Appeal No. 2001-1516
Application No. 08/684,299
control of each area of the display without crosstalk” [answer-top of page 5]. Thus, the
examiner has not specifically pointed to anything in the three applied references that
would suggest the claimed “switching element associated with each of the pixel
electrodes, said switching elements being formed beneath the respective pixel
electrode.” Rather, the examiner contends that this is “conventional in the art.”
While the examiner contends, at page 8 of the answer, that appellants have not
challenged “that the use of TFTs is not known for advantages such as reduction of
cross talk, i.e., has not challenged that the use of TFTs is not an obvious modification,”
it appears to us that appellants have, indeed, challenged this allegation by the
examiner, at page 7 of the principal brief, wherein appellants state:
The Examiner does not rely on any reference in support of the
contention that the switching elements are obvious . . . Appellants strongly
disagree with the Examiner’s assumption that the elements for which he
does not cite a reference are obvious.
Accordingly, the examiner was put to his proof to establish, by evidence, that
which he alleges to be true, i.e., that it was known to employ TFTs as claimed. The
examiner has not done so. Accordingly, an important claimed element has not been
sufficiently treated in the required obviousness analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 and, as
such, we will not sustain the rejection of claims 20-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. None of
the teachings of the applied references would have suggested a modification to include
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