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 . 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 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.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/22/2025 has been entered.
Response to Amendment / Arguments
The Response, amendments and arguments, filed 12/22/2025, has been entered. Claims 1-16, 18-19 and 21-23 are pending. Amendments overcome objections to the drawings. Applicant’s arguments regarding the rejections in previous action have been fully considered:
On page 3 of Remarks, Applicant argues that Tirel does not teach any other liquid (other than viscoelastic liquids) and does not teach or allow measurement of any other rheological parameters.
Response:
During patent examination, the pending claims must be “given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.” See MPEP 2111.
Therefore, Examiner must broadly interpret the limitations. In other words, guidelines of MPEP require Examiner to broadly interpret “viscoelastic liquids” of Tirel to read on “ liquids” and Examiner is NOT allowed to limit the interpretation of rheological parameters to what instant application has been disclosed. Examiner must interpret all limitation as broadly as possible and cited parts of Tirel teaches these limitations as broadly as can reasonable be interpreted, therefore, the argument is not persuasive1.
Applicant’s arguments On pages 3-6 of Remarks, that Tirel teaches free jet and Tirel and other prior art of record do not teach the stabilized jet as amended claim 1 is moot as amendment necessitated new ground of rejection in view of “Kowalewski”, (Kowalewski ,Tomasz A. "On the separation of droplets from a liquid jet." Fluid dynamics research 17.3 (1996): 121, and the limitation is rejected based on obviousness in view of Kowalewski..
Specification
Applicant is reminded of the proper language and format for an abstract of the disclosure, the form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as “means” and “said,” should be avoided.
Appropriate action is required.
Claim Objections
Claims 7, 18 and 19 are objected.
“the geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet” should be amended to read as “a geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet”.
Appropriate action is required.
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, 3-10, 15-16, 19, 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Tirel”2, (Tirel, Christophe, Marie-Charlotte Renoult, and Christophe Dumouchel. "Measurement of extensional properties during free jet breakup." Experiments in fluids 61 (published Jan. 2020): 1-14.) in view of “Kowalewski”, (Kowalewski ,Tomasz A. "On the separation of droplets from a liquid jet." Fluid dynamics research 17.3 (1996): 121).
Claim 1
Tirel discloses:
A method (sections 2-5) of determining rheological parameters of a fluid (at least Abstract and e.g., table 2 results for measuring properties of relaxation times and the terminal extensional viscosities for viscoelastic fluids or dilute polymer solutions with different polymer concentration as cited in section 4.1), the method comprising:
a) introducing the fluid into a continuous-jet droplet generator (injector fig.4 section 3.1) comprising a tank (tank of syringe pump section 3.1: The injector is a cylindrical body (5mm internal diameter and 85 mm length) ended by a nozzle) maintained at a given pressure p0 (section 3.1: syringe pump, supplying tube and injector are installed at the same height to limit pressure changes) using a pressurizing device (syringe pump) and communicating via an inlet orifice with an ejection head (ejection head via nozzle as disclosed in section 3.1),
b) periodically stimulating (using syringe as disclosed in section 3.2 during measurement time period),
c) ejecting, via an outlet nozzle and out of the ejection head (section 3.1: The nozzle is a thin cylindrical plate with a cylindrical hole in its center), the fluid disturbed, which takes the form of a jet (e.g., section 3.1: vertical free liquid jets is presented in z-axis in Fig. 4);
d) obtaining, using a stroboscope (laser/camera and also in section 1 discloses using known technique stroboscopic visualization allows reconstituting temporal evolution from which the relaxation time was determined) at a given instant t (section 3.1: The duration of the light pulse is chosen equal to 20 ns to freeze the jet on the image), a fixed and illuminated image of the complete jet (moving object is frozen when its displacement during the light exposure is
lower than the image resolution e.g., section 3.1/figs. 5-6);
e) recording one or more photographs of all or part of the fixed and illuminated image of the complete jet (e.g., sections 3.2/3.3 besides citations above) using a camera or a photographic device (fig.4);
f) analyzing (section 3.3/3.4) the photograph or photographs from the recording to extract therefrom a dataset descriptive of the jet (section 3.4, e.g., scale distribution see also section 2 for considering jet as thinning cylinder fig.1);
g) determining the rheological parameters of the fluid for a given ejection nozzle (for different nozzle dimensions, e.g., section 3.4,4.3/figs.8-9/ tables 1-2), the determination of the rheological parameters being performed using a statistical method (e.g., Abstract: This analysis uses a statistical multi-scale description tool whose principle is explained for an ensemble of thinning cylinders/ section 5: a statistical and multi-scale method for measuring the extensional properties of viscoelastic solutions during free jet atomization has been presented) and morphologies of fluid jets (morphologies of jets e.g., shown in fig.6 with the background and definitions of geometry jet given in section I and analyzed in sections 3.4 and 4.3).
