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 have amended the claims in a manner to overcome the claim objections, 112(b) rejection, and 112(d) rejection. The claims are otherwise not amended. Applicants traverse the obviousness type rejection of claims 1-8 and 10-14 to Kim et al. (US 2017/0200899). Applicants argue that Kim et al. does not provide any reason or motivation to make the modification proposed by the Examiner, namely, to modify the working examples where the ITO anode is replaced with an ITO/Ag/ITO tri-layer anode. Applicants argue that Kim et al. employs ITO as the anode in the working examples. While true, a reference may be relied upon for all that it teaches, including non-preferred embodiments. Kim et al. explicitly teaches that the anode may be selected from ITO/Ag/ITO (paragraph 0296). Arguments as to the reflectivity and/or transmissivity of ITO and Ag is not persuasive. If ITO/Ag/ITO was not suitable in the devices taught by Kim et al., then such an anode material would not have been taught by Kim et al. Further, the argument that only the exemplified device examples having the lowest driving voltages would be modified is not persuasive. There is nothing suggestive to a person having ordinary skill in the art to potentially modify certain device examples. Kim et al. provides the teaching to employ ITO/Ag/ITO as the anode. This teaching alone is suggestive to a person having ordinary skill in the art that such an anode may be employed; this includes all of the device examples. And while the selection of the anode material of Kim et al. to be ITO/Ag/ITO is prima facie obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, employment of an ITO/Ag/ITO anode offers some strategic advantages over a standard, single-layer ITO anode as known in the prior art.1 Lee et al. represents one of many prior art references which highlights the successful employment of ITO/Ag/ITO anodes in OLED devices. While ITO is the industry standard due to its conductivity and low transparency, it has physical limits that the silver layer helps bypass. Therefore, Applicants arguments are not found to be persuasive.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-8 and 10-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (US 2017/0200899).
Claims 1-5, 7, and 11-14: Kim et al. teaches organic light-emitting devices. The even-numbered device examples shown in table 4 are exemplified to comprise an ITO anode, a hole injection layer which is prepared by depositing compound A15 and compound P27 in a 95:5 weight ratio, a hole transport layer consisting of compound HT3 which is a covalent compound satisfying claim 13), an emission layer comprising a host and a fluorescent dopant, an electron transport layer, an electron injection layer, and a cathode (paragraphs 0498-0501). The working examples described above satisfy all of the device limitations of 13 and 14. Compound A15 which is present as a matrix/host material in the hole injection layer, has the structure
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(page 67). This amine compound has an approximate molecular weight of 590 g/mol, which falls within the 400-2000 g/mol range of claim 11. This amine compound also satisfies formula (II) of claim 12 with T1 equal to a single bond, Ar1 equal to an unsubstituted phenyl group, T2 and T3 equal to phenylene, Ar2 equal to an unsubstituted naphthyl group, and Ar3 equal to a substituted dibenzofuran group, which is a substituted C10 heteroarylene group. Compound P27 as the p-type dopant present in the hole injection layer has the structure
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(page 120). This compound satisfies formula (I) with A1 equal to a group which satisfies formula (II) with R’ equal to CN, X1, X2, X4, and X5 equal to CR1, CR2, CR4, and CR5, respectively, with R1 and R5 equal to H, R2 and R4 equal to F, and X3 equal to N. The above compound further satisfies proviso (e) in that one of X1 to X5 is N and at least two of X1 to X5 are selected from CR1 to CR5. Variables A2 and A3 in the above compound, which are identical (thereby satisfying claim 7) satisfy formula (III) with R’ equal to CN and Ar equal to a C5 heteroaryl group which is substituted by two fluorine atoms. The above compound also satisfies formula (IV) of claim 5 with B1 equal to a group satisfying formula (V) with X1 through X5 being described above, and B3 and B5 are equal to Ar as described in formula (III) above, and B2, B4, and B6 are all R’.
In summary, the even-numbered device examples shown in Table 4 of Kim et al. satisfy all of the device and structural limitations of claim 1 with the exception that these device examples employ ITO as an anode. All of Applicants inventive examples employ ITO/Ag/ITO as the anode. Such an anode applies to the anode material as recited in claims 1-4. While the device examples of Kim et al. do not employ such an anode material, it would have been prima facie obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have employed such an anode given the overall teachings of Kim et al. Specifically, Kim et al. explicitly teaches that the first electrode (110), which is the anode, may have a three-layered structure of ITO/Ag/ITO (paragraph 0296). Since such an anode material is explicitly taught by Kim et al., one having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ such an anode with the reasonable expectation that an ITO/Ag/ITO anode would be a suitable choice and function effectively in said role. The anode ITO/Ag/ITO reads on all of the anode limitations of claims 1-4.
Claim 6: While the device examples of Kim et al. as described above do not include a p-type dopant in the hole injection layer which satisfies at least two of the requirements (a)-(e) as recited in claim 1, the overall teachings of Kim et al. render obvious the employment of p-type compounds which satisfy two of the requirements (a)-(e). Specifically, compound P28, which has the structure,
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(page 83) satisfies requirements (d) and (e) of claim 1 as it has two CN groups and has three N groups and two CR groups. Selection of such a compound in the manner described in the working examples would have been prima facie obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art and the motivation to employ such a compound is simply because said compound is explicitly taught. A reference may be relied upon for all that it teachings, including non-preferred/non-exemplified embodiments.
Claim 8: While the explicitly taught compounds of Kim et al. have identical groups bonded to the [3]-radialene core, Kim et al. is not limited to such compound types. Specifically, Kim et al. teaches that in the compounds of formula 3-3, which have the general structure
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, variables Y37-Y39 are independently selected from, inter alia, C(CN)(R91) where R91 is independently selected from the groups recited in paragraph 0030. It is understood by this teaching that radialene compounds having two or three different Y groups may be prepared. Such compounds would satisfy the limitation that A1 differs from A2 and A3 as recited in claim 8.
Claim 10: Applicants specification teaches compound A1 which is analogous to the compound shown above except that a C-H group is present where each pyridine nitrogen is located. The LUMO energy level of compound A1 is -4.34 eV. It is known that pyridines have a lower LUMO energy level than benzenes; therefore it would be expected that the LUMO level would be more negative than -4.34 eV, but replacing each C-H group in groups A1-A3 would certainly not lower the LUMO energy level to below -5.6 eV as evidenced by compounds A30-A34 of Applicants specification, which include pyridine groups and which all have a LUMO energy level greater than (more positive) -5.6 eV. As such, compound P17 as taught by Kim et al. satisfies the LUMO energy level requirements of claim 10.
Comment on Patentability
Claim 9 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 for reasons recited in the previous Office action.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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
1 See for example, Lee et al. (Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst. 2010, 530, 110-115) which is cited on Applicants 2/5/26 IDS.
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