Appeal No. 2006-1628
Application No. 09/840,082
Murade considered alone amply establish at least a prima facie case of
obviousness. In short, the examiner's reliance on the admitted prior art device to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness is merely cumulative to the teachings
of Murade. In our view, the obviousness rejection of claims 1-3, 5-7, 9, 11-13,
15-17, and 19 is proper based solely on the teachings of Murade.
Murade discloses a light-shielding member 6 that overlaps the TFT and
covers the TFT's channel region 1c, LDD regions 1d, 1e, and source/drain
regions 1a, 1b [Murade, Fig. 2]. As shown in Fig. 2, the light-shielding member 6
also overlaps the pixel electrode 14 including the junction between the drain
region 1b and pixel electrode 14. In our view, at least the portion of pixel
electrode 14 that directly contacts drain region 1b reasonably constitutes a "drain
electrode" giving the term its broadest reasonable interpretation. Because this
electrode is an ITO film according to col. 9, line 9, the drain electrode therefore is
a metal thin film.
Although Murade teaches suppressing leakage current by preventing light
from impinging on the various elements of the TFT as noted in col. 7, lines 54-60,
we see no reason why light would also not impinge on the metallic drain
electrode. In this regard, we note that Fig. 2 of Murade shows (1) the light-
shielding member 6 directly overlapping the drain electrode, and (2) the light-
shielding member 6 extending well beyond the drain electrode. Although Murade
does not expressly discuss preventing light from impinging directly on the
metallic drain electrode, the feature is nevertheless inherent to the structure
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007