Idemitsu Kosan Co. v. SFC Co. (870 F.3d 1376, 2017)

O’MALLEY, Circuit Judge.

Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. (“Idemitsu”) seeks review of the July 29, 2016 decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) finding claims 1-5, 7-11, 13, and 14 of U.S. Patent No. 8,334,648 (“the ’648 patent”) invalid as obvious over International Publication WO 02/052904 (“Arakane”). See SFC Co. Ltd. v. Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd., No. IPR2015-00564, 2016 Pat. App. LEXIS 13340 (P.T.A.B. July 29, 2016). For the following reasons, we affirm.

I. Background

Idemitsu is the owner of the ’648 patent, titled “Organic Electroluminescence Device and Organic Light Emitting Medium.” In brief, the ’648 patent claims a device containing a particular organic medium layered between an anode and cathode; when a voltage is applied through the electrodes, the organic medium emits light. See ’648 Patent, at Abstract. Claim 1 is representative:

1. An electroluminescence device comprising a pair of electrodes and a layer of an organic light emitting medium disposed between the pair of electrodes, wherein the layer of an organic light emitting medium is present as a light emitting layer and comprises:

(A) an arylamine compound represented by formula V:

wherein X3 is a substituted or unsubstituted pyrene residue, Ar5 and Ar6 each independently represent a substituted or unsubstituted monovalent aromatic group having 6 to 40 carbon atoms, and p represents an integer of 1 to 4; and (B) at least one compound selected from the group consisting of anthracene derivatives and spirofluorene derivatives, wherein said anthracene derivatives are represented by formula I:

A1-L-A2 a)

wherein A1 and A2 may be the same or different and each independently represent a substituted or unsubstituted mon-ophenylanthryl group or a substituted or unsubstituted diphenylanthryl group, and L represents a single bond or a divalent bonding group, and by formula II:

A3-An-A4 (II)

wherein An represents a substituted or unsubstituted divalent anthracene residue, A3 and A4 may be the same or different and each independently represent a substituted or unsubstituted aryl group having 6 to 40 carbon atoms, at least one of A3 and A4 represents a substituted or unsubstituted monovalent condensed aromatic ring group or a substituted or unsubstituted aryl group having 10 or more carbon atoms; and said spirofluorene derivatives are represented by formula III:

wherein Ar1 represents a substituted or unsub'stituted spirofluorene residue, A5 to A8 each independently represent a substituted or unsubstituted aryl group having 6 to 40 carbon atoms; provided that the organic light emitting medium does not include a styryl aryl compound.

Id. at col. 132 ll. 2-64. Claim 13 is the only other independent claim, and covers only the “organic light emitting medium” disclosed by the same formulae above. Id. at col. 136 ll. 3-56.

Arakane is also assigned to Idemitsu, and—translated from Japanese into English—is titled “Organic Electrolumines-cence Device.” Arakane at 1. Like the ’648 patent, Arakane teaches an “organic elec-troluminescence device”:

The present invention provides an organic electroluminescence device including a pair of electrodes and an organic light emitting medium layer interposed between the electrodes wherein the organic light emitting medium layer has a mixture layer containing (A) at least one hole transporting [“HT”] compound and (B) at least one electron transporting [“ET”] compound and the energy gap Egl of the [HT] compound and the energy gap Eg2 of the [ET] compound satisfy the relation Egl