DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/436,263. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
Claims 15-20 have been withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on June 5, 2026. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on August 4, 2026 and elected Group I, claims 1-14, without traverse.
Accordingly, claims 15-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is allowable over the closest prior art of Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679). The references do not teach or suggest the specific compounds FD-1 or FD-2.
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 1-3, 7-10, 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679).
Kim et al teaches a light emitting device comprising two electrodes and a plurality of light emitting layers disposed between the electrodes (par. 12, 70, 119). An emitting layer comprises a hole transporting host, an electron transporting host, a fluorescent dopant and a phosphorescent dopant (par. 12, 87). A phosphorescent dopant is a phosphorescent sensitizer as that term is described in the specification. The fluorescent dopant has a pentacyclic fused ring core that includes one boron and two nitrogens and an amine substituent (par. 73, formula 2).
The fluorescent dopant has a full width at half maximum of 40 nm or less (par. 63). The plurality of light emitting layers are disposed on each other in the combined light emitting layer (par. 70). The plurality of light emitting layers include layers that emit light of a different color, which implicitly requires a different fluorescent dopant to emit the different color (par. 70). The fluorescent dopant has a triplet-singlet energy difference of 0.4 eV or less (par. 52).
Kim et al does not teach that the fluorescent dopant has a pyrene substituent.
However, Jeong et al teaches a fluorescent dopant having the structure
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218
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(par. 51, 71). “Y” is boron and “X-1” and “X2” are independently NR12 (par. 51). The R substituents include hydrogen, aryl groups and arylamino groups (par. 52, 54). Aryl includes pyrenyl (par. 27, 55). The R groups also include biphenyl an terphenyl groups (par. 47, 55). The compound provides excellent service life, efficiency and stability (abstract).
Jeong et al is silent with respect to the energy difference between the triplet state and the singlet state. However, the teaching of Jeong et al has rendered obvious the instantly claimed first fluorescent dopant compound. Therefore, it is reasonable that a person of ordinary skill in the art would expect the claimed physical property to naturally arise.
Jeong et al is silent with respect to the molar extinction coefficient of the fluorescent dopant. However, the teaching of Jeong et al has rendered obvious the instantly claimed first fluorescent dopant compound. Therefore, it is reasonable that a person of ordinary skill in the art would expect the claimed physical property to naturally arise.
Kim et al and Jeong et al are both directed to a light emitting device comprising a fluorescent dopant. Jeong et al teaches a fluorescent dopant which provides excellent service life, efficiency and stability (abstract). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the fluorescent dopant of Jeong et al with the light emitting device of Kim et al in order to obtain improved service life, efficiency and stability.
Claims 5, 6 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) and Kim et al (US 2016/0164020).
Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) teaches a light emitting device as described above. Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) does not teach that the hole transporting host and the electron transporting host form an exciplex or the specific hole transporting host.
However, Kim et al (US 2016/0164020) teaches a light emitting layer comprising a hole transporting host and an electron transporting host which together form an exciplex (abstract; par. 12). The exciplex provides low driving voltage and high efficiency for a light emitting device (par. 52). The hole transport host includes the compound:
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which is claimed compound HT-02 (par. 42).
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the exciplex and host of Kim et al (‘020) with the light emitting device of Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) in order to obtain low driving voltage and high efficiency.
Regarding claim 6, Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) teaches that the triplet state energy of the host is greater than the triplet state energy of the phosphorescent dopant (the sensitizer), and the triplet state energy of the phosphorescent dopant (the sensitizer) is higher than the triplet state energy of the fluorescent dopant (par. 12, 54). In addition, Kim et al (US 2016/0164020) teaches that the triplet state energy of the exciplex host is greater than the triplet state energy of the fluorescent dopant (par. 45).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) and Kim et al (US 2022/0216434).
Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) teaches a light emitting device as described above. Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) does not teach the specific electron transporting host.
However, Kim et al (US 2022/0216434) teaches and electron transporting host having the structure:
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which corresponds to claimed structure ET01 (par. 132-133).
Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) teaches that the emission layer includes an electron transporting host but does not teach a specific example of the host. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need for a specific compound to combine the electron transporting host of Kim et al (US 2022/0216434) with the light emitting device of Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) in order to obtain a known host material.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) and KO et al (US 2019/0296254).
Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) teaches a light emitting device as described above. Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) does not teach a phosphorescent sensitizer of claimed formula PS.
However, KO et al teaches a phosphorescent emitter compound having the structure
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133
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(par. 245, 267). The above compound satisfies formula PS.
Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) teaches that the phosphorescent dopant includes a platinum complex compound (par. 75). However, Kim et al does not teach any specific platinum complex compound. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need for a specific compound to combine the platinum complex of KO et al with the light emitting device of Kim et al (US 2021/0202876) in view of Jeong et al (US 2020/0176679) in order to obtain a platinum complex compound known to be a phosphorescent emitter.
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.
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