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
Applicant’s Request for Continued Examination filed on 3/18/2026 is acknowledged. Pending claims are 1, 6-17.
Response to Arguments
In their response dated 3/18/2026 the applicants argued following:
Neither Tsukamoto or Caccio suggest obtaining polycarbodiimide A using HMDI and PEGME with degree of polymerization of 3-10, the polycarbodiimide B using HMDI capped with a compound having molecular weight of 250 or less and degree of polymerization of 3-10 wherein R2 is hydrogen and m is 4.
Response: The examiner disagrees.
For polycarbodiimide A, Tsukamoto teaches all limitation including the amount.
For polycarbodiimide B, Tsukamoto discloses all limitation. Although examples 13 and 14 disclose polyethylene glycol monomethyl ether with m being 5, [0075] discloses that polyalkylene glycol monoethers can have polymerization degree between 2 and 6. Consequently, selecting m being 4 out of range of 2-6, gives only 5 possibilities which is not a laundry list. In summary, the rejection will be restated to reflect the amendment to the claim.
Neither reference discloses that by adopting above structure the cured product has sufficiently high gloss and solvent resistance and in wet-on-wet coating cured film has good interlayer adhesion.
Response : instant claims 1 and 5-15 are directed to a waterborne composition as such properties of the cured article are irrelevant. Claims 16 and 17 do not disclose such properties consequently this article is not commensurate with the scope of the claims or the grounds of rejection.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 6-14, 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) or 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Tsukamoto (US 2018/0371237).
With respect to claim 1, Tsukamoto discloses carbodiimide based aqueous resin crosslinking agent composition comprising polycarbodiimide(A) and polycarbodiimide (B).
Polycarbodiimide A is synthesized as per Example 1 by reacting HMDI in presence of carbodiimidization catalyst. Resulting polycarbodiimide has polymerization. The resulting isocyanate terminated polycarbodiimide is then capped with polyethylene glycol monomethyl ether having molecular weight of 500. Consequently, the polycarbodiimide A of Tsukamoto is the same as polycarbodiimide a of the instant invention. See also examples 2, 3, 6 and 7.
Polycarbodiimide B examples 13 and 14 disclose synthesis where HMDI is polymerized in presence of carbodiimidization catalyst. Resulting polycarbodiimide has polymerization degree of 6. The polycarbodiimide is then end capped with polyethylene glycol monomethyl ether having molecular weight of 252. Wherein R1 would be methyl group, R2 would be hydrogen and m will be 5.
While the examples disclose PEG monomethyl ether which has a molecular weight of 252 where m is 5, the compound is viewed as homolog of the PEG monomethyl ether with m being 4. Additionally, Tsukamoto clearly enables one of ordinary skill in the that end capping unit has to have molecular weight of 300 or less encompassing lower molecular weight compounds (claim 1, [0072]. More specifically, Tsukamoto discloses polyalkylene glycol monoethers such as that utilized in the examples, can have degree polymerization in a range of 2-6 [0075], which is picking m as 4 out of 5 possibilities not a laundry list.
Consequently, while polethyleneglycol monomethyl ether with m integer being 4 is not exemplified, it is clearly envisaged as evidenced in [0075] pf Tsukamoto.
With respect to the content of the polycarbodiimides A and B, Tsukamoto teaches that the content of polycarbodiimide A can be 25-70 which means that the polycarbodiimide B would be in a range of 30-75 [0102].
With respect to claims 6 and 7, the invention of Tsukamoto is a carbodiimide based aqueous resin crosslinking agent, which inherently means that the liquid medium is aqueous [0103, 0105], wherein aqueous medium includes water or mixture of water with organic solvent such as methanol, ethanol and the like [0107, 0111].
With respect to claims 8-10, Tsukamoto discloses use of surfactants which include anionic surfactants as preferred embodiment [0121-0123]. Preferred surfactant is dodecylbenzenesulfonate.
With respect to claims 11-13, waterborne resin includes acrylic resins and urethane resins as preferred embodiment [0126-0127].
With respect to claim 14, the composition of Tsukamoto can be used as a coating which meets the limitation of coating and paint [0131-0132]
With respect to claims 16 and 17, coating formed on a substrate is cured film and substrate is an article comprising the cured film [0131-0132].
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsukamoto (US 2018/0371237) in view of Nishioka (WO 2017/115804) wherein US 2020/0283639 is used as translation.
The discussion of Tsukamoto from paragraph 1 of this office action is incorporated her by reference. I summary, Tsukamoto discloses carbodiimide crosslinking composition for aqueous coatings.
Tsukamoto discloses the combination of two carbodiimides which are terminated with polyethyleneglycol monomethyl ether and are incorporated into coatings to cure resins such as acrylics or urethanes. Tsukamoto does not explicitly disclose that these coatings can be wet-on wet coatings. Tsukamoto other than listing several possible ways a coating can be applied, is not preoccupied with actual method of applying such coating, leaving one of ordinary skill in the art open to determine how to best apply such coating.
Nishioka discloses an aqueous coating composition and a method with which a coating can be applied. Nishioka is very similar to the Tsukamoto because it is also concerned with aqueous coatings.
The coating of Nishioka is urethane or acrylic coating which comprises blocked isocyanate for storage stability and hydrophilicized carbodiimide compound. The carbodiimide has polymerization degree of 1-10 [0109].
The carbodiimide compound [0103] is end capped with hydrophilic group which is polyalkylene glycol monoalkyl ether [0104], wherein molecular weight is in a range of 200-5000 [0107] with the degree of polymerization of 4-20 [0122]. The polyalkylene glycol monoalkyl ether meets the formula of the instant capping agent [0121], wherein in preferred embodiment R4 is hydrogen and R3 includes methyl group [0112]. Production example 5 also discloses use of HMDI isocyanate and polyethylene glycol monomethyl ether as the starting materials of carbodiimide as it is done in Tsukamoto.
Nishioka most importantly discloses a method in which carbodiimide crosslinking agent containing aqueous coatings can be applied. Specifically, in [0192] a substrate is first coated with first layer then with the second layer without any disclosure of drying. Nishioka discloses that the process disclosed therein is wet-on-wet process [0203]. Additionally, applying more than one layer of the composition renders the final article multilayer.
Nishioka further teaches, that coatings applied as wet-on-wet coatings result in coating that have very good gloss and are smooth.
In the light of the above disclosure, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time instant invention was filed to apply the coating of Tsukamoto using any known techniques as a wet-on-wet coating. Applying composition of Tsukamoto that includes carbodiimide crosslinking agents and urethane polymer in an aqueous emulsion would also result in composition that after it is coated via wet-on-wet method and allowed to cure by baking has good smoothness and high gloss.
Correspondence
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/KATARZYNA I KOLB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1767 April 3, 2026
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