Tomio Aoki et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 30, 2019

12579856 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 30, 2019)

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.
12/579,856 10/15/2009 Tomio Aoki T0774.70008US01 9179
23628 7590 09/30/2019
WOLF GREENFIELD & SACKS, P.C.
600 ATLANTIC AVENUE
BOSTON, MA 02210-2206
EXAMINER
GYLLSTROM, BRYON T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2875
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/30/2019 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_eOfficeAction@WolfGreenfield.com
WGS_eOfficeAction@WolfGreenfield.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte TOMIO AOKI, MASATAKE HAYASHI, SHOZO MASUDA,
and TADASHI MORIMOTO
____________

Appeal 2019-001643
Application 12/579,856
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, JEFFREY B. ROBERTSON, and
BRIAN D. RANGE, Administrative Patent Judges.

ROBERTSON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 8, and 14–18. (Appeal Br. 6–13.) We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

1 This Decision includes citations to the following documents:
Specification filed October 15, 2009 (“Spec.”); Non-Final Office Action
mailed December 15, 2017 (“Non-Final Act.”); Appeal Brief filed May 10,
2018 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed October 16, 2018 (“Ans.”);
and Reply Brief filed December 17, 2018 (“Reply Br.”).
2 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 Saturn
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Application 12/579,856

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We REVERSE.
THE INVENTION
Appellant states the invention relates to a surface light source device
and a liquid crystal display unit. (Spec. 1, ll. 13–14.)
Claim 1 is representative and reproduced below from the Claims
Appendix to the Appeal Brief:
1. A surface light source device which illuminates a
transmission type liquid crystal display unit from a back
surface, the liquid crystal display unit having a display area
including pixels arranged in a two-dimensional matrix, the
surface light source device comprising:
PxQ surface light source units corresponding to PxQ
imaginary display area units obtained by assuming that the
display area of the liquid crystal display unit is divided into the
PxQ imaginary display area units,
wherein:
light sources included in the surface light source
units are individually controlled and are configured to
emit white light,
the PxQ surface light source units comprise at least
one first surface light source unit and each of the at least
one first surface light source units includes first light
sources, the white light emitted by the first light sources
of each of the at least one first surface light source units
has a luminance profile, and
for each luminance profile of the white light
emitted by the first light sources of each of the at least
one first surface light source unit, a center of mass of that
luminance profile is located inside a circle of diameter D
drawn around a center of mass of a corresponding first
surface light source unit of the at least one first surface

Licensing LLC, Sony Corporation, Thomson Licensing DTV, and
Technicolor USA, Inc. (Appeal Br. 2.)
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light source unit, such that the first light sources of that
corresponding first surface light source unit are
configured to emit white light for an entirety of the
surface light source unit, where D is determined by the
equation D = 0.2 S01/2 and S0 is a surface area of that
corresponding first surface light source unit.

(Appeal Br. (Claims Appendix) 14–15.)
Claims 2 and 8 are also independent, and recite a surface light source
device, and transmission-type liquid crystal display unit, respectively, each
claim reciting a center of mass of a luminance profile that coincides with or
is located inside a circle diameter drawn around a center of mass of a surface
light source unit. (Id. at 15–17.)

REJECTIONS
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 19, and 21 under pre-AIA
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Han et al. (US 7,780,312 B2,
issued August 24, 2010, hereinafter “Han”) and Lee et al. (US
2007/0081330 A1, published April 12, 2007, hereinafter “Lee”).
2. The Examiner rejected claims 3, 4, 8, 20, and 22 under pre-AIA
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Han, Lee, and Minami (US
7,812,510 B2, issued October 12, 2010).
(Non-Final Act. 4–8.)
We limit our discussion to independent claim 1, which is sufficient for
disposition of this appeal.
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Application 12/579,856

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Rejection 1
ISSUE
The Examiner found, inter alia, Han discloses a surface light source
device as recited in claim 1, including where the first surface light sources
have a luminance profile that have a center of mass located inside a circle of
diameter D drawn at a center of mass corresponding first surface light source
unit. (Ans. 2–4; Non-Final Act. 4–5.) The Examiner found that Han does
not disclose the light sources are individually controlled. (Non-Final Act.
5.) The Examiner found Lee discloses individual control of a plurality of
LEDs located in a surface light source in order to obtain desired color of
illumination, and determined, therefore, it would have been obvious to
provide individual control to the LEDs of Han’s device. (Id.)
Appellant argues claim 1 recites two different centers of mass, a
“center of mass of [a] luminance profile” and a “center of mass of a
corresponding first surface light source unit,” and the Examiner does not set
forth a sufficient basis to support that Han discloses a “center of mass of [a]
luminance profile.” (Appeal Br. 8–12; Reply Br. 3–7.)
Accordingly, the dispositive issue with respect to this rejection is:
Did the Examiner err in finding Han discloses a “center of mass of [a]
luminance profile” such that the first light sources are arranged with respect
to the first surface light source unit as recited in claim 1?

