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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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 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.
Response to Restriction/Election
Applicant’s election of without traverse of Group I, claims 1-9 in response to restriction requirement is acknowledged. Applicant’s election without traverse of (a) Co (cobalt) for a single species representing transition metal ion; and (b) “ammonia” for a single species representing “chemical” is also acknowledged. Claims 1-9 of the elected group read on the elected species.
Examiner searched prior art with the elected species of metal and chemical and found arts scope of the elected species of metal is extended to Cu. Therefore, the scope of the claims is restricted to the elected species only and claims 10-17 and the remaining subject matter of claims 1-9 (i.e. all other non-elected species of transition metal ion) are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b). See MPEP 37 CFR 1.142(b) and MPEP § 821.03. Applicants preserve their right to file a divisional on the non-elected subject matter.
Status of the claims
Claims 1-9 are examined on merits in this office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (J. Mater. Chem. 2016) in view of Truong et al (Macromol. Mater. Eng. 2017).
In regards to claim 1, Wang discloses a self-healable hydrogel comprising a polyacrylic acid (PAA), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and Borax (PAA-PVA-Borax) (Abstract and Scheme 1)
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, wherein the PVA and Borax are covalently bonded. Wang teaches PVA and Acrylic acid are crosslinked by heating (i.e. thermally) to obtain PVA-g-PAA copolymer (page 17733, 1st col. “grafting of PVA with PAA).
Wang does not teach the hydrogel with a transition metal ions.
Truong teaches co-electrospun Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) and thermally crosslinked hydrogel useful for metal uptake and for ammonia adsorption after decorating with a metal organic framework (Abstract and Fig. 6)
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. Truong teaches treating the hydrogel with transition metals (Zn or Cu) to uptake metal (page 7, Table 2; and conclusion of page 9) and providing metal decorated organic framework (Fig. 10) useful for ammonia adsorption (page 7 and Fig.2).
Therefore, given the fact that PVA-PAA based polymer hydrogen is useful for transition metal uptake and since the hydrogel of Wang comprises PVA-PAA, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to easily envisage considering the polymeric hydrogel of Wang for uptake of transition metal and providing metal organic framework with the expectation of adsorption/detection of ammonia with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skilled in the art can easily envisage that the hydrogel of Wang with uptake of transition metals (Cu or Zn) would provide the hydrogel dispersed with the transition metal ions.
In regards to claim 2, as described above, Truong teaches Cu and Zn, which are transition metals and which reads on claim 2.
In regards to claims 3-4, Truong teaches the PVA-PAA with having good solubility and Wang discloses various tensile strength of the hydrogel (page 17735), but however, the references do not mention regarding moisture percentage and hydrogel tensile modulus. However, since the self-healable hydrogel has not the same composition comprising PAA, PVA and Borax as described above by Wang, the moisture content and the tensile modulus would be expected to be the same or very similar. The Patent and Trademark Office does not have the facilities and resources to provide the factual evidence needed in order to establish that there is a difference, in the first place, between the self-healable hydrogel composition of prior art (Wang) and those instantly disclosed and, that if there is such a difference, that such a difference would have been considered unexpected, i.e. unobvious, by one of ordinary skill in the art. The burden is upon applicant to present such factual evidence. See e.g. In re Best (195 USPQ 430 (CCPA 1977)) or Ex parte Phillips (28 USPQ2d 1302 (BPAI 1993)).
Moreover, generally, differences in concentration or temperature will not support the patentability of subject matter encompassed by the prior art unless there is evidence indicating such concentration or temperature is critical. "[W]here the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation." In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454,456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955)
In regards to claims 5, Wang teaches that the hydrogel has high conductivity and excellent healing efficiency/cyclability (page 17732) and teaches recovery of 95.7% (page 17735, last line of 1st col.).
In regards to claim 6, Truong teaches crosslinking of 20% (section 3.2 of page 5 and “conclusion” of page 9).
In regards to claims 7-9, Truong discloses chemical sensor for detection of ammonia utilizing the hydrogel. The chemical sensor is a product comprising comprises the self-healable hydrogen as claimed in claim 7 and the chemical is considered not a part of the claimed chemical sensor. Thus, the self-healable hydrogel of Wang in view of Truong on a surface would be considered a chemical detection sensor of claims 7-9.
Conclusion
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/SHAFIQUL HAQ/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1678