DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see the Response, filed 10/30/2025, with respect to claims 1-13 and 15-18 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) rejection and the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection of claims 1-13 and 15-18 have been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4-5, 8-13, and 15-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Toki (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2018-146848).
Toki teaches a carrier for developing an electrostatic image comprising magnetic particles and a resin coating layer covering the magnetic particles, wherein the resin coating layer comprises inorganic fine particles (Abstract). The inorganic fine particles form aggregates on the carrier surface of 30 nm to 150 nm (Table 1, Ex. 4, 5, 8). In order to form aggregates of this size the particle diameter of the inorganic particles would be in the range of 5 to 50 nm. The amount of inorganic fine particles in the coating layer is 20% to 80 % ([0019]), and exemplary carriers 3 and 8 contain 20% and 30%, respectively. The percentage of the aggregates of inorganic particles to all inorganic particles in the resin coating layer would be expected to fall in the range of 50% to 90% by number based on the method of forming the carrier ([0077-93]). The coating layer has no defective portion of the film ([0060]), so the percentage of surface exposure of the magnetic particles would be less than 5% by area. The coating layer also contains conductive particles ([0056]). Exemplary carriers 3 and 8 also contain carbon black as the conductive particles ([0079],[0084]). The mass of the magnetic particles in these examples is not disclosed, but based on the amounts of other components of the coating layer ([0077-84]), the amount of carbon black would likely fall in the range of 0.01 to 10 parts to 100 parts of the magnetic particles. The coating layer also contains a silicone resin ([0055]), so a ratio Si/C on the surface of the carrier would be expected to be in the range of 0.05 to 1.0. Assuming that all the exemplary coating layers have a similar thickness to the first carrier of 1.00 µm, or 1,000 nm, the diameter of the aggregates of inorganic particles divided by the average thickness of the resin coating layer would be 0.15 and 0.12 for the examples 4, 5, and 8 with aggregate diameters of 150 and 120 nm (Table 1 [0077]). The diameter of the carrier is 35 µm core plus 1 µm coating layer, or 36,000 nm ([0077]). The diameter of the aggregates of inorganic particles divided by the diameter of particle of the carrier for the same examples, would be 150/36,000 = 0.004 and 120/36,000 = 0.003.
The carrier is used with a toner to form a developer ([0071]). The image forming method and image forming apparatus comprise an image carrier, a charging unit to charge the image carrier, an exposure unit that forms an electrostatic latent image on the image carrier, a developing unit that develops the latent image, a transferring unit that transfers the toner image to the recording medium, and a fixing unit that fixes the toner image to the recording medium ([0072]). The image forming apparatus has a process cartridge, attachable to and detachable from the apparatus, that comprises a developing unit ([0073]).
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 2-3, 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toki (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2018-146848) in view of Shoji (US PGP 2014-0051022).
The entire discussion of Toki above is included herein. It is not clear based on the disclosure of Toki whether or not the carrier would have cavities between the resin coating layer and the surface of the magnetic particles. Shoji teaches a carrier having a void ratio of 2% to 10% (Abstract). It is preferred to achieve this by producing the carrier with a dry method, resulting in a smaller scale of peeling of the coating layer, and less image defects ([0017]). Applicant discloses on pages 9 and 10 of the specification that when the resin layer is formed through a dry process cavities form and the average width tends to be 50 nm or more. Therefore, the average width of the voids of Shoji would be expected to be in the range of 50 to 300 nm. The coating layer may contain resin particles, such as melamine resin particles, for the purpose of charge control ([0042]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the carrier of Toki to have included a dry method of production to produce voids between the coating layer and magnetic particles, and include resin particles in the coating layer in order to make the scale of peeling of the coating layer smaller, preventing image defects, and for the purposes of charge control.
Conclusion
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/J.K./Examiner, Art Unit 1734
/PETER L VAJDA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1737 01/21/2026