Appeal 2006-3072
Application 10/419,763
36 through 43,1 in the Office action mailed June 15, 2005. 35 U.S.C.
§§ 6 and 134(a) (2002); 37 C.F.R. § 41.31(a) (2005).
We affirm the decision of the Primary Examiner.
Claims 1 and 2 illustrate Appellants’ invention of a liquid crystal
device, and are representative of the claims on appeal:
1. A liquid crystal device comprising first and second opposed
spaced-apart walls enclosing a layer of a liquid crystal material, electrodes
on at least one cell wall for applying an electric field across at least some of
the liquid crystal material, at least a part of the inner surface of the first cell
wall including a first surface layer formed from a polymerised aligned
mesogenic material, and at least a part of the inner surface of the second cell
wall including a second surface layer formed from a polymerised [sic]
aligned mesogenic material, which surface layers are in contact with the
liquid crystal material at first and second interfaces respectively; the
anchoring energy at the first interface differing from the anchoring energy at
the second interface.
2. A device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the difference in
anchoring energies results from polymerisation [sic] of the mesogenic
material of the surface layers at different temperatures.
The Examiner relies on the evidence in these references:
Nakamura US 5,686,019 Nov. 11, 1997
Walton US 6,201,588 B1 Mar. 13, 2001
Martinot-Lagarde US 6,452,573 B1 Sep. 17, 2002
Appellants request review of the ground of rejection of claims 1
through 7, 27 through 34, and 36 through 43 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Walton in view of Nakamura as evidenced by
Martinot-Lagarde (Answer 2-6; Br. 6).
1 The Examiner has withdrawn claims 9 through 26 from consideration
under 37 C.F.R. § 1.142(b) and objected to claims 8, 35, and 44 as drawn to
allowable subject but dependent on a rejected claim.
2
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