CTNF 18/106,786 CTNF 83866 Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia 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 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 13-15 are 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 13-15 recite the limitation “the alkyl group in the ligand”. However, each of claims 1-3 shows that the ligand can have more than one possible alkyl group present. As such, it is unclear whether or not more than one alkyl group may be present since claims 13-15 refers to a singular alkyl group. Correction is required. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 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 – 07-08-aia AIA (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. 07-12-aia AIA (a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. 07-15 AIA Claim s 1, 2, 7, 9, and 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by Xia et al. (US 2014/0231755) . Claim 1: Xia et al. teaches compound 12 on page 7 which has the structure PNG media_image1.png 118 158 media_image1.png Greyscale . This compound anticipates General Formula (G0) with n equal to 1, all R 101 -R 111 equal to hydrogen atoms, L equal to General Formula (L0) with R 201 -R 206 and R 208 equal to hydrogen atoms, and R 207 equal to a deuterated methyl group. Claim 2: The rejection of claim 1 is wholly incorporated into the rejection of claim 2. Compound 12 anticipates General Formula (G1-1) of claim 2 with all variable assignments being described in claim 1. Claim 7: The iridium complexes taught by Xia et al. are employed as phosphorescent dopants in organic electroluminescent devices. The devices comprise a first electrode/anode, a hole transport region, an emission layer comprising a host compound and one of the inventive phosphorescent dopant compounds, an electron transport region, and a second electrode/cathode. The employment of any one of the explicitly iridium dopants taught by Xia et al., including compound 12, in the manner taught in the device examples is at once envisaged, thereby anticipating claim 7. Claim 9: The device examples of Xia et al. are inherently a display device which necessarily comprises at least a substrate. Specifically, each layer of the devices are prepared by high vacuum thermal evaporation (paragraph 0128). The devices further comprise a 1,200 Å layer of ITO (paragraph 0128). One having ordinary skill in the art would understand that a substrate is required to prepare an ITO layer as taught by Xia et al. One cannot deposit a 1,200 Å layer onto nothing or be able to freely transport a 120 nm thick ITO substrate for further processing. Claims 11 and 12: The device examples of Xia et al. are also inherently a light-emitting apparatus which comprises the light-emitting devices taught therein. The light-emitting apparatus comprises a light-emitting device which comprises at least a substrate for the reasons described in claim 9 and which satisfies claim 11 as it includes an encapsulation/housing as taught in paragraph 0128, thereby satisfying claim 12. Claims 13 and 14: The alkyl group in ligand L0 in compound 12 is deuterated, thereby anticipating claims 13 and 14 . 07-15 AIA Claim s 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by Wang et al. (CN-115490676). Copies of the original and a machine translation are included with this Office action. Wang et al. has a publication date before Applicants filing date but after Applicants foreign priority date. Applicants may overcome this rejection by providing a certified English language translation of their foreign priority document JP-2022-019671 . Claims 1 and 5: Wang et al. teaches compound M4 which has the structure PNG media_image2.png 112 148 media_image2.png Greyscale (page 29). This compound anticipates General Formula (G0) with n equal to 1, all R 101 -R 111 equal to hydrogen atoms, L equal to General Formula (L0) with all R 201 -R 208 equal to hydrogen atoms. Ligand L0 in this compound also anticipates claim 5. Claim 2: The rejection of claim 1 is wholly incorporated into the rejection of claim 2. Compound 12 also anticipates General Formula (G1-1) of claim 2 with all variable assignments being described in claim 1. Claim 7: The iridium complexes taught by Wang et al. are employed as phosphorescent dopants in organic electroluminescent devices. The devices comprise a glass substrate, a first electrode/anode, a hole transport region, an emission layer comprising a host compound and one of the inventive phosphorescent dopant compounds, an electron transport region, and a second electrode/cathode. The employment of any one of the explicitly iridium dopants taught by Wang et al., including compound M4, in the manner taught in the device examples is at once envisaged, thereby anticipating claim 7. Claim 9: The devices taught by Wang et al. include a glass substrate, thereby anticipating claim 9. Claim 11: The devices taught by Wang et al. are inherently a light-emitting apparatus which comprises the light-emitting device, which further comprises a substrate, thereby anticipating claim 11. Claims 13 and 14: Claims 13 and 14 further limit an optional embodiment of claims 1 and 2. Specifically, the ligand L0 in the complexes recited in claims 1 and 2 are not required to have any alkyl groups. For this reason, Wang et al. may be properly relied upon to reject claims 13 and 14 despite not teaching a complex which has an alkyl group present on ligand L0 . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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 of this title, 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. 07-20-02-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 9-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xia et al. (US 2014/0231755) . While Xia et al. does not explicitly disclose a display device comprising each of the specific hardware components recited in claim 10 (e.g. a sensor, operation button, speaker, and microphone), the reference explicitly teaches that the disclosed light-emitting devices may be incorporated into a wide variety of consumer products, including cell phones (paragraph 0035). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art that a cell phone as taught by Xia et al., inherently or conventionally includes standard interface components such as an operation button, a speaker, and a microphone. Therefore, it would have been a matter of routine design choice to incorporate the light-emitting apparatus of Xia et al., into such a consumer device, thereby satisfying the limitations of claim 10. Furthermore, the incorporation of such an apparatus into a consumer device would necessarily require the use of a transistor, a substrate, and a housing, as these are fundamental structural elements of the electronic devices (e.g., cell phones) described in Xia et al. Accordingly, the combination of the light-emitting device with the known hardware environment of Xia et al. renders the subject matter of claims 9, 11, and 12 obvious. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 3, 4, and 16-19 are allowed. The iridium complex recited in claim 3 is neither taught nor reasonably suggested by Xia et al. or by the prior art of record. While Xia et al. discloses certain ligands substituted with alkyl groups, the ligand required in general formula G1-2 of the present application requires a specific substitution pattern of one -CD 3 group and two tert-butyl groups at precise positions. This specific arrangement is not found in the prior art. Furthermore, claim 15 would also be allowable if Applicants overcome the 112(b) rejection as set forth above. Claims 6 and 8 are 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. The ligands taught and suggested by Xia et al., or the prior art in general, do not include one which has the specific structure required by Structural Formula (L1-2) as recited in claim 6. Claim 8 requires a specific device architecture requiring two separate light-emitting devices which are separated by a space. As illustrated in Figures 3A and 3B of the present application, the device includes two neighboring light-emitting components or pixels (103X and 103Y) separates by a defined space (104XY). The emission (ELX and ELY) originates from these sub-pixels, which are situated atop base and wiring layers (510, 520) and bridged by layers 529_1-529_3 as shown in Fig. 3B. This specific architecture is not readily envisaged by a person having ordinary skill in the art. Additionally, the prior art of record fails to teach or fairly suggest such a device architecture in combination with the specific iridium complexes recited in claim 1 Relevant Art Cited Additional prior art documents which are relevant to Applicants invention can be found on the attached PTO-892 form. 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. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center for authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to Patent Center, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated- interview-request-air-form. /Robert S Loewe/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1766 Application/Control Number: 18/106,786 Page 2 Art Unit: 1766 Application/Control Number: 18/106,786 Page 3 Art Unit: 1766 Application/Control Number: 18/106,786 Page 4 Art Unit: 1766 Application/Control Number: 18/106,786 Page 5 Art Unit: 1766
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