Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
Applicants arguments and amendments, filed on 1/29/26, have been fully considered but they do not confer patentability on all of the instantly filed claims. Applicants have provided a corrected drawing sheet and have amended the specification where necessary so as to overcome the objections to the drawing and the specification. Applicants have amended independent claim 1 such that variable L1 can no longer be equal to a substituted or unsubstituted aromatic heterocyclic group having 3-11 carbon atoms. Variable L2 has also been amended to be a triazine group. The prior art rejection to Kai et al. (WO 2008/056746) as presented in the previous Office is wholly maintained although the grounds for rejection have changed in light of Applicants amendments. The double patenting rejection against co-pending application 17/916,305 has been withdrawn due to Applicants amendments. The double patenting rejections have been withdrawn in light of Applicants amendments. The prior art rejection to Tada et al. (TW-201700478) is still relied upon; however, some of the claims are now rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103. Because this change from an anticipatory rejection to an obviousness type rejection is not necessitated by Applicants amendments, this Office action is non-final. That is to say, the previous Office action did not take into account the originally presented claim limitation that a + b + c ≥ 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 16, 17, and 19 are each rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention. Each of claims 16, 17, and 19 are dependent on claim 2, which has been canceled, rendering these claims indefinite. For purposes of further examination, claims 16, 17, and 19 will be interpreted as being dependent on independent claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 3-8, 10, 11, and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kai et al. (WO 2008/056746). Copies of the original and a machine translation are included with this Office action.
Claim 1: Kai et al. teaches compound 34, which has the structure
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136
148
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(page 10). As applied to general formula (1), this compound has Ar1 equal to an unsubstituted C6 aryl group (phenyl), variables, a, b, and d equal to zero, variable c equal to 1, Ar3 equal to an unsubstituted C6 aryl group (phenyl), ring A equal to formula (1a) with L2 equal to triazine (pyrimidine), variable e equal to 2, and both Ar2 equal to an unsubstituted C6 aryl group (phenyl).
Claim 3: In compound 34, Ar1 and Ar2 anticipate claim 3 as described in claim 1 above.
Claim 4: In compound 34, variable d is equal to zero, thereby anticipating claim 4.
Claim 5: Compound 34 anticipates formula (2) with all variable assignments being described in claim 1 above.
Claim 6: In compound 34, variables a and b are equal to zero, thereby anticipating claim 6.
Claim 7: In compound 34, variable c is equal to 1, thereby anticipating claim 7.
Claim 8, 10, and 11: The compounds taught by Kai et al. are employed in an emission layer of an organic light-emitting device comprising an anode, a hole transport region, said emission layer further comprises a light-emitting dopant, an electron transport region, and a cathode. The employment of any one of the explicitly taught compounds of Kai et al., including compound 34, in the device examples taught therein is at once envisaged, thereby anticipating claims 8, 10, and 11.
Claim 16: In compound 34, Ar1 and Ar2 anticipate claim 16 as described in claims 1 and 2 above. Variable L1 does not need to be present since variable d is allowed to be equal to zero in claims 1 and 2.
Claims 17-20: In compound 34, variables a, b, and d are equal to zero, thereby anticipating claims 17-20.
Claims 1, 3-5, 8, 10, 11, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tada et al. (TW-201700478).
Claims 1, 3-5 and 18: Tada et al. teaches compounds 1-5, 1-6, 1-13, 1-14, 1-18, and 1-19, all of which anticipate the subject matter of general formula (1) of claim 1. As applied to general formula (1), compound 1-5, as one example, has Ar1 equal to an unsubstituted phenyl group, a and b equal to 1, Ar3 which is present at a and b is equal to an unsubstituted phenyl group, c and d are equal to zero (which also satisfies claims 4 and 18), L1 is equal to a single bond, L2 is a triazine, e is equal to 2, and one Ar2 is equal to an unsubstituted phenyl group and the other of Ar2 is equal to an unsubstituted biphenyl group, which also anticipates claim 3. Compound 1-5 also anticipates general formula (2) with all variable assignments being described above.
Claims 8, 10, and 11: The compounds taught by Tada et al., including those recited above, are employed as a host material in a light-emitting device. The exemplified devices are comprised of an anode, a hole transport region, an emission layer comprising a first host, a second host, and a dopant, an electron transport region, and a cathode. The employment of any one of the explicitly taught compounds of Tada et al., including the compounds recited above, is at once envisaged. Devices comprising one of the compounds recited above anticipate all of the device limitations of claims 8, 10, and 11.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 9, 12, 13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tada et al. (TW-201700478), as applied to claim 1 above.
Claim 9: While Tada et al. does not exemplify one of the compounds described in claim 1 above in any device examples, the overall teachings of Tada et al. render obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art the preparation of a light-emitting device which does satisfy all of the limitations of claim 9. Specifically, all device examples of Tada et al. comprise an emission layer comprising a light-emitting dopant, a first host material, and a second host material. Every single exemplified compound which is taught by Tada et al. to serve as the second host material satisfies general formula (8) of claim 9. For example, compound 2-10, which is employed as the second dopant in many device examples satisfies general formula (8) with Ar4 equal to an unsubstituted naphthyl group and Ar5 equal to an unsubstituted phenyl group. To arrive at a light-emitting device which satisfies all of the limitations of claim 9 only requires changing the first host material to one of the compounds described in claim 1 above. Such a modification is prima facie obvious as such compounds are taught as being suitable first host materials. One of ordinary skill in the art would have therefore been motivated to employ other combinations of first host and second host materials, motivated by the knowledge that such devices would be expected to perform in a manner as described in the device examples of Tada et al.
Claims 12, 13, and 15: Employing one of the first host materials taught by Tada et al. as described in claim 1 above and any one of the second host materials taught by Tada et al. requires forming a premix of the first and second host material. Such a premix satisfies all of the limitations of claims 12, 13, and 15.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 14 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Tada et al. represents the closest prior art regarding the instantly filed invention. While Tada et al. teaches in some embodiments the physical property requirements of claim 14, it cannot be said with any fair degree of certainty that all combinations of the first host compounds as described in claim 1 above with the compounds taught by Tada et al. as the second host materials would satisfy the property requirement of claim 14. Further, the prior art does not provide one having ordinary skill in the art any motivation to meet the physical property limitation of claim 14.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROBERT S LOEWE whose telephone number is (571)270-3298. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Randy Gulakowski, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-1302. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Robert S Loewe/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1766