Appeal No. 2006-1654
Application No. 09/929,488
IV. We consider next the examiner’s rejection of claims 1-7 and 10-17 as
being unpatentable over the teachings of Baur in view of Ohta ‘116 [answer,
page 12]. We note that appellant has failed to specifically traverse this
rejection or point out any alleged differences between the claims and the
Ohta ‘116 reference relied upon by the examiner to modify Baur. Pursuant
to our authority under 37 C.F.R.§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(2004), we will select
independent claim 1 as the representative claim for this rejection.
We note that the examiner admits that Baur does explicitly disclose a
range of 0.5 to 4.0 degrees [answer, page 12]. In particular, we note that
the examiner relies upon Ohta ‘116 as teaching a first embodiment (col. 4,
lines 32-34, col. 18, lines 58-62, and col. 19, lines 33-37) where an angle
made between a direction in which a first alignment layer is subjected to an
aligning treatment and a direction in which a second alignment layer is
subjected to an aligning treatment is set to a value of β within plus or minus
5 degrees of zero degrees (col. 8, lines 60-65, and col. 13, lines 39-44)
[answer, page 13]. The examiner further notes that this broader range
completely encompasses the claimed 0.5 to 4.0 degrees (claim 1) and 1.5 to
2.0 degrees (claim 2) to produce a display with a low dependence of image
contrast on viewing angle in a fixed driving voltage range (i.e., reduced
voltage with adequate response speed) [answer, page 13]. The examiner
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