Tirel does not specifically disclose:
a) a temperature of which is controlled
b) periodically stimulating, at amplitude ( A) in Volts and frequency (F=1/T), a piezoelectric actuator, so that the piezoelectric actuator disturbs the pressurized fluid in the ejection head;
c) fluid disturbed by the periodic stimulating, wherein the disturbed fluid takes the form of a stabilized jet having a given morphology affected by a disturbance caused by the piezoelectric actuator;
g) for a given stimulation amplitude Ai and pressure pi, i being a natural integer at least equal to 2, the determination of the rheological parameters being performed using a statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set a database containing morphologies of known fluid jets. (though as cited above Tirel teaches determining the rheological parameters of the fluid for a given ejection nozzle, and the determination of the rheological parameters being performed using a statistical method previously parameterized, and Tirel also teaches morphologies of fluid jets.)
In the similar field of endeavor, Kowalewski in figs.1-10 teaches:
A method of determining droplet separation from a liquid jet in terms of rheological parameters of a fluid (e.g., Abstract:), the method comprising:
a) introducing the fluid into a continuous-jet droplet generator comprising a tank ( see fig.1 and disclosure in 2nd section Experiments and 2.1 description of apparatus starting page 124: reservoir or pressurized container, generated jets shown in e.g., figs.2-3,9) maintained at a given pressure p0 (e.g., page 124 and also section 2.2 maintained in 100 Pa) using a pressurizing device and communicating via an inlet orifice with an ejection head (see e.g., section 2, disclosure on nozzle, nozzle’s interchangeable heads), a temperature of which is controlled (e.g., page 128, section 2.2);
b) periodically stimulating (e.g., section 2: one can obtain the periodic, perfectly
reproducible breakup of the jet), at amplitude (A) in Volts (e.g., page 124: resulting perturbations of the jet are proportional to the voltage applied to the transducer) and frequency (F=1/T) (e.g., page 124: modulation frequency close to the "natural" instability wavelength of the jet, also Table 2), a piezoelectric actuator (page 124: nozzle is modulated by a piezoceramic device), so that the piezoelectric actuator disturbs the pressurized fluid in the ejection head (page 124: pressure inside the plenum chamber of the nozzle is modulated by a piezoceramic device);
c) ejecting, via an outlet nozzle and out of the ejection head (see Experiments section on page 124), the fluid disturbed by the periodic stimulating (e.g., see Experiments section on page 124 obtain the periodic) , wherein the disturbed fluid takes the form of a stabilized jet (e.g., fig.2-3, and 9) having a given morphology affected by a disturbance caused by the piezoelectric actuator (e.g., see Experiments section on page 124);
d) obtaining, using a camera (e.g., fig.1) at a given instant t, a fixed and illuminated image of the complete stabilized jet (see e.g., section Results besides Experiments and images given in figs.2-9);
e) recording one or more photographs of all or part of the fixed and illuminated image of the complete stabilized jet using a camera or a photographic device (e.g., fig.3);
f) analyzing the photograph or photographs from the recording, to extract therefrom a dataset descriptive of the stabilized jet (e.g., fig.3 and sections 4-5);
g) determining the parameters of the fluid (e.g., table 2 on page 137) for a given ejection nozzle (see description of nozzle given under figure 3), and for a given stimulation amplitude (Ai ) and pressure (p0i) (as cited in e.g., Experiments section).
