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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 April 15, 2026 has been entered.
Claim 1 is amended and claim 21 is cancelled. Claims 1, 2, and 7-19 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1, 2, and 7-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor, at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 1, this claim recites that the functional group contains no sulfur or oxygen atom. While there is support within the instant specification for the functional group containing no sulfur atom (¶21 of the originally filed specification), there is not support for the functional group containing no oxygen atom. There appears to be no positive recitation to exclude oxygen from the functional group. The mere absence of a positive recitation is not basis for an exclusion and silence will not generally support a negative limitation (MPEP 2173.05(i)). While there may be circumstances in which it can be established that a skilled artisan would understand a negative limitation to necessarily be present in a disclosure, that does not seem to be the case in this circumstance as there is no disclosure which would make this limitation necessarily be present. Therefore, based on the above, the Office concludes that there is not support for excluding oxygen from the functional group of the polymer.
Regarding claims 2 and 7-19, these claims depend from a rejected claim and include all of the limitations thereof. Therefore, they are also rejected.
Response to Arguments
The amendment made to line 4 of claim 1 overcomes the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection set forth in the Final Office Action mailed February 24, 2026. Therefore, this rejection has been withdrawn.
A new rejection is made above under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) due to the claim amendment at the end of claim 1 stating that the functional group contains no oxygen atom. There is no art-based rejection on the claims as currently presented. However, removing the limitation of the functional group containing no oxygen atom to overcome the above written description rejection would reinstate the obviousness rejection of the claims being unpatentable over Mruk et al. (US 2013/0160911) in view of Kulkarni et al. (US 2013/0253120) as set forth in the Final Office Action of February 24, 2026.
Correspondence
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGELA C SCOTT whose telephone number is (571)270-3303. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:30-5:00, EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Mark Eashoo can be reached at 571-272-1197. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANGELA C SCOTT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1767
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