Ex Parte Lee et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 25, 2017

13718349 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 25, 2017)

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. 13/718,349 12/18/2012 Jong-Kyun LEE 053785-5452 2465 9629 7590 09/27/2017 MORGAN LEWIS & BOCKIUS LLP (WA) 1111 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW WASHINGTON, DC 20004 EXAMINER ZHU, SHENG-BAI ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2892 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/27/2017 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): patents @ morganlewis.com karen.catalano @ morganlewis.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JONG-KYUN LEE, HEE-SEOK YANG, and SEUNG-MIN BAIK Appeal 2016-004567 Application 13/718,349 Technology Center 2800 Before CATHERINE Q. TIMM, JAMES C. HOUSEL, and N. WHITNEY WILSON, Administrative Patent Judges. WILSON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s March 5, 2015 decision finally rejecting claims 1-13 (“Final Act.”). We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as LG Display Co., Ltd., (Appeal Br. 3). Appeal 2016-004567 Application 13/718,349 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellants’ invention is directed to an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device (Abstract). The device includes a substrate, first and second antireflection lines, and gate and data lines formed on the first and second antireflection lines, respectively (id.). The antireflection lines include a first metallic layer and a first inorganic layer, stacked sequentially (id.). Details of the claimed invention are set forth in representative claim 1, which is reproduced below from the Claims Appendix of the Appeal Brief: 1. An organic light emitting diode display device, comprising: a substrate; a first antireflection line formed on the substrate and including a first metallic layer and a first inorganic layer on the first metallic layer; a gate line formed directly on the first inorganic layer of the first antireflection line; a gate insulation layer formed on the substrate and the gate line; a second antireflection line formed on the gate insulation layer and including a second metallic layer and a second inorganic layer on the second metallic layer; a data line formed directly on the second inorganic layer of the second antireflection line; and wherein the first inorganic layer connects the first metallic layer and the gate line electrically and the second inorganic layer connects the second metallic layer and the data line, wherein the first metallic layer is a thin semi-transparent layer, wherein the first metallic layer and the first inorganic layer of the first antireflection line are disposed under the gate line to be closer than the gate line to the substrate, and the second metallic layer and the second inorganic layer of the second antireflection line are disposed under the data line to be closer than the data line to the substrate, 2 Appeal 2016-004567 Application 13/718,349 wherein the first antireflection line is disposed under the gate insulation layer and the second antireflection line is disposed above the gate insulation layer. REJECTIONS I. Claims 1-10, 12, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee2 in view of Kawamura.3 II. Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee and Kawamura, and further in view of You4 and Lee ‘668.5 DISCUSSION We decide this appeal based on arguments common to both rejections and all of the claims on appeal. Accordingly, we focus our discussion on the rejection of claim 1 over Lee in view of Kawamura. The Examiner finds that Lee discloses each element of the claimed OLED display, except that Lee does not disclose that its first and second lines (corresponding to the claimed first and second antireflection lines) are “antireflection lines” (Final Act. 2-4, citing Lee, FIG. 6B, || 7, 40, 54, 56, 59). The Examiner further finds that Kawamura discloses a “similar display device” comprising a laminated data/gate line structure comprising a metallic layer such as Cr, Ti, or Mo, and an inorganic layer including a material selected from the group consisting of indium tin oxide (ITO), indium zinc oxide (IZO), tin oxide, zinc oxide, and mixtures thereof (Final Act. 4, citing Kawamura, 7:17-26, 7:53-59). The Examiner determines that 2 Lee et al., US 2007/0013077 Al, published January 18, 2007. 3 Kawamura et al., US 7,737,517 B2, issued June 15, 2010. 4 You et al., US 6,893,908 B2, issued May 17, 2005. 5 Lee et al., US 7,230,668 B2, issued June 12, 2007. 3 Appeal 2016-004567 Application 13/718,349 it would have been obvious to replace the copper in the data/gate line structure of Lee with the ITO, IZO materials from Kawamura because “such material substitution or replacement. . . would have been considered a mere substitution of art-recognized equivalent values” in order to form an antireflection line to prevent contrast deterioration due to reflection of an external light (Final Act. 4). Appellants argue that the Examiner’s rationale for modifying Lee as set forth in the rejection (i.e., replacing the copper in Lee’s lines with the ITO or IZO described in Kawamura) is deficient because making that modification would, inter alia, render Lee’s invention unsatisfactory for its intended purpose (Appeal Br. 8). Appellants’ argument is persuasive. As explained by Appellants (Appeal Br. 9-11), Lee is specifically concerned with the use of copper in the line. Lee states that “[t]he present invention relates to a wire structure, and more particularly, to a wire structure including copper or its alloy” and is concerned with providing a structure around a copper layer that alleviates the problems of copper corrosion and adhesion (Lee Tflf 3, 112). Consistent with these purposes, the examples in Lee includes wire structures with copper (e.g., Lee ]Hf 54 and 59). Accordingly, the Examiner’s proposed modification of Lee, to replace the copper with a material such as ITO or IZO, would render Lee’s invention unsatisfactory for its intended purpose of providing an improved structure or a copper wiring layer. The Examiner states that the modified structure of Lee (i.e., replacing the copper with ITO or IZO) would be “operable” because Lee does not state that the lines cannot include materials like ITO or IZO and that the basic requirement of the lines - electrical conductivity - would still be met (Ans. 3-4). However, that a person of skill might have 4 Appeal 2016-004567 Application 13/718,349 been able to make the proposed modification is not sufficient to show that such a person would have had a reason to do so. In this instance, Lee is directed towards a system which protects and improves copper wiring. Removing that copper would render Lee unsatisfactory for its intended purpose, and therefore doing so would not have been obvious. See Tec Air, Inc. v. Denso Mfg. Mich. Inc., 192 F.3d 1353, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 1999). Accordingly, we reverse the rejections on appeal. CONCLUSION We REVERSE the rejection of claims 1-10, 12, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee in view of Kawamura. We REVERSE the rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee and Kawamura, and further in view of You and Lee ‘668. REVERSED 5