Appeal No. 97-2422
Application 07/939,720
obviously been to the extent of substantially entirely covering
the display area and the driving circuit area to the extent
recited in representative independent claim 1 on appeal. This
reference also clearly teaches the claimed orientation layer in
dependent claim 7 since appellant's arguments in the brief, our
understanding of the reference, as well as the arguments
presented by appellant's representative at oral hearing, indicate
that the alignment layers in Sawatsubashi are the same as the
claimed orientation layer.
Therefore, this analysis directly addresses appellant's
arguments with respect to the combination of teachings of Misawa
and Sawatsubashi as to the initially stated rejection of the
examiner. Thus, appellant's arguments that the examiner has
exercised prohibitive hindsight are misplaced since the evidence
of the collective teachings of both references clearly indicates
that, at least to the extent recited in independent claim 1 and
dependent claim 7, the obviousness of the subject matter recited
therein was clearly demonstrated by the prior art relied upon by
the examiner. Moreover, the examiner's position that the
passivation layer of independent claim 1 may be considered to be
a silicon oxide-based material as taught in the applied prior art
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