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 .
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 34 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 34 depends on claim 1 and recites “the first host material,” which lacks an antecedent basis.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3, 5-7, 12, 14, 16-17, 21-23, 25, 30, 34-36, 39-40 and 44 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2015/162912 A1 to Takahashi et al. in view of JP 2011/054668 A to Sasaki et al. (see attached machine-generated English-language translations).
Regarding claim 1, Takahashi et al. discloses an OLED having the configuration of anode/HIL/HTL/EML/ETL/EIL/cathode, wherein the HIL is made of HT-11 and 6% HI-2, the HTL is made of HT-11, and the emitter in the EML is BD2 (see example 14):
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Takahashi et al. is silent as to any difference between the refractive indices of the HIL (which corresponds to the claimed first anode side organic layer) and HTL (which corresponds to the claimed second anode side organic layer). However, since Sasaki et al. teaches that, in an OLED having the configuration of anode/HIL/HTL/EML/ETL/EIL/ cathode, the HIL should have a higher refractive index than the HTL to ensure a high emission efficiency, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the instant invention was filed to modify the device disclosed by Takahashi et al. by changing the monoamine compounds in the HIL and HTL to ensure that the HIL has a higher RI than the HTL and, as a direct result, the device has an improved efficiency. Claim 1 is therefore unpatentable for being obvious. See MPEP § 2143(I)(A). So are claims 2-3, 5, 21-22, 25 and 44. Regarding claims 6-7 and 12, Sasaki et al. does not spell out a particular value for (nHIL – nHTL). However, in example 1, the HIL (200 nm) and HTL (40 nm) have RI’s of 1.95 and 1.80, respectively. Regarding claim 14, Takahashi et al. teaches that the light-emitting layer can be a single layer or a plurality of layers and it can include a blue emitter, a green emitter or a red emitter (p. 85 of the translation). Thus, while Takahashi et al. fails to provide an example of a device comprising more than one emitting layers, it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA to make and use such device for, e.g., a full-color display. Similarly, regarding claims 39 and 40, since the use of tandem OLED’s comprising a CGL disposed between every two light-emitting units, which emit light of the same or different colors, is well established in the art, it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA to stack one or more of the prior art light-emitting unit, wherein every two adjacent light emitting units are separated from one another by a CGL and wherein the light emitting units may emit light of different colors, between the two electrodes so as to obtain a particular output light, e.g., full-color or white light. Claims 16-17 represent inconsequential variations of the thicknesses of the HIL and HTL (10-200 nm) that are disclosed by Takahashi et al. (p. 6 of the translation and p. 4 of the original document). The features of claim 23 are disclosed by Takahashi et al. on pages 17+, and those of claim 30 can be found in the cited example 14 where BD2 emits blue light. Regarding claim 34, the host material used in the device of example 14 is BH1,
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which is representative of the compound of formula H1. The features of claims 35-36 can also be found in example 14.
Claims 31-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2015/162912 A1 to Takahashi et al. in view of JP 2011/054668 A to Sasaki et al. and US 2019/0058124 A1 to Hatakeyama et al.
Regarding claim 31, the device of claim 30 is shown to be unpatentable over Takahashi and Sasaki et al. as explained above. While Takahashi et al. discloses numerous blue-fluorescent emitters (p. 95 of the translation), it fails to suggest the claimed compound. On the other hand, Hatakeyama et al. discloses a delayed fluorescence organoboron compound for OLED’s that emit blue light with a narrow half width. For example, the device using the following compound
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displays a blue light emission with a wavelength of 461 nm and a half width of 28.9 nm (see example on page 110). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a POSITA to employ the compound in the device disclosed by Takahashi et al. to achieve blue light emission of high color purity.
Claims 33-34 and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2015/162912 A1 to Takahashi et al. in view of JP 2011/054668 A to Sasaki et al. as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 2011/0285274 A1 to Hamada et al.
In this rejection, claim 34 is assumed to depend on claim 33.
Takahashi et al. fails to teach a host material in the EML that is a deuterated anthracene derivative. However, Hamada et al. discloses that using deuterated anthracene derivatives, as opposed to undeuterated versions, as host materials in the light-emitting layers of organic light-emitting devices improves the heat resistance [0009] and the reliability as well as the lifespan of the devices [0019]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a POSITA to employ deuterated anthracene derivatives as host materials in the device disclosed by Takahashi et al. so as to optimize the device’s performance and durability.
Claim 37 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2015/162912 A1 to Takahashi et al. in view of JP 2011/054668 A to Sasaki et al. as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of JP 2008177455 A to Ikeda et al.
Takahashi et al. discloses that the ETL is made of a material selected from a group that includes phenanthroline derivatives (p. 96 of the translation), but it fails to provide further details. On the other hand, Ikeda et al. discloses phenanthroline derivatives, such as
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that are particularly useful as electron-transporting materials for OLED’s due to their high electron-transporting property, and their use in the ETL imparts a low driving voltage. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a POSITA to modify the device disclosed by Takahashi et al. by using the phenanthroline derivatives disclosed by Ikeda et al. in the ETL to further improve the performance of the device.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 43 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Whereas the use of a second HTL, e.g., an electron-blocking layer (EBL), is quite popular in the art, the teachings by Takahashi et al. and Sasaki et al. do not seem to lead a POSITA to the idea of a tandem OLED having an EBL.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VU ANH NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-5454. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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/VU A NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1762
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