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 .
Note
Applicant’s response along with the Request for Continued Examination (RCE) filed on 12/17/2025 has been fully considered. Claims 1, 3, 13 and 22 are amended, claims 2, 4, 6, 9-12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 26 and 28 are cancelled, claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21-24 and 27 are pending. Currently, claims 19, 21-24 and 27 are withdrawn as non-elected claims.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cooke et al. (US 2015/0037710 A1).
Claims 1, 3 and 7: Cooke teaches an article, said article including a base formed of an electrically conductive material and a coating applied thereto to cover at least part of the external surface of the same, said coating including, at least it's external face, a conductive, substantially carbon material layer and/or a noble metal layer and intermediate said external face and the base there is provided at least one intermediate layer of one or more electrically conductive materials, and wherein at least part of the coating is graded and the substantially carbon material is of a substantially graphitic sp2 form at least at and/or adjacent to the external surface of the coating (claim 1). Cooke teaches the at least one intermediate layer is formed of nitride, i.e., TiN {instant claim 7} and provides corrosion protection for the base (claim 2, claim 3, [0032] and [0066]). The base meets the claimed base, the intermediate layer meets the claimed corrosion resistance layer, and the coating meets the claimed external layer.
The uncovered portions of the intermediate layer of Cooke meet the claimed exposed portion. One of the “at least one intermediate layer…” of Cooke meets the claimed further layer. Since the base, the intermediate layer and the coating are made of the same materials, conductive paths from the coating to the base would be formed.
Cooke teaches the coating may be provided in segmented strip [0082]. When the coating is provided in segmented strip, it is interpreted that the coating is in a form of non-continuous layer. In the disclosure of Cooke “coating applied thereto to cover at least part of the external surface…” [0007] can also be interpreted as the coating is in a form of non-continuous layer. With respect to instant claim 3 and the claimed interconnected mesh, Cooke does not teach the shape of the uncovered portion; however, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to adjust or change the shape of the marked object, since it has been held that making changes in shape involves only routine skill in the art. In re Dailey, 357 F.2d 669, 149 USPQ 47 (CCPA 1966) (The court held that the configuration of the claimed disposable plastic nursing container was a matter of choice which a person of ordinary skill in the art would have found obvious absent persuasive evidence that the particular configuration of the claimed container was significant.)
Claim 5: Cooke teaches the thickness of the layers ranges from 2 nm to 100 nm (claim 30).
Claim 8: Cooke teaches a Ti adhesion layer provided in the base ([0064], [0063] and [0054]), providing TiN intermediate layer on the Ti adhesion layer ([0065] and [0067]), and providing metallic Ti interlayer on the intermediate layer [0075].
Claim 13: One of the “at least one intermediate layer…” meets the claimed further layer.
Claim 14: Cooke teaches the base is made of stainless steel [0073].
Claim 16: Cooke teaches the article is a bipolar plate for a use in a fuel cell, which has the base onto which the coating is applied which is electrically conductive and which includes the carbon material layer and at least one intermediate layer which can be nitride, carbide, metal and metal alloy (abstract, [0052] and [0054]).
Claim 17: Cooke teaches the at least one intermediate layer has an Interfacial Contact Resistance (ICR) of ˂ 25 mΩcm2 (claim 21).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s argument is based on that the Cooke reference does not teach an interconnected mesh in accordance with the invention, the application of the external layer as interconnected mesh allows the provision of both the corrosion resistance and electrically conductive portions at the external surface of the coating along both X and Y axes of the coating thereby providing an array of said portions with respect to two dimensions whereas in Cooke this form of array is not achieved, disclosed, or suggested. This argument is not persuasive for the following reason. The current specification discloses Figure 1d illustrates a plan view of one form of the external layer 10 having an interconnected mesh like pattern of areas 21 and Figure 1e illustrates the external coating formed by a series of randomly positioned areas 21 (page 7, lines 6-8). However, there is nothing in the specification that shows the interconnected mesh is critical over the series od randomly positioned, thus, as shown above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to adjust or change the shape of the marked object, since it has been held that making changes in shape involves only routine skill in the art. In re Dailey, 357 F.2d 669, 149 USPQ 47 (CCPA 1966).
For the above reason claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16 and 17 stand rejected.
Correspondence
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BETELHEM SHEWAREGED whose telephone number is (571)272-1529. The examiner can normally be reached Monday -Friday 7am-4:30pm.
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BS
January 16, 2026
/BETELHEM SHEWAREGED/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1785