DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/401,063. Claims 1-22 are pending in the application.
Claims 2-9, 12-17, 19-22 have been withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on April 23, 2026. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on June 23, 2026 and elected Group 3, claims 1-13 and 18, including linking claims. The applicant also elected a species of chemical formula 5. Since the elections were not made with traverse, they are treated as being made without traverse.
Accordingly, claims 2-9, 12-17, 19-22 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.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 § 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 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Cai et al (US 2020/0251666).
Cai et al teaches an iridium metal complex compound Ir(La)3 (par. 127). The ligand La includes the structure:
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(page 8). “X” includes oxygen (par. 80). “R” groups include hydrogen and alkyl (par. 82). The above compound satisfies claimed formula (1).
An organic electroluminescent (light emitting) device comprises two electrodes and an organic light emitting layer between the electrodes, wherein the organic light emitting layer comprises the above metal complex (par. 20, 142). The device includes a display apparatus (par. 33).
The above disclosure is not sufficiently specific to anticipate the above listed claims. However, the examiner submits that the selection of the instantly claimed metal complex would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art since Cai et al teaches a metal complex having the claimed structure and including each of the claimed substituents.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Cai et al in view of Bae et al (US 2005/0127825).
Cai et al teaches a metal complex compound for a display device as described above. Cai et al does not teach the structure of the display device.
However, Bae et al teaches a display apparatus comprising a plurality of pixels comprising a light emitting layer and two electrodes, and further comprising a transistor (abstract).
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the display apparatus of Bae et al with the light emitting layer for a display device of Cai et al in order to obtain a detailed design of the display apparatus.
Claims 1 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ji et al (US 2018/0282356) in view of Cai et al (US 2020/0251666).
Ji et al teaches an iridium complex comprising the ligand
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(par. 47). “X” includes oxygen (par. 48). The R groups include hydrogen and alkyl (par. 49). X1-X6 include carbon (par. 48). The alkyl R groups include ethyl and 2-methylpropyl (par. 34). When R1 is 2-methylpropyl and R3 is ethyl, the above compound renders obvious claimed chemical formula 5.
Ji et al does not teach that the complex includes three of the above ligands.
However, Cai et al teaches an iridium metal complex compound Ir(La)3, which contains three of the ligands (par. 127). The ligand La has the structure:
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(page 8). “X” includes oxygen (par. 80). “R” groups include hydrogen and alkyl (par. 82). The ligand La has the same general structure as the above ligand of Ji et al.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine the iridium complex having three of the same ligand according to Cai et al with the complex and ligand of Ji et al in order to obtain a light emitting device having improved properties (Cai et al, abstract).
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 July 6, 2026
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