture elements in the active and passive displays
of this reference. In conjunction with the related features
received in dependent claim 2 which recite that the passive
display element has a finer resolution of its picture elements
than the active display picture elements, we agree with the
examiner's basic position that such was a proper design choice
or trade-off for the artisan to have made based upon the
environment of use of the overall display device.
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
10
In view of the foregoing, since claims 5, 2, 8 and 10 are
the only claims argued by appellant in the brief according to
the claim grouping at page 4, the decision of the examiner
rejecting claims 2 to 5 and 8 to 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is
affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in
connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR
§ 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF
PATENT
LEE E. BARRETT ) APPEALS
AND
Administrative Patent Judge )
INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
RICHARD TORCZON )
Administrative Patent Judge )
Appeal No. 96-1446
Application 08/103,174
11
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