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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/19/2025 has been entered.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Any rejections and/or objections made in the previous Office action and not repeated below are hereby withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 4 recites “Malvern Morphology”, which is a trademark/tradename. Where a trademark or trade name is used in a claim as a limitation to identify or describe a particular material or product, the claim does not comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph. See Ex parte Simpson, 218 USPQ 1020 (Bd. App. 1982). The claim scope is uncertain since the trademark or trade name cannot be used properly to identify any particular material or product. A trademark or trade name is used to identify a source of goods, and not the goods themselves. Thus, a trademark or trade name does not identify or describe the goods associated with the trademark or trade name. In the present case, the trademark/trade name is used to identify/describe particular instrumentation and, accordingly, the identification/description is indefinite.
Claim 4 sets forth a crush resistance index of the superabsorbent polymer, but the exact crushing method associated with the parameter is not defined. For instance, the specification at Page 17, Lines 25-32 indicates the crush resistance index “may be” calculated as a difference in sphericity before and after crushing set forth within the Examples. The perceived degree of change in sphericity is dependent on the particular crushing method by which the particles are subjected to. Accordingly, the full metes and bounds of the claim is unclear.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim(s) 1-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US 2019/0308171 A1) in view of Utashima (JP2005-272653A). As the cited JP publication is in a non-English language, a machine-translated version of the publication will be cited to.
Regarding Claims 1-3, Kim teaches methods of making superabsorbent polymers comprising carrying out crosslinking polymerization of water-soluble ethylene based unsaturated monomer having acidic groups which are at least partially neutralized (acrylic acid / sodium acrylate) in the presence of foaming agent (sodium bicarbonate) to form water-containing gel, gel-pulverizing the gel polymer with a perforated panel having a plurality of holes, drying/pulverizing/size-sorting the gel-pulverized polymer, and surface crosslinking via heat treatment in the presence of surface crosslinking agent (Abstract; Examples).
Kim teaches polymerization conditions can be adjusted so as to achieve a CRC of 29 g/g or more and a vortex time of 27 seconds or more (¶ 36). Kim teaches AUPs spanning 20-33 g/g (¶ 57). Kim teaches permeabilities ranging from 10-70 seconds (¶ 15). The disclosed ranges overlap those claimed. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a range within the claimed range because a reference may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill the art and Kim suggests the claimed ranges. A person of ordinary skill would be motivated to use the claimed amount, based on the teachings of Kim. See MPEP 2123.
Kim teaches gel-pulverizing can be done with a variety of instrumentation (¶ 97) such as a meat chopper with a perforated panel is on the order of 13 mm (Examples), but differs from the subject matter claimed in that gel pulverization using a screw extruder mounted inside a cylindrical pulverizer with a chopping index of 55-75 is not described.
Utashima pertains to method of pulverizing gels for the purpose of creating absorbent polymers (¶ 1-7). Utashima teaches conventionally gels are pulversized in screw extruders such as meat choppers equipped with perforated holes of 6.5-18 mm, but may present problems in terms of a deterioration of hydrogel physical properties, such as increasing the amount of water-soluble components in the finally obtained resin (¶ 2-7). Utashima teaches using a particular screw extruder allows for easy hydrogel granulation without a decrease in hydrogel physical properties (¶ 9). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the gel-pulverizing extruder assemblies of Utashima within the protocols of Kim because doing so would allow for easy hydrogel granulation without a decrease in hydrogel physical properties as taught by Utashima.
Utashima teaches a screw extruder mounted inside a cylindrical pulverizer (Figure 1; ¶ 25). Utashima teaches the rotation speed of the screw (“N” of the chopping index formula) ranges from 1-300 rpm (¶ 27), the aperture ratio of the perforated plate (“A” of the chopping index formula) is 5% or more, and describes embodiments where the screw case has a diameter of 53 mm (¶ 36, 44) which corresponds with the diameter of the perforated panel (see “11” of Figure 2). Accordingly, Utashima describes perforated panel radius “R” of roughly 26.5 mm. It is therefore evident Utashima describes overlapping chopping index (e.g. N = 200 rpm, A = 0.14, and R = 26.5 mm corresponds with a chopping index of roughly 62). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a range within the claimed range because a reference may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill the art and Utashima suggests the claimed range. A person of ordinary skill would be motivated to use the claimed amount, based on the teachings of Utashima. See MPEP 2123.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/19/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues claim 4 was rejected owing to the method of measuring the parameter not being defined. To clarify, the issue concerning claim 4 is that the particular way by which the particles are crushed are not indicated by the claim and not that a particular method of measuring sphericity is unspecified. Page 23, Lines 3-9 sets forth a very particular method of crushing particles via a pneumatic conveying line, but Page 17, Lines 25-32 indicates such a protocol is optional in terms of assessing crush resistance index. There are innumerable ways by which particles can be “crushed”, each potentially resulting in a different index.
Applicant argues the prior art fails to describe an inter-relationship between chopping index and reductions in surface damage resulting from pneumatic conveying. This is not found persuasive. Independent claim 1 does not require any particular crushing index characteristic. The prior art need not recognize the criticality of a limitation, but rather the prior art needs to only teach that limitation. The rejections of record have shown that the claimed limitation is present in the prior art. It is not necessary that the prior art suggest the combination to achieve the same advantage or result discovered by Applicant. See MPEP 2144(IV).
Applicant argues the claimed chopping index is critical, namely in that it leads to favorable crush resistance indexes while maintaining favorable vortex/permeability characteristics. This is not found persuasive as the claims at issue are not commensurate in scope with the evidence applicant relies upon in support of the unexpected results allegation. The data of record shows that crushing index alone is not determinative of crush resistance index. A trend of foaming agent content vs. crush resistance index is also apparent from the data of Examples 1-3 and Comp Example 3: 0 ppm, -1.0; 500 ppm, -1.0; 1000 ppm 0.0; 1500 ppm, -1.0. From Comp Ex. 1 vs Comp Ex. 2, it is presumed additional foaming agent beyond 1500 ppm would lead to further deterioration of crushing resistance index. As claim 1 imposes no particular restriction on the content of foaming agent, it is evident the claims at issue are not commensurate in scope with data presented in support and one of ordinary skill would be unable to ascertain a trend within the exemplified data to reasonably extend the probative value thereof to encompass the entire scope claimed. It is believed specifying a foaming agent content of 500-1,500 ppm would render the claims commensurate in scope.
Conclusion
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/STEPHEN E RIETH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1759