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kowalewski’s system with Tirel’s system and method of determining rheological parameters of a fluid, to yield the predictable result of a combined system and method comprising a) a temperature of which is controlled b) periodically stimulating, at amplitude ( A) in Volts and frequency (F=1/T), a piezoelectric actuator, so that the piezoelectric actuator disturbs the pressurized fluid in the ejection head; c) fluid disturbed by the periodic stimulating, wherein the disturbed fluid takes the form of a stabilized jet having a given morphology affected by a disturbance caused by the piezoelectric actuator; as taught by Kowalewski. One of ordinary skill in the art knows droplet separation from a liquid jet depends on fluid viscosity and is correlated to it (e.g., Kowalaswki, Abstract) and would know continuous-jet droplet generator as a well-known technology for many applications and have been motivated to make this modification in order to use a well-known technology (droplet separation from a liquid jet taught by Kowalewski) for another (Tirel’s jet generator) to obtain a predictable results of determining rheological parameters of a fluid (as taught by Tirel), based on MPEP 2143 (D), courts have ruled that applying a known technique (droplet separation from a liquid jet taught by Kowalewski) to a known product and method (Tirel’s system) to yield predictable results of determining rheological parameters of a fluid is within the purview of a skilled artisan. See KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421,82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
Also: in the similar field of endeavor, Ramezanizadeh teaches determining the rheological parameters of the fluid, using a statistical method previously parameterized (viscosity of fluids using machine learning tool or artificial neural network e.g., Abstract) by using as training set a database (e.g., figs.1-4 and training dataset page 3 col.1 first para and section 2.4 considering different parameters affecting performance model) containing known fluid (known fluid info as input data in e.g., fig.5).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Ramezanizadeh’s training model for the modified Tirel with Kowalewski system of determining rheological parameters of continuous-jet droplet and morphologies of fluid jets and determination of the rheological parameters being performed using the modified Tirel’s statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set a database containing morphologies of known fluid jets as taught by Ramezanizadeh. One of ordinary skill in the art would know different training dataset approaches and their ability in modeling of different systems with high accuracy (Ramezanizadeh page 2 col.1 last two para) and have been motivated to make this modification in order to modeling of properties of fluids with high accuracy (Ramezanizadeh page 2 col.2 first para).
Claim 3
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Ramezanizadeh further teaches wherein the statistical method is based on a linear regression model (Section 2.2: Eq. 3 linear regression model (as a basic learning method) for the same reason and motivation as cited for claim 1.
Claim 4
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Ramezanizadeh further teaches wherein the statistical method is based on an artificial neural network model (ANN page 11 col.2) for the same reason and motivation as cited for claim 1.
Claim 5
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 4, Ramezanizadeh further teaches wherein the neural network model comprises at least one layer of neurons (e.g., Fig. 3-5) for the same reason and motivation as cited for claims 1 and 4.
Claim 6
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Tirel further teaches wherein the dataset comprises data on a geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet (geometry of the jet as modeled and explained at least in theoretical model section 2).
Claim 7
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Tirel further teaches wherein the dataset is based on parameters obtained from the geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet (geometry of the jet as modeled and explained at least in theoretical model section 2).
Claim 8
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Tirel further teaches wherein the database comprises information obtained with experimental fluid jets (experimental set up and measurements disclosed in sections 3-4 and fig.4).
Claim 9
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Kowalewski teaches piezoelectric simulator and stimulating the periodic stimulation of the piezoelectric simulator (e.g., section Experiments page 124), Tirel combined with Kowalewski for the same reason and motivation as cited above teaches wherein:
the periodic stimulation of the piezoelectric simulator, the ejection of the disturbed fluid, the obtaining of the illuminated image, the recording of the one more photographs, the analysis of the photograph or photographs (e.g., figs.2-9), and the determination of the rheological parameters are performed with two different stimulation amplitudesA1 and A2 (for different voltages).
Ramezanizadeh teaches different training models and algorithms and iterations (e.g.,figs.1-7), and in iterations works based on if the parameters of the fluid estimated for each of the stimulation amplitudes A1 and A2 do not converge, reiterating, determination of the rheological parameters with another amplitude A3 or several other stimulation amplitudes Ai, i being a natural integer at least equal to 3, until a convergence of the duly estimated rheological parameters of the fluid is obtained if the rheological parameters of the fluid estimated for each of the stimulation amplitudes A1 and A2 do not converge, reiterating, determination of the rheological parameters with another amplitude A3 or several other stimulation amplitudes Ai, i being a natural integer at least equal to 3, until a convergence of the duly estimated rheological parameters of the fluid is obtained. Therefore, It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Ramezanizadeh’s iteration method for the modified Tirel‘s training models and if the rheological parameters of the fluid estimated for each of the stimulation amplitudes A1 and A2 do not converge, reiterating, the periodic stimulation of the piezoelectric simulator, the ejection of the disturbed fluid, the obtaining of the illuminated image, the recording of the one more photographs, the analysis of the photograph or photographs, and the determination of the rheological parameters with another amplitude A3 or several other stimulation amplitudes Ai, i being a natural integer at least equal to 3, until a convergence of the duly estimated rheological parameters of the fluid is obtained . One of ordinary skill in the art would know this a basic process of any simulation work and have been motivated to make this modification in order to perform any ML algorithm to produce reliable results. See MPEP 2143 (C).
