Ex Parte Pierik et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 24, 2016

12089449 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 24, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/089,449 04/07/2008 Anke Pierik
24737 7590 03/28/2016
PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & STANDARDS
P.O. BOX 3001
BRIARCLIFF MANOR, NY 10510
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
2005P02719WOUS 2837
EXAMINER
WECKER, JENNIFER
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1797
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/28/2016 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):
debbie.henn@philips.com
marianne.fox@philips.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ANKE PIERIK, ANTONIUS JOHANNES JO
WISMANS,WILLEM-JAN A. DE WIJS, JOHAN FREDERIK
DIJKSMAN, MARTIN MAURICE VERNHOUT,
ADRIANUS THEODORUS RAAIJMAKERS, and
LEONARDUS JOHANNES VAN DEN BESSELAAR
Appeal2014-005488
Application 12/089 ,449
Technology Center 1700
Before TERRY J. OWENS, CATHERINE Q. TIMM, and
AVEL YN M. ROSS, Administrative Patent Judges.
OWENS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 6-9, 11-21, 24, and 25. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
The Invention
The Appellants claim an inkjet device and method. Claim 1 is
illustrative:
1. An inkjet device for the controlled positioning of
droplets of a substance onto a substrate and for determining the
Appeal2014-005488
Application 12/089,449
degeneration of the substance during a printing process, the
inkjet device comprising at least a print head comprising a nozzle
provided to eject a droplet, the inkjet device further comprising a
control camera arranged such that after ejection of the droplet out
of the nozzle during the printing process, the droplet is detected
by the control camera, wherein the positioning of the droplet is
continually controlled such that each droplet is detected while
travelling between the nozzle and the substrate.
Webb
Miura
Edwards
Watanabe
Shang
Greminger
The References
US 2004/0082059 Al
US 2004/0189750 Al
US 2004/0261700 Al
US 2005/0104921 Al
US 2006/0071957 Al
EP 1 378 359 Al
The Rejections
Apr. 29, 2004
Sept. 30, 2004
Dec. 30, 2004
May 19, 2005
Apr. 6, 2006
Jan. 7,2004
The claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as follows: claims 1,
2, 4, 6, 8, 11-14, 24, and 25 over Edv,rards in viev,r of Shang, claims 7 and 9
over Edwards in view of Shang and Watanabe, claims 15-18 over Edwards
in view of Shang and Miura, claims 19 and 20 over Edwards in view of
Shang and Webb and claim 21 over Edwards in view of Shang and
Greminger.
OPINION
We affirm the rejections.
The Appellants argue the claims as a group (App. Br. 5-13).
Although additional references are applied to some of the dependent claims,
the Appellants do not provide a substantive argument as to the separate
patentability of those claims (App. Br. 11-13). We therefore limit our
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Appeal2014-005488
Application 12/089,449
discussion to one claim, i.e., claim 1. Claims 2, 4, 6-9, 11-21, 24, and 25
stand or fall with that claim. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2012).
Edwards discloses "microdeposition systems for fabricating printed
circuit boards, polymer light emitting diode (PLED) displays, and other
devices requiring microdeposition of fluid material" (i-f 2). The systems
include a first camera (52) which aligns a microdeposition head (50), a
second camera (84) which captures droplets in flight, and a drop analysis
module (110) which uses optical recognition to analyze the droplets and
adjust the amplitude, timing, slope, shape, etc. of nozzle firing voltage
waveforms, calculate drop volume/mass, drop velocity, angle deviation,
drop quality and formation, and drop/nozzle consistency, and adjust the
pulse shape and width of nozzle firing voltage waveforms to improve drop
quality and volume (i1i163, 67, 106, 108). "Still other methods of modifying
the nozzle firing waveform may be employed to impact the shape, timing,
and/or volume of the droplets" (id.).
Shang discloses a droplet visualization system ( 630) which is
integrated with an inkjet printing system and measures inkjet droplets' sizes
and speeds and captures their trajectories "to improve the consistency of the
sizes, the velocities and trajectories of inkjet droplets during the droplet
dispensing process" (Abstract; i-fi-f 19, 44). The visualization system (630)
includes, as a visualization device (633), a charge coupled device camera
(i-f 26; Fig. 1). The droplet sizes are "quite small", i.e., about 2 to about
100 µm in diameter (i-f 26). An image analysis tool measures the drop size,
speed and location to 1 % or better precision (i1i1 42--43). "[T]he
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Appeal2014-005488
Application 12/089,449
measurement process using this technique is drop by drop and not an
average value" (i-f 43).
The Appellants assert that at best, Shang's "drop by drop" measures
two sequential drops but not every drop traveling between the nozzle and the
substrate (App. Br. 8, 10).
That argument is not well taken because it is directed toward a
limitation which is not in the claim. See In re Self, 671F.2d1344, 1348
(CCP A 1982) ("[A ]ppellant' s arguments fail from the outset because ...
they are not based on limitations appearing in the claims."). In the
Appellants' claim 1, "each droplet" refers to each detected droplet. The
claim does not require detection of every droplet ejected during the printing
process. Regardless, Shang' s disclosure that a "feedback mechanism allows
the system to improve the droplet size and speed uniformity as a function of
time, and therefore improves the uniform[ity] of color filter[ s] the system
manufactures" (i-f 43) would have led one of ordinary skill in the art, through
no more than ordinary creativity, to detect every droplet during the printing
process to achieve color filter uniformity throughout the entire process. See
KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (in making an
obviousness determination one "can take account of the inferences and
creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ").
Thus, we are not persuaded of reversible error in the rejection.
DECISION/ORDER
The rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11-14,
24, and 25 over Edwards in view of Shang, claims 7 and 9 over Edwards in
view of Shang and Watanabe, claims 15-18 over Edwards in view of Shang
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Application 12/089,449
and Miura, claims 19 and 20 over Edwards in view of Shang and Webb and
claim 21 over Edwards in view of Shang and Greminger are affirmed.
It is ordered that the Examiner's decision is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED
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