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 (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.
3. Claim 1 has been amended, new claims17-20 have been added, and claims 1-20 are pending as amended on 10/16/25.
4. The new ground of rejection set forth below for claims are necessitated by Applicant's amendment filed on 10/16/25. In particular, claim 1 has been amended add recitation “0 0C or higher.” Now, the scope of independent claim 1 and the claims depends from claim 1 are changed. For this reason, the present action is properly made final.
5. Any rejections and/or objections made in the previous Office action and not repeated below are hereby withdrawn.
6. The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application JAPAN 2022-052459 03/28/2022 filed on 05/08/23.
Response to Amendment
8. Applicant's amendment filed on 10/16/25, has been fully considered and entered.
Response to Arguments
9. Applicant's arguments with respect to rejection of claims 1-16 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wreczycki (J. Wreczycki, et al, Sulfur/organic copolymers as curing agents for rubber, Polymers, 2018, 10, 870, pages 1-20) filed on 10/16/25, have been fully considered but are moot in view of amendment. Previous rejections have been withdrawn. In view of amendment to claims and response, a new ground(s) of rejection is made
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wu (X. Wu, et al, Catalytic Inverse Vulcanization, Nature Communications, 2019, pages 1-9 and supplementary Information).
Regarding claims 1-8, 17-18, Wu discloses a rubber composition comprises an inverse vulcanizate comprising 5g of S8 or Sn polymer (read on liner sulfur) and 5g of dicyclopentadiene (fall into claim 2 range of sulfur in amount of 30 mass% to 90 mass%, claim 17 range of sulfur in amount of 50 mass% to 85 mass%, or claim 18 mass ratio of the organic compound containing a hydrocarbon having two or more unsaturated bonds to the liner sulfur is 0.25 to 2.5) wherein the inverse vulcanizate having glass transition point of 38 0C (page 4-7, fig 4b; Supplemental information page 5, page 7, Supplemental fig 27), fall into claimed range of between 0 0C or higher and 60 0C or lower, meeting the requirement of claims 1-8, 17-18.
Regarding claims 9-16, 19-20, Wu includes the features of claims 1-8, 17-18. The instantly claimed rubber composition is disclosed by Wu, regarding the recitation “A pneumatic tire produced using the rubber composition,” claims 9-16, 19-20 merely recites the intended use of the rubber composition, wherein the prior art can meet this future limitation by merely being capable of such intended use.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KUMAR R BHUSHAN whose telephone number is (313)446-4807. The examiner can normally be reached 9.00 AM to 5.50 PM (EST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, RANDY P GULAKOWSKI can be reached at (571)272-1302. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KUMAR R BHUSHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1766