Claim 10
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Kowalewski as cited in claim 1 teaches wherein:
the periodic stimulation of the piezoelectric simulator, the ejection of the disturbed fluid, the obtaining of the illuminated image, the recording of the one more photographs, the analysis of the photograph or photographs, and the determination of the rheological parameters are performed for two different pressures p01 and p02;
Ramezanizadeh teaches different training models and algorithms and iterations (e.g.,figs.1-7), and in iterations works based on if the rheological parameters of the fluid estimated for each of the pressures p01 and p02 do not converge, reiterating the determination of the rheological parameters with another pressure p3 or several other pressures p0i, i being a natural integer at least equal to 3, until a convergence of the duly estimated rheological parameters of the fluid is obtained. Therefore, It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Ramezanizadeh’s iteration method for the modified Tirel‘s training models and if the rheological parameters of the fluid estimated for each of the pressures p01 and p02 do not converge, reiterating the periodic stimulation of the piezoelectric simulator, the ejection of the disturbed fluid, the obtaining of the illuminated image, the recording of the one more photographs, the analysis of the photograph or photographs, and the determination of the rheological parameters with another pressure p3 or several other pressures p0i, i being a natural integer at least equal to 3, until a convergence of the duly estimated rheological parameters of the fluid is obtained. One of ordinary skill in the art would know this a basic process of any simulation work and have been motivated to make this modification in order to perform any ML algorithm to produce reliable results. See MPEP 2143 (C).
Claim 15
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 3, Tirel further teaches wherein the dataset is based on parameters obtained from the geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet (geometry of the jet as modeled and explained at least in theoretical model section 2).
Claim 16
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 4, Tirel further teaches wherein the dataset is based on parameters obtained from the geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet (geometry of the jet as modeled and explained at least in theoretical model section 2).
Claim 19
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the dataset is based on parameters obtained from the geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet.
Claim 23
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, Kowalewski teaches wherein in the ejecting c), the given morphology of the stabilized jet includes droplets having a droplet morphology affected by the disturbance caused by the piezoelectric actuator (as cited in e.g., Experimental section on page 124), in the obtaining d) and in the recording e), the fixed and illuminated image of the complete stabilized jet includes the droplets (e.g., figs.3-9), and in the analyzing f), the dataset descriptive of the stabilized jet includes data descriptive of the droplet morphology (e.g., figs.3-9) based on obviousness for the same reason and motivation as cited above3.
Claims 2, 11-14, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Tirel”, (Tirel, Christophe, Marie-Charlotte Renoult, and Christophe Dumouchel. "Measurement of extensional properties during free jet breakup." Experiments in fluids 61 (published Jan. 2020): 1-14.) in view of “Kowalewski“, (Kowalewski, Tomasz A. "On the separation of droplets from a liquid jet." Fluid dynamics research 17.3 (1996): 121) and “Ramezanizadeh”, (Ramezanizadeh, Mahdi, et al. "A review on the utilized machine learning approaches for modeling the dynamic viscosity of nanofluids." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 114 (2019)) and “LIU”, CN 103029440 A.
Claim 2
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, the combination does not teach wherein the piezoelectric actuator is immersed in the pressurized fluid in the ejection head.
In the similar field of endeavor, LIU in fig.1 teaches the piezoelectric actuator is immersed in the pressurized fluid in the ejection head (¶0015).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use LIU’s of ‘s piezoelectric actuator immersed in the modified Tirel’s pressurized fluid in the ejection head as taught by LIU. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to have a better stimulation.
Claim 11
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh LIU teaches the method as claimed in claim 2, Ramezanizadeh further teaches wherein the statistical method is based on a linear regression model (Section 2.2: Eq. 3 linear regression model (as a basic learning method) as one worker of art knows it as one of basic learning models.
