Ex Parte Birau et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 26, 2014

11189259 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 26, 2014)

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.
11/189,259 07/26/2005 Mihaela Maria Birau 20041100USNP-XER00993US01 3700
62095 7590 11/26/2014
FAY SHARPE / XEROX - ROCHESTER
1228 EUCLID AVENUE, 5TH FLOOR
THE HALLE BUILDING
CLEVELAND, OH 44115
EXAMINER
SUCH, MATTHEW W
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2896
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/26/2014 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 MICHAELA MARIA BIRAU, YILIANG WU,
and BENG S. ONG

____________

Appeal 2012-009931
Application 11/189,259
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before CHARLES F. WARREN, DEMETRA J. MILLS, and
RICHARD M. LEBOVITZ, Administrative Patent Judges.

LEBOVITZ, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This appeal involves claims to an electronic device with an
encapsulation layer. The Examiner has rejected the claims as obvious under
35 U.S.C. § 103. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). The
Examiner’s rejections are reversed.

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Application 11/189,259

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STATEMENT OF CASE
Claims 1, 3 4, 7, and 18 are on appeal and stand rejected by the
Examiner as follows:
1. Claims 1, 3, 4, 7, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA) as
obvious in view of Drzaic (U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2002/0063677 A1, published
May 30, 2002), Hagenmaier (Permeability of Shellac Coatings to Gases and
Water Vapor, 39 J. Agr. & Food Chem., 825-829 (May 1991) ), Komada
(U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2003/0044552 A1, published Mar. 6, 2003), and Vazan
(U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2005/0212419 A1, published Sept. 29, 2005).
2. Claims 1, 3, 4, 7, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA) as
obvious in view of Drzaic, Hagenmaier, Wittmann (U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2004/0239241 A1, published Dec. 2, 2004), and Vazan.
3. Claims 1, 3, 4, 7, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA) as
obvious in view of Drzaic, Hagenmaier, Czeremuszkin (U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2004/0195960 A1, published Oct. 7, 2004), and Vazan.
4. Claims 1, 3, 4, 7, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA) as
obvious in view of over Drzaic, Hagenmaier, Chua (U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2007/0292957 A1, published Dec. 20, 2007), and Vazan.
Claims 1 is representative and reads as follows:
1. An electronic device comprising, in sequence:
a single substrate;
at least one electrode;
a semiconductor layer; and
an encapsulation layer that is an outermost layer relative
to the substrate;
wherein the encapsulation layer comprises a shellac, a
shellac-based material, a synthetic shellac-based material, a
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Application 11/189,259

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shellac derivative, a chemically modified shellac-based
material, or combinations thereof;
wherein the at least one electrode and the semiconductor
layer are closer to the substrate than the encapsulation layer;
wherein the electronic device is a thin film transistor or
an organic light emitting diode; and
wherein the encapsulation layer has a thickness of from
100 nanometers to 900 nanometers.

