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 .
Receipt is acknowledged of Applicant’s amendment filed on 04/02/2026.
Claim 1 has been amended.
Claims 1-14, 17, 19-29, 31-34 are pending in the instant application.
Claims 3, 8, 10-12, 14, 17, 19-25, 31-32 are withdrawn from consideration.
Note, rejections and objections not reiterated from previous office actions are hereby withdrawn. The following rejections or objections are either reiterated or newly applied. They constitute the complete set presently being applied to the instant application.
Note, withdrawn claim 12 is broader in scope than amended claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-7, 9, 13, 26-29, 33-34 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by AKHRASS et al (Self-assembled lanthanum hydroxide microspheres within a reaction–diffusion framework: synthesis, characterization, control and application. RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 3433–3439) as evidence by CRUZ-MATIAS (Sphericity and roundness computation for particles using the extreme vertices model. Journal of Computational Science 30 (2019) 28–40).
AKHRASS teaches microspheres of lanthanum hydroxide (see title). The microspheres are “perfectly spherical” (see pg. 3438, under Conclusion), which would have a sphericity of 1 and reads on a sphericity of 0.90 or more. The average particle sizes can be controlled with varying sizes between 300nm and 70 um (see abstract), such as average particle sizes of 7.0 um (see pg. 3437, 1st col). Additional disclosures include: carbonate (see pg. 3445, 1st col); due to their attractive optical, electrical, and magnetic properties, lanthanides have found numerous applications (see pg. 3433, under Introduction).
An image of AKHRASSs microspheres on pg. 3436, Fig 3(B) is provided below.
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CRUZ-MATIAS teaches there are multiple methods of calculating sphericity and roundness (see pg. 29-32), such as Wadell’s method (see pg. 29 and 30), which is the same method used by Applicant, and Krumbein’s method. Krumbein’s chart for visual determination of roundness is provided below, wherein AKRASS “perfectly spherical” microspheres appears to have a roundness of 0.5 or more.
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CRUZ-MATIAS further teaches a sphere has a sphericity value of 1.00 and a roundness value of 0.99 (see pg. 35 at the bottom of Table 2), where other visual examples are shown for R2, R5 and R6 (see Fig. 10) and their sphericity and roundness values for comparison (see Table 2). Thus, it appears AKRASS microsphere has a roundness of 0.5 or more and a sphericity of 0.95 or more.
Note, claims 13, 26-29, 33-34 are intended use, wherein the prior art’s nanoparticles would inherently be capable of such intended use, because the prior art has the same ingredients as claimed by Applicant, unless proven otherwise.
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, 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(s) 1-2, 4-7, 9, 13, 26-29, 33-34 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AKHRASS et al (Self-assembled lanthanum hydroxide microspheres within a reaction–diffusion framework: synthesis, characterization, control and application. RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 3433–3439) in view of CRUZ-MATIAS (Sphericity and roundness computation for particles using the extreme vertices model. Journal of Computational Science 30 (2019) 28–40) and IWASA et al (US 5,833,746).
AKHRASS teaches microspheres of lanthanum hydroxide (see title). The microspheres are “perfectly spherical” (see pg. 3438, under Conclusion), which would have a sphericity of 1 and reads on a sphericity of 0.90 or more. The average particle sizes can be controlled with varying sizes between 300nm and 70 um (see abstract), such as average particle sizes of 7.0 um (see pg. 3437, 1st col). Additional disclosures include: carbonate (see pg. 3445, 1st col); due to their attractive optical, electrical, and magnetic properties, lanthanides have found numerous applications as catalysts, semiconductors, sensors, high-quality phosphors and time resolved fluorescence (TRF) biological labels, etc. (see pg. 3433, under Introduction).
An image of AKHRASSs microspheres on pg. 3436, Fig 3(B) is provided below.
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AKHRASS does not explicitly teach the roundness of the microsphere.
CRUZ-MATIAS teaches the prior art had known of parameters, such as sphericity and roundness (see title and abstract), for particles (see abstract) can affect physical properties and are useful parameters to determine application for industrial and manufacturing applications (see pg. 28, under Introduction). Additional disclosures include: there are multiple methods of calculating sphericity and roundness (see pg. 29-32), such as Wadell’s method (see pg. 29 and 30), which is the same method used by Applicant, and Krumbein’s method. Krumbein’s chart for visual determination of roundness is provided below, wherein AKRASS “perfectly spherical” microspheres appears to have a roundness of 0.5 or more.
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CRUZ-MATIAS further teaches a sphere has a sphericity value of 1.00 and a roundness value of 0.99 (see pg. 35 at the bottom of Table 2), where other visual examples are shown for R2, R5 and R6 (see Fig. 10) and their sphericity and roundness values (see Table 2). Thus, it appears AKRASS microsphere has a roundness of 0.5 or more and a sphericity of 0.95 or more.
IWASA teaches the prior art had known that sphericity and roundness have an effect on the flowability of a powder (see col. 1, line 30-50 and col. 2, line 20-21), wherein the roundness is optimized for flowability is also dependent on the size of the particle, such as 0.73-0.90 for particle size less than 30 um (see col. 2, line 30-35) and 0.83-0.94 for particle size larger than 30 um (see col. 2, line 50-55). Additional disclosures include: Wadell’s method for calculating sphericity and roundness (see col. 2, line 17).
It would have also been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate a parameter, such as roundness of at least 0.73-0.94 depending on the size of the particle, when making AKRASS’s microsphere particle. The person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make those modifications and reasonably would have expected success because it’s a common parameter used for particles to improve flowability in manufacturing.
Note, the average particle size and roundness of a particle composition is also clearly a result effective parameter that a person of ordinary skill in the art would routinely optimize. Optimization of parameters is a routine practice that would be obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to employ and reasonably would expect success. It would have been customary for an artisan of ordinary skill to determine the optimal roundness in order to best achieve the desired results, such as flowability of the powder and the size needed for a specific application, such as sensors and biological labels, etc. Thus, absent some demonstration of unexpected results from the claimed parameters, this optimization of roundness would have been obvious at the time of Applicant's invention.
Note, claims 13, 26-29, 33-34 are intended use, wherein the prior art’s nanoparticles would inherently be capable of such intended use, because the prior art has the same ingredients as claimed by Applicant, unless proven otherwise.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Telephonic Inquiries
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAKE MINH VU whose telephone number is (571)272-8148. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:30pm.
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/JAKE M VU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1618
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