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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
4. Claims 1-2 and 6-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishimaru et al. (JP 2002-338923 A; cited on Applicant’s IDS filed on 02/04/2025), in view of Tsuchiya (JP 2005-028218 A). The text citations to Ishimaru and Tsuchiya in this office action are to PDFs of their English machine translation accessed online from Espacenet or PE2E, respectively.
As to independent claim 1, Ishimaru teaches a conductive paste including: an organic material (e.g. thermosetting resin in para. 0020); metal particles dispersed in the organic material and having a first particle diameter; and a heating element dispersed in the organic material and having a second particle diameter (see para. 0007, 0010, claim 1: a conductive adhesive comprising a thermosetting resin, conductive particles and a self-heating substance; para. 0017: average size of the metal powder or metal oxide powder serving as the heating element (i.e. self-heating substance) is preferably 10 µm or less; para. 0019: conductive particles in the conductive adhesive include metal particles), where the magnetic heating element is contained in an amount of 10 to 20 wt% with respect to the metal particles (see para. 0015, 0018: the content of the metal oxide powder as a heating element in the conductive adhesive is preferably 0.5 to 30%, more preferably 1 to 20% by weight; para. 0016: specific examples of the heating element include oxides of Fe).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to select the portion of the prior art's range which is within the range of applicant's claims because it has been held to be obvious to select a value in a known range by optimization for the best results. See MPEP 2144.05. Ishimura discloses in Example 1 (para. 0021) that the conductive particles used were silver particles with an average particle size of 5 µm and self-heating substance was ferrous oxide (FeO) powder with an average particle size of 1 µm, which corresponds to the claimed first and second particle diameters.
Ishimaru fails to explicitly disclose that the organic material (e.g. resin) further includes an organic solvent and a dispersant.
Tsuchiya, in analogous art of conductive pastes (see para. 0019), teaches that it is known to include organic solvents and dispersants with a resin (see para. 0075-0082: the electric conductivity of the liquid is determined by a combination of the electric conductivity adjusting substance and an organic solvent; para. 0075: various additives such as dispersants can be added to the liquid).
Therefore, in view of the teaching of Tsuchiya, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the conductive paste taught by Ishimaru by incorporating the solvents and dispersants as taught by Tsuchiya to arrive at the claimed invention because it would have been obvious to add solvents and dispersants to adjust viscosity of the paste composition. Thus, a person of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to select the instantly claimed components for the claimed conductive paste with a reasonable expectation of success for printing on a substrate by methods such as ink jet (see present specification at para. 102 and Tsuchiya at para. 0004-0005 & 0013), and would expect such a product to have similar properties to those claimed, absent the showing of unexpected results.
Regarding the limitation, “the conductive paste is configured such that when subjected to induction heating, the metal particles are primary sintered by self-heating of the magnetic heating element via hysteresis loss, and subsequently, the resulting quasi-bulk metal particles are secondary sintered by self-heating via eddy current loss”, this limitation is directed to intended use of the claimed conductive paste and property of the conductive paste upon induction heating that does not distinguish the claimed conductive paste from that of the references as combined. The conductive paste of the references as combined comprises conductive particles and a self-heating substance of metal powder or metal oxide powder (magnetic heating element) in amount as claimed, thus capable of being induction heated and under certain conditions of induction heating, the metal particles being primary sintered by a self-heating of the self-heating substance and then the metal particles secondary sintered by a self-heating of the metal particles in a quasi-bulk state.
As to claim 2, Ishimaru and Tsuchiya teach the conductive paste of claim 1, wherein the second particle diameter of the magnetic heating element is the same or smaller than the first particle diameter of the metal particles (see Ishimaru Example 1 in para. 0021: silver particles with an average particle size of 5 µm and self-heating ferrous oxide (FeO) powder with an average particle size of 1 µm).
As to claim 6, Ishimaru and Tsuchiya teach the conductive paste of claim 1, wherein the metal particles are at least one of Ag, Al, Pt, Sn, Cu, Zn, Pd or Ni (see Ishimaru para. 0019).
As to claims 7-9, Ishimaru and Tsuchiya teach the conductive paste of claim 1, wherein the first particle diameter is 10 nm to 100 µm (or 10 nm to 50 µm) (see Ishimaru para. 0017 & 0021); claim 1, wherein the second particle diameter is 10 nm to 10 µm (see Ishimaru para. 0021). See also MPEP 2144.05 for obviousness of ranges.
As to claims 10-11, Ishimaru and Tsuchiya teach the conductive paste of claim 1, wherein the dispersant or organic solvent of the organic material has 30 or less carbon atoms (see Tsuchiya para. 0078); claim 1, wherein the organic material further includes a binder and a catalyst (see Tsuchiya para. 0075).
As to claim 12, Ishimaru and Tsuchiya teach the conductive paste of claim 1, wherein the thickness of the conductive paste is 0.001 mm to 0.5 mm (see Ishimaru para. 0017: thickness less than 10 µm (equivalent to 0.01 mm) and para. 0023: thickness of the screen printing plate was set to 0.1 mm).
Response to Arguments
In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., achieving a rapid, low-temperature, high-density sintering process that enhances both electrical conductivity and bonding strength of the conductive gel) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
In response to applicant's argument that the examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971).
In response to applicant's argument that “the conductive paste is configured” limitation, a recitation of the intended use of the claimed invention must result in a structural difference between the claimed invention and the prior art in order to patentably distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art. If the prior art structure is capable of performing the intended use, then it meets the claim.
The examiner notes that this claim limitation would have flowed naturally from the suggestion of the applied references. Like Applicants, Ishimaru teaches conductive particles of silver (compare Ishimaru paras. 19, 21 with applicant’s claim 6); FeO powder (para. 16,21) having a metal particle size of 5 µm ( compare Ishimaru Example 1 with Applicants claim 7); and a heating element particle size of
1 µm (Ishimaru Example 1 with applicants claim 9); and an overlapping weight ratio of 10-20 wt% FeO (Ishimaru 18, 21 with applicants claim 1) using organic components of thermosetting resin and solvents/dispersants. Ferrous oxide (FeO) is a well-known ferromagnetic material that exhibits hysteresis loss in alternating magnetic fields, while silver is known to be a conductive metal that generates eddy currents in such fields.
Conclusion
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JONATHAN JOHNSON
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1734
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