Appeal No. 2001-1516
Application No. 08/684,299
optical thin film layer, it clearly does not include a plurality of coloring areas to form
color filters. While Abileah may teach color filters in LCDs, the examiner has pointed to
nothing in the reference which would suggest having those color filters formed by a
plurality of coloring areas included in a quarter wave phase shifter. The only section of
Abileah referenced by the examiner teaches combining the functions of a retarder and
a color filter into a single element. However, there is no indication that a “retarder” is an
optical thin film layer functioning as a quarter wave plate. As defined in Abileah, a
“retarder” is a compensating element “which would introduce a phase delay opposite in
sign to that caused by the liquid crystal layer...” [column 4, lines 33-34]. Thus, a
retarder, although an element for introducing phase delay, need not be a quarter wave
phase shifter.
But, even if we assume that since Adachi and Iida teach quarter wave plates,
which are delays, or phase shifters, the artisan viewing Abileah together with these
references would have been led to employ Abileah’s color filter in the quarter wave
plate of the other references, there is still the problem of the claimed “switching element
associated with each of the pixel electrodes, said switching elements being formed
beneath the respective pixel electrode.”
For a showing of this claimed element, the examiner relies on switching
elements “(commonly thin film transistors), as is conventional in the art for individual
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