DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/835,320. Claims 21, 22, 24-40 are pending in the application. Claims 22, 24, 27-30, 36-40 are withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
The applicant’s amendment filed March 20, 2026 has been entered.
The previous grounds of rejection are withdrawn in light of the applicant’s amendment.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC §§ 102 and 103
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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 21, 25, 26, 31-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by or 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Volz et al (US 2015/0340614).
Volz et al teaches a compound comprising the structure:
PNG
media_image1.png
94
126
media_image1.png
Greyscale
(par. 35). NR7NR8 corresponds to the claimed donor group. Y*=O corresponds to the claimed accepter group. The Y* group comprises sulfur (par. 35). Substituents R3-R8 increase the solubility in nonpolar solvents (par. 60). The substituents include perfluoroalkyl groups (par. 60). The perfluoroalkyl groups contain 1-30 carbon atoms (par. 75).
The compound is included in an optoelectronic device as an emitter in an emitter layer (par. 79). The device is an organic light-emitting diode (par. 82). The amount of the compound in the emitter layer is 1-100 % (par. 88).
In the event that the above disclosure is not sufficiently specific to anticipate the above listed claims, the examiner submits that the selection of the instantly groups and substituents would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art since Volz et al teaches a compound comprising each of the claimed chemical groups.
Response to Arguments
The previous grounds of rejection are withdrawn in light of the applicant’s amendment. New grounds of rejection are presented above.
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 April 22, 2026
Prosecution Insights