Claim 12
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh, LIU teaches the method as claimed in claim 2, Ramezanizadeh further teaches wherein the statistical method is based on an artificial neural network model (ANN page 11 col.2) as one worker of art knows it as one of basic learning models.
Claim 13
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh, LIU teaches the method as claimed in claim 12, Ramezanizadeh further teaches wherein the neural network model comprises at least one layer of neurons (e.g., Fig. 3-5) as one worker of art knows it as one of learning models. See MPEP 2143(D).
Claim 14
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh, LIU teaches the method as claimed in claim 2, Tirel further teaches wherein the dataset is based on parameters obtained from the geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet (geometry of the jet as modeled and explained at least in theoretical model section 2).
Claim 18
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh LIU teaches the method as claimed in claim 2, Tirel further teaches wherein the dataset is based on parameters obtained from the geometrical form of all or part of the complete jet (geometry of the jet as modeled and explained at least in theoretical model section 2).
Claim 21 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Tirel”, (Tirel, Christophe, Marie-Charlotte Renoult, and Christophe Dumouchel. "Measurement of extensional properties during free jet breakup." Experiments in fluids 61 (published Jan. 2020): 1-14.) in view of “Kowalewski (Kowalewski, Tomasz A. "On the separation of droplets from a liquid jet." Fluid dynamics research 17.3 (1996): 121), and “Ramezanizadeh”, (Ramezanizadeh, Mahdi, et al. "A review on the utilized machine learning approaches for modeling the dynamic viscosity of nanofluids." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 114 (2019)) and Mitchell US20220381714A1.
Claim 21
Tirel in view of Kowalewski, Ramezanizadeh teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, the modified Tirel as cited in claim 1 teaches wherein the determining g) of the rheological parameters of the fluid from the dataset descriptive of the jet obtained in the acquiring f) by the statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set the database containing the morphologies of the known fluid jets, but does not specifically teach determining g) includes identifying the fluid from the dataset descriptive of the jet obtained in the acquiring f) by the statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set the database containing the morphologies of the known fluid jets.
In the similar field of endeavor, Mitchell teaches wherein the determining of the rheological parameters of the fluid (e.g., ¶0057¶0065¶0111) includes identifying the fluid from the dataset descriptive by the statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set the database containing the known fluids (e.g.,¶0119 and claim 13).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use ‘s for Mitchell’s ML models and training dataset for the modified Tirel‘s method and identifying the fluid from the dataset descriptive of the modified Tirel’s jet obtained in the acquiring f) by the statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set the database containing the morphologies of the known fluid jets. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to use the benefits of ML techniques to identify the fluids from their rheological parameters, furthermore, based on MPEP 2143(D), courts have ruled that Simple applying a known technique (Mitchell’s ML techniques and training algorithms using dataset of rheological parameters) to a known product (the modified Tirel’s continuous-jet droplet generator) to yield predictable results (Mitchell’s identifying the fluid from the dataset descriptive by the statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set the database containing the known fluids), is within the purview of a skilled artisan. See KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421,82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 22 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
the prior art of record documents, individually or in combination, fail to anticipate or render obvious a method of determining rheological parameters including identifying a fluid wherein the determining g) of the rheological parameters of the fluid includes identifying the fluid from the dataset descriptive of the jet obtained in the acquiring f) by the statistical method previously parameterized by using as training set the database containing the morphologies of the known fluid jets wherein the database includes, for each of a plurality of the known fluids at each of a plurality of amplitudes: - a length of the jet before break, - a surface of the jet before break, - a volume of the jet before break, - for a plurality of droplets, a length, maximum height, volume and surface of the droplet, in conjunction with the remaining claim limitations.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
RU 2359235 C2, BEZRUKOV
US 20210389221 A1, Wee
US 4318482 A, Barry
WO 2019117723 A1, STEEMAN
All these prior arts teach determining rheological parameters of a fluid comprising generating fluid jets.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Fatemeh E. Nia whose telephone number is (469)295-9187. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kristina DeHerrera can be reached at (303) 297-4237. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/FATEMEH ESFANDIARI NIA/Examiner, Art Unit 2855
1 Furthermore, Examiner has provided a sample of prior art teaching similar methods of determining rheological parameters of a fluid. See Conclusion.
2 Prior art of record
3 Furthermore, Examiner notes that just claiming data collection does not differentiate a claim limitation from prior art (see MPEP 2106).