DISCUSSION
We are persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding Han discloses the
arrangement of first light sources as recited in claim 1. In the Answer, the
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Examiner produced annotated versions of Figures 6 and 8 of Han, which are
reproduced below (Ans. 4; best available copies):

Annotated Figure 6 depicts a schematic perspective view of an
arrangement of LED clusters according to an embodiment of Han’s
invention including a plurality of LED clusters 127 including four LEDs
(124a–d) arranged in a diamond shape, where four LED clusters 127 are
located on three metal core printed circuit boards (MCPCBs) (122a–c), the
four LED clusters 127 and three MCPCBs (122a-c) are separated by distance
l2. (Han, col. 4, ll. 37–39; col. 5, l. 35 – col. 6, l. 19; see Han, Fig. 6 and col.
1, ll. 57–58.) The Examiner has annotated the drawing to contain two sets of
two diagonal lines, the first set having lines beginning at each diagonal
corner of the rectangle representing MCPCB 122a and intersecting in the
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center of MCPCB 122a, and the second set beginning at each corner at the
top MCPCB 122a and extending diagonally to each corner of the bottom of
MCPCB 122c, intersecting in the middle of MCPCB 122b, and asserts that
the cross point with the two diagonal lines on the substrate are considered to
be the center of mass of the illumination profile. (Ans. 4.)

Annotated Figure 8 depicts a schematic perspective view of an
arrangement of LED clusters according to an embodiment of Han’s
invention including a plurality of LED clusters 227 including five LEDs
(224a–e), where four LED clusters 227 are located on three metal core
printed circuit boards (MCPCBs) (122a–c), the four LED clusters 127 and
three MCPCBs (222a-c) are separated by distance l3. (Han, col. 4, ll. 43–45;
col. 6, l. 57 – col. 7, l. 12; Fig. 8.) In addition to a similar annotation to the
first set of diagonal lines at MCPCB 222a as described above for Figure 6,
the Examiner has annotated Figure 8 to contain two intersecting circles,
where the centers of the circles appear to be located within MCPCB 222a,
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and which the Examiner asserts include the center of the luminance profile.
(Ans. 4.)
In addition to the annotated drawings, the Examiner made explicit
findings that the surface light source units recited in claim 1 correspond to
LED clusters 227 in Han (Fig 8) and also that a center of mass of a
luminance profile of white light emitted by first light sources of source unit
227 is located inside a circle of diameter D drawn at a center of mass
corresponding to a first light source unit (around LED 224e). (Ans. 2–3;
Non-Final Act. 4.) The Examiner stated that the center of mass of the first
luminance profile (122a) (Fig. 6) is at the point of intersection of the two
diagonals shown in annotated Figure 6 as discussed above. (Ans. 3.) In
addition, the Examiner found “the ‘center of mass’ can be considered in the
middle of the whole panel including three luminance profiles [122a, 122b,
122c],” the second set of diagonal lines discussed above with respect to
annotated Figure 6 of Han. (Ans. 3–4.)
However, as argued by Appellant, the Examiner has not provided a
sufficient basis that the light sources of Han as annotated by the Examiner
produce luminance profiles as shown by the annotations. In this regard, as
Appellant points out, Han does not disclose any particular “luminance
profile” for the LED light sources. (Appeal Br. 10; See Han, generally.)
Han discloses an LCD device that has LEDs arranged for increasing
brightness, contrast, and for preventing life span decrease in order to address
problems with such properties found in prior art devices. (Han, col. 2, l. 46
– col. 3, l. 15.) Thus, although Han discloses arrangements that reduce heat
emitted from the LEDs and produce bright, high quality images (Han, col. 5,
ll. 28–34; col. 6, ll. 14–19; col. 7, ll. 25–27), there is no indication in Han
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that a luminance profile produced by the LEDs would have a center of mass
as indicated by the Examiner.
Moreover, the arrangement of LEDs in Han are different than the
arrangement of LEDs leading to the particular relationship between the
center of mass of the luminance profile of white light emitted by the first
light sources and the center of mass of a corresponding first light source unit
recited in claim 1. (Compare Figs. 6 and 8–11 of Han with Figs. 1A and 2A
of the instant Application; see also Figs. 12A, 12B, 13A, 13b, 14A, and 14B
of the instant Application showing other prior art LED arrangements.)
Thus, although we are of the view that the LEDs in Han would
inherently have a luminance profile having a center of mass, there is
insufficient support for the Examiner’s position that the arrangement in Han
would produce a luminance profile having a center of mass meeting the
requirements recited in claim 1.
Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, as well
as claims 8 and 14–18.

Rejection 2
For independent claim 2, which is the subject of Rejection 2, the
Examiner relies on Minami for disclosing partition walls that specularly
reflect a light. (Non-Final Act. 7.) Thus, the Minami fails to remedy the
deficiencies noted above with respect to Rejection 1.
Accordingly, we reverse Rejection 2 for similar reasons as discussed
above with respect to Rejection 1.

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DECISION
Claims
Rejected
Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 8, and
14–18
§ 103(a) Han and
Lee
1, 8, and
14–18
2 § 103(a) Han,
Lee, and Minami
2
Overall
Outcome
1, 2, 8, and
14–18

REVERSED