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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 32 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) as being of improper dependent form. Claim 32 is drafted as a method claim yet depends from claim 27, which is a composition claim. A claim that changed statutory classes does not constitute a proper dependent claim under 35 USC 112(d) because it does not furth limit the parent claims subject matter in the same statutory category. Claim 32 must either be rewritten in independent form or corrected to properly depend from an appropriate process parent claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 16-19, 22, 24-27, 29, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kim et al. (KR 20210010409, cited on Applicants 10/6/23 IDS). A machine translation of this document is included with this Office action.
Claim 16: Kim et al. teaches the compound
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on page 4. This compound anticipates Formula 1 of claim 1. As applied to formula 1, this compound has all three R1 groups equal to hydrogen atoms, L equal to a group satisfying Formula BN-1 with both R2 groups equal to phenyl, and W equal to a group satisfying Formula II with Z equal to a single bond, all four Ra groups on the right side of Formula II as claimed being equal to hydrogen atoms, one Ra group on the left side of Formula II as claimed being equal to a hydrogen atom, and three adjacent Ra groups on the left side of Formula II as claimed forming a polycyclic system.
Claims 17 and 18: In the compound shown above, R1 and R2 are equal to hydrogen atoms and phenyl groups, which anticipates claims 17 and 18.
Claim 19: In the compound shown above, the second chemical moiety is a group which satisfies Formula IIa of claim 19.
Claim 22: The compound shown above satisfies Formula IVa-1 of claim 22 with all variables being described in claim 16 above.
Claims 24-26: Kim et al. teaches an organic electroluminescent device comprising an anode, a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, an electron blocking layer, an emission layer comprising a host material and a dopant, a hole blocking layer, an electron injection and electron transport layer, and a cathode. Device example 4 employs the compound shown above (which is referred to as compound 4) as the dopant material. Device example 4 therefore anticipates all of the device limitations of claims 24-26.
Claim 27: The emission layer comprises an organic molecule satisfying claim 16 as described above, and a host material which is different, thereby satisfying claim 27.
Claim 29: The layers taught in the device examples are applied via a deposition process, thereby satisfying claim 29.
Claim 30: Because the compound shown above as taught by Kim et al. satisfies all of the structural limitations of Formula 1 of claim 16, it would be expected that device example 4, which comprises the compound shown in claim 1 above as the dopant would generate light with a wavelength between 500 nm and 560 nm as required by claim 30. A chemical compound and its properties are inseparable.
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 of this title, 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim 32 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (KR-20210010409).
Claim 32 is being treated as an independent claim for purposes of examination. The host material m-CPB and compound 4 are taught as being vapor deposited to form an emission layer. While Kim et al. does not explicitly teach that these two compounds are co-deposited from a single chemical deposition source, one having ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to have prepared a mixture of these two compounds to be deposited as co-evaporation eliminates the need to calibrate and synchronize multiple deposition monitors across different sources.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 20, 21, 23, 28, and 31 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. Kim et al. does not teach or suggest the structural requirements of claims 20, 21, and 23. Additionally, Kim et al. does not teach an emission layer comprising a host material, the organic molecule according to claim 27, and an additional fluorescent emitter F as required by claim 28. Claim 31 is allowable by virtue of its dependency on claim 28.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROBERT S LOEWE whose telephone number is (571)270-3298. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Randy Gulakowski, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-1302. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Robert S Loewe/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1766
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