Appeal 2007-0162
Application 10/690,940
Appellants that the Examiner has not established a prima facie case of
obviousness for the claimed subject matter. Accordingly, we will not sustain
the Examiner's § 103 rejections.
We consider first the Examiner's rejection under §112, first paragraph.
We concur with the Examiner that Appellants' original Specification does
not provide descriptive support for the recited "at least two light-emitting
layers." While Appellants have furnished evidence that white-light-emitting
OLED devices commonly include three layers, we do not subscribe to
Appellants' position that such evidence supports the conclusion that "the
claim fully conveys possession of the presently-claimed scope of the
invention" (page 7 of principal Br., last paragraph.) As explained by the
Examiner, the scope of the claim language at issue is much broader than a
device containing two or three light-emitting layers. Indeed, the claim
language sets no upper limit on the number of light-emitting layers.
Consequently, we agree with the Examiner that the original Specification
fails to convey to one of ordinary skill in the art that Appellants had in their
possession the concept of OLED devices having an unlimited number of
light-emitting layers.
We now turn to the Examiner's § 103 rejections. There is no dispute
that Codama discloses a stabilized white-light-emitting OLED device
comprising light-emitting layers containing substituted perylene material.
However, as stressed by Appellants, Codama fails to teach or suggest
employing a concentration of the substituted perylene material that does not
emit light. Rather, Codama expressly teaches that perylene and rubrene are
fluorescent substances having a luminescing function within the light-
emitting layer (col. 11, ll. 64 et. seq.), and that "[a] rubrene concentration of
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