DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/398,215. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
Claims 2-6, 8-13, 16-20 are withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
The applicant’s amendment filed May 19, 2026 has been entered.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on March 20, 2026. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on May 19, 2026 and elected Group I, claims 1-18, including linking claims. The applicant further elected the species of formula (1-2) and formula (2-1) and formula (3-1), with traverse. Since there are several species of formula (1-2) and (2-1), the species in claim 7 will be examined. In traversing the restriction requirement, the applicant argues that species selections are incorrect because claim 1 requires a first compound and a second compound. The examiner notes that the applicant was able to elect both species despite the incorrectness of the species listing.
Accordingly, claims 2-6, 8-13, 16-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. § 112 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
(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.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) because the term “X” in formula (1-2) is not defined. For the purpose of examination, “X” is construed to include oxygen.
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 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, 14, 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over HE et al (US 2024/0140926) in view of Kudo et al (US 2025/0374749).
HE et al teaches a compound
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145
310
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(page 12). The above compound satisfies formula (1-2) in claim 7. The compound is included in a mixture with at least one second compound (par. 57). The second compound includes a host material (par. 57).
The second compound includes the compound
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109
202
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(par. 58). The above compound satisfies the organic functional material as claimed in formula (3-1) in claim 15.
HE et al does not teach that the second compound is a compound of claimed formula (2).
However, Kudo et al teaches a compound including the structure
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116
238
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(p. 252). X1 includes oxygen (par. 259). The R substituents include aryl groups having 6-20 ring carbons (par. 261). The aryl substituent includes naphthyl as shown in numerous examples (for example, p. 32). The above compound with naphthyl substituents at R115 and R120 satisfies formula (2-1) in claim 7. The compound is a host material in an emitting layer (par. 10). The compound provides improved luminous efficiency (par. 9).
He et al teaches a mixture including a host material (par. 57). Kudo et al teach a host material which provides improved luminous efficiency (par. 9). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the host compound of Kudo et al with the mixture of He et al in order to obtain improved luminous efficiency.
Examiner’s Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to William Young whose telephone number is (571) 270-5078. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Angela Brown-Pettigrew, can be reached at 571-272-2817. 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 the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000./WILLIAM D YOUNG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1761 June 4, 2026
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