DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendment
The amendment of claim 1 is supported by the specification. The new claim 17 is supported by the specification.
Any rejections and/or objections made in the previous Office action and not repeated below are hereby withdrawn.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The new grounds of rejection set forth below are necessitated by applicant's amendment filed on 12/9/2025. Thus, the following action is properly made final.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 1-13, 17 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites “a monofunctional or polyfunctional (meth)acrylate having a functional group selected from the group consisting of…”. The language is not clear. For purposes of expediting prosecution, the claim is interpreted as “having a functional group…” only applies to polyfunctional (meth)acrylate.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
Claim(s) 1-13, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yahata et al (WO2019189495).
In setting forth this rejection an equivalent document, US 2021/0040383, of WO2019189495 has been relied upon and all citations to paragraph numbers in the discussion below are with respect to the USPGPub.
Claims 1-2, 4-6, 8-11, 13: Yahata teaches a cured product prepared from a curable polymerizable composition comprising a quantum dot, 19.37 wt% of a polyfunctional thiol pentaerythritol tetrakis(3-mercaptopropionate) (Mw 488), tricyclodecane dimethanol diacrylate, isobornyl acrylate (Mw 208) [0228-0234].
Claim 3, 7, 12: the polyfunctional thiol can be bis-, tri-, tetrakis-, hexakis-functional thiol [0169]. The trifunctional thiol trimethylolpropane tris(3-mercaptopropionate) has a Mw of 398.
Claims 1-2, 4-6, 8-11, 13, 17: Yahata teaches a cured product prepared from a curable polymerizable composition comprising a quantum dot, 18.04 wt% of a polyfunctional thiol pentaerythritol tetrakis(3-mercaptopropionate) (Mw 488), tricyclodecane dimethanol diacrylate, and 7.7wt% of isobornyl acrylate (Mw 208) (8.55*0.9=7.7) [example 9].
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/9/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to applicant's argument that isobornyl acrylate is not the second (meth)acrylate specified in claim 1, it is noted that claim interpretations for the 112(b) rejection above is based on the following factors: 1) multiple dependent claims recites “the second (meth)acrylate is a monofunctional (meth)acrylate”; 2) PGPub of instant specification [0067] discloses: “the second (meth)acrylate…preferably a monofunctional (meth)acrylate. The monofunctional (meth)acrylate can be represented by the formula A-L-X.” It is not a definition of the monofunctional (meth)acrylate, instead it merely exemplifies the monofunctional (meth)acrylate. 3) PGPub [0079] discloses: such a monofunctional (meth)acrylate does not include the monofunctional (meth)acrylate having the above mentioned functional group. The language distinguishes monofunctional (meth)acrylate from monofunctional (meth)acrylate having the above mentioned functional group. In view of all the factors above and the fact that it is improper to import claim limitations from the specification, it is reasonable to question the scope of the monofunctional (meth)acrylate recited in claim 1.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
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/WENWEN CAI/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1763