DETAILED ACTION
Claim Interpretation
The term “organic alloy” takes its meaning from the description on page 12 of the specification, i.e., “a material obtained by pre-treating two or more single organic compounds, and a chemical interaction among the single organic compounds can be provided due to the pre-treatment. The pre-treating can be a heat treatment such as heating and sublimation followed by cooling, but is not limited thereto.”
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 1-8 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CN 113502156 A to Liu et al. (see attached machine-generated English-language translation) in view of US 2015/0053938 A1 to Zeng et al.
Regarding claim 1, Liu et al. discloses an OLED wherein the EML comprises a dopant (10%) and, as the host material, a 1:1 mixture of the following two compounds:
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and
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(see example 2 on page 23 of the original document). The two host compounds are mixed and heated before vapor deposition (top of page 37 of the translation). Thus, they form an organic alloy. This device differs from the claimed device only in the presence of a phenylene group connecting the triazine group to the indolocarbazole group in the first compound. However, Zeng et al. discloses that, when a mixture of a hole-transporting compound and an electron-transporting compound is used as the host material for a light-emitting layer, the following two electron-transporting compounds are functionally equivalent:
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and
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(see [0087]). Therefore, 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 Liu et al. by replacing the first host with the following compound
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and expect a favorable outcome. Claim 1 is accordingly unpatentable. See MPEP § 2143(I)(B). So are claims 2-8 and 10.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9 and 11-12 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The features of claims 9 and 11-12 are not disclosed or suggested by Zeng et al., which represents the closest prior art of record, and there is not an obvious reason for a POSITA to modify Zeng’s device to arrive at the claimed device.
It is further noted that, while OLED’s wherein the EML comprises a p-type host material and an n-type host material, and one of which resembles chemical formula 1 or chemical formula 2 of claim 1, are known in the art, there is not an obvious reason for a POSITA to pick and choose the two compounds in claim 1 and pre-treat the blend to form an alloy. It is shown in the instant application that simply mixing the two compounds to form a host material in the EML results in inferior device performance.
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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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, ROBERT JONES can be reached at (571) 270-7733. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/VU A NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1762
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