DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Claims
1. Claims 1-4 are being examined in the application.
Election/Restrictions
Claims 5-15 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 4/10/2026.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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.
Claim(s) 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sun et al. (CN106873188A, examiner is using English Translation as provided by applicant on 1/21/2025).
Claim 1. Sun et al. teach a method for detecting protein removal effect of electrophoresis dissociation (highly efficient electrophoresis-cleaning contact lenses by adsorbing protein from contact lens; see page 3, paragraph invention has following advantages), comprising:
providing a corneal contact lens cleaner operated in tandem with an electrophoretic dissociation solution to achieve electrophoresis dissociation for protein removal and having a lens cleaning tank, the lens cleaning tank having two electrophoresis dissociation probes arranged opposite each other therein (cleaning tank comprising contact lens care solution and applying electric voltage across two electrodes to dissociate protein off the contact lens; see Example 1 on page 4);
operating the cleaner in tandem with the electrophoresis dissociation solution to electrophoresisally dissociate a certain amount of protein sample in an experiment group; detecting a protein concentration value in the electrophoresis dissociation solution obtained upon completion of the electrophoresis dissociation in the experiment group through a micro UV spectrophotometer; obtaining an experimental protein content value through a volume of the detected electrophoresis dissociation solution (experimental group is designed comprising contact lenses immersed in artificial tears and electrophoresis cleaning is conducted thereafter to remove protein and eluent in the cleaning tank is retained to determine the protein amount using Bradford reagent by measuring absorbance values which requires UV spectrometer; see Example 1 on page 4 and Fig 1);
operating the cleaner in tandem with the electrophoresis dissociation solution to electrophoresisally dissociate a parallel control group; detecting a protein concentration value in a cleaning solution of the parallel control group through the micro UV spectrophotometer; and obtaining a control protein content value representing a protein content in the cleaning solution of the parallel control group through a volume of the detected cleaning solution (control group is designed comprising contact lenses immersed in contact lens care solution and electrophoresis cleaning is conducted thereafter to remove protein and eluent in the cleaning tank is retained to determine the protein amount using Bradford reagent by measuring absorbance values of the control group; see Example 1 on page 4); and
comparing the experimental protein content value with the control protein content value to obtain an actual protein content value (comparing the experimental sample group protein concentration with control group protein concentration to obtain actual protein value; see step S4 of Example 1).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 are 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.
Conclusion
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/GURPREET KAUR/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1759
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