Appeal No. 2003-1249
Application 09/386,972
Itoh discloses a method for cleaning, evacuating and sealing
a flat panel display device by 1) repeatedly, several times,
feeding the device with electricity to emit electrons from the
cathode for several minutes while evacuating the device to about
10-7 Torr, introducing reducing gas into the device until the
pressure is 10-2 to 500 Torr, holding this pressure in the device
for a few minutes, and evacuating the device to about 10-7 Torr,
2) evacuating the device for about 6 hours at about 300ºC, and
3) sealing an evacuation tube or sealing lid to form a high
vacuum in the device (col. 6, line 64 - col. 7, line 27).
Watkins discloses a method for evacuating and then sealing a
field emission display device (col. 1, lines 6-8). The device is
evacuated by maintaining it in a chamber at a pressure which can
be 10-8 Torr for a sufficient time, e.g., 1-2 hours, to reach
equilibrium and outgas water and other contaminants through a gap
between the device’s peripheral seal material and back plate, and
is sealed by compressing and optionally heating the seal material
(col. 6, lines 5-31).
The examiner argues that the reason why Konuma removes
harmful gas atoms to the greatest extent feasible and limits the
time of operation during evacuation apparently is to protect the
cathode from damage by ion bombardment during sputter cleaning of
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