DETAILED ACTION
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 .
This action is in response to the application filed 03/17/2023 and the IDS’s filed 08/02/2023.
Claims 1-7, 11-20, 22, 24, 34 are pending and being examined. Claims 8-10, 21, 23, 25-33 are canceled.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 15 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim 34 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tembo (Moses Tembo, “Enhancement of Photoconversion Efficiency of P3HT:PCBM Polymer Solar Cell Using Squarylium III Dye”, The University of Zambia, 2016).
Considering claim 34, Tembo teaches a sensitizer having the claimed structure of Formula (I) by teaching Squarylium III Dye wherein X and X’ are O, n is 0, R and R’ are not chosen, L’ is absent, Ar and Ar’ are each aryl substituted with 1 amino, and one of Ar and Ar’ is positively charged (Tembo, Figure 7 on page 19).
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.
Claims 1-7, 11-14, 16-20, 22 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cheng et al. (Cheng et al., “On the efficiency limit of triplet-triplet annihilation for photochemical upconversion”, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2010, 12, 66-71) in view of Tembo (Moses Tembo, “Enhancement of Photoconversion Efficiency of P3HT:PCBM Polymer Solar Cell Using Squarylium III Dye”, The University of Zambia, 2016) and Atsushi et al. (WO 2017/154444 A1).
Considering claims 1, 14, 16-20, 22 and 24, Cheng teaches a photon upconversion system comprising a sensitizer (i.e., porphyrin) and an emitter (i.e., rubrene) excited with 670 nm laser pulses wherein the sensitizer absorbs an energy from an incident radiation and the emitter accepts the energy from the sensitizer via triplet-triplet energy transfer and emits at a lower wavelength than the incident radiation via a triplet-triplet annihilation process; the porphyrin-rubrene system excited at 670 nm and a time-resolved emission of rubrene at about 555 nm was detected, where 555 nm of emission wavelength is lower or shorter than 670 nm (Cheng, abstract, figure 2 on page 68). Cheng teaches a device comprising the photon upconversion system by teaching its application in solar cells (Cheng, 1st paragraph of Introduction on page 66).
Cheng teaches the sensitizer is porphyrin, he does not explicitly teach that it has a structure of the claimed Formula (I).
However, Tembo teaches a sensitizer having the claimed structure of Formula (I) by teaching Squarylium III Dye wherein X and X’ are O, n is 0, R and R’ are not chosen, L’ is absent, Ar and Ar’ are each aryl substituted with 1 amino, and one of Ar and Ar’ is positively charged (Tembo, abstract, Figure 7 on page 19, page 22). Tembo teaches the sensitizer has an absorption of about 640 nm (Tembo, Figure 10 on page 31).
Atsushi teaches porphyrin and squarylium are suitable donor molecules (sensitizers) that can be used with an acceptor molecule such as rubrene in a photon upconversion system (Atsushi, page 5 of English translation).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to replace Cheng’s porphyrin sensitizer with Squarylium III Dye having absorption maximum in the same region of the spectrum (640 nm versus 670 nm). One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to do so because of Atsushi’s teaching that that both porphyrin and squarylium are suitable sensitizers that can be used with an emitter comprising rubrene.
Considering claims 2-4, it has already been established that Tembo/Atsushi obviate modifying Cheng’s upconversion system to comprise Squarylium III Dye as the sensitizer in place of porphyrin. In this modified system, the upconversion system does not comprise heavy atoms, is metal-free, and does not comprise halogen atoms.
Considering claims 5-6, the claims are directed to a photon upconversion system comprising a sensitizer having a structure of claimed Formula (I) and an emitter such as rubrene (disclosed throughout instant specification and instant claim 22). The combination of references obviates the claimed photon upconversion system; thus, the emitter of the upconversion system of Cheng/Tembo/Atsushi would also comprise the claimed triplet energies.
Considering claim 7, the claims are directed to a photon upconversion system comprising a sensitizer having a structure of claimed Formula (I). The combination of references obviates the claimed photon upconversion system comprising the claimed sensitizer; thus, the sensitizer of the upconversion system of Cheng/Tembo/Atsushi would also have a full width at half maximum absorption of 40 nm or less.
Considering claim 11, the claims are directed to a photon upconversion system comprising a sensitizer having a structure of claimed Formula (I) and an emitter such as rubrene (disclosed throughout instant specification and instant claim 22). The combination of references obviates the claimed photon upconversion system; thus, the triplet-triplet energy transfer of the upconversion system of Cheng/Tembo/Atsushi would also comprise a bimolecular Dexter energy transfer process.
Considering claim 12, the claims are directed to a photon upconversion system comprising a sensitizer having a structure of claimed Formula (I) and an emitter such as rubrene (disclosed throughout instant specification and instant claim 22). The combination of references obviates the claimed photon upconversion system; thus, the upconversion system of Cheng/Tembo/Atsushi would also comprise an anti-Stokes shift of 0.1 eV or more.
Considering claim 13, the claims are directed to a photon upconversion system comprising a sensitizer having a structure of claimed Formula (I) and an emitter such as rubrene (disclosed throughout instant specification and instant claim 22). The combination of references obviates the claimed photon upconversion system; thus, the upconversion system of Cheng/Tembo/Atsushi would also comprise a triplet-triplet upconversion quantum efficiency of more than 0% and/or less than or equal to 50%.
Conclusion
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/ANITA NASSIRI-MOTLAGH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1734