REJECTIONS
There are two independent claims on appeal, claims 1 and claim 18.
Each of the claims is directed to an electronic device comprising, inter alia,
a substrate and encapsulation layer, where the encapsulation layer comprises
(claim 1) or consists of (claim 18) “a shellac, a shellac-based material, a
synthetic shellac-based material, a shellac derivative, a chemically modified
shellac-based material, or combinations thereof” and “has a thickness of
from 100 nanometers to 900 nanometers.”
For each of the rejections, the Examiner found that Drzaic describes
the claimed electronic device, but not with an encapsulation layer made of
the claimed shellac material and with the claimed thickness. Answer 5–6.
For the shellac material, the Examiner relied upon Hagenmaier which
describes coatings made of shellac-based materials as oxygen and moisture
barrier coatings. Id. at 6. Although the Examiner recognized that the
shellac-based films described in Hagenmaier are used for food coatings, the
Examiner found it was known to use food coatings to seal electronic devices
from oxygen and moisture. Id.
With respect to the thickness of the shellac layer, the Examiner found
“Vazan teaches that conventional thicknesses for effectively protecting
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organic semiconductor layers in organic electronic devices using organic
polymeric films is from 500 nm anywhere up to 5 microns (see Para. 0070).”
Answer 7. The Examiner concluded that the skilled worker would have
been motivated to use Vazan’s thickness for the shellac layer “since Vazan
teaches that this thickness is a suitable thickness for a polymeric
encapsulation layer in order to protect organic semiconductor layers
effectively from the environment (see Para. 0070).” Id.
The Examiner’s case is not supported by a preponderance of the
evidence. The Examiner relied upon Vazan’s teaching in paragraph 70 of a
polymer layer having a thickness of 0.5 micrometers (500 nanometers) to 5
micrometers (5000 nanometers) which encompasses the claimed range.
However, as argued by Appellants, the polymer layer described in Vazan is
not an encapsulation layer and is not use to protect against environmental
elements.
Application 11/189,259 at issue in this appeal (“the ’259
Application”) specifically describes an “encapsulation layer” as an “entity or
component which insulates the electronic device from environmental
constituents which may otherwise adversely affect the device's structural
integrity, functional performance, or operational life time.” ’259
Application ¶ 2. The application states that electronic devices can be
“damaged by environmental elements such as light, water, and oxygen.” Id.
at 5. “To protect against the ingress of environmental elements, an organic
electronic device is often encapsulated.” Id. Thus, an encapsulation layer
would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, upon reading the
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’259 Application, to mean a protective or barrier layer against environment
elements, such as light, water, and oxygen.
The polymer 150–1 layer described in paragraph 70 of Vazan is not an
“encapsulation layer” as that term would be understood in light of the ’259
Application. Polymer layer 150–1 is described as being made of
“[p]referred polymer materials for forming the first polymer layer and
subsequently formed polymer layers include parylene materials which can
be deposited from a vapor phase to provide a polymer layer” Vazan ¶ 70.
However, Vazan discloses that “polymer layers formed of a parylene
material or of another organic material or composites of organic materials,
exhibit moisture permeability.” Id. Thus, Vazan teaches “a polymer layer
such as the layer 150–1 . . . has to be fully encapsulated to minimize or to
limit moisture penetration through sidewalls of the polymer layer and
through the layer in a thickness direction.” Id. In other words, the layer of
Vazan relied upon by the Examiner for making obvious the claimed
thickness of “100 nanometers to 900 nanometers” is not an encapsulation
layer because Vazan’s layer exhibits moisture permeability and the claimed
encapsulation layer is one which protects against environmental elements,
such as water. The Examiner’s reasoning that “since Vazan teaches that
this thickness is a suitable thickness for a polymeric encapsulation layer in
order to protect organic semiconductor layers effectively from the
environment (see Para. 0070)” (Answer 7) is therefore, not supported
factually because Vazan’s layer of 0.5 micrometers (500 nanometers) to 5
micrometers (5000 nanometers) is not described as protecting against the
environment. Accordingly, the Examiner has not put forth adequate
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evidence that it would have been obvious to have selected a shellac-based
encapsulation layer having a thickness “of from 100 nanometers to 900
nanometers.”
Despite the Examiner’s initial statements about Vazan teaching a
polymer layer to protect against the environment, the Examiner subsequently
stated that “Vazan is not being applied as teaching the structural
configuration or material characteristics of encapsulation layers since the
moisture protection, oxygen protection, and encapsulation effects are already
set forth by the prior art of Drzaic, Hagenmaier and Komada/ Wittman/
Czeremuszkin/Chua.” Answer 11. Instead, the Examiner states that Vazan
is “cited for showing conventional thicknesses of protection layers for
organic electron devices that were known in the art at the time the invention
was made.” Id. at 12.
Vazan’s layer is susceptible to moisture and thus, does not protect
against water as the claimed “encapsulation layer” would be understood by
the skilled worker to require. The Examiner has not shown that an
encapsulation layer made of shellac and of the recited thickness would be
effective at protecting against the environment. The Examiner also has not
provided sufficient evidence of what thickness would be effective for an
encapsulation layer that is made of a shellac-based material.

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Application 11/189,259

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All the rejections are based on the combination of Drzaic and
Hagenmaier. For the foregoing reasons we reverse rejections 1–4 of claims
1, 3, 4, 7, and 18.

REVERSED

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