DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 December 18, 2025 has been entered.
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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendment and response filed on December 18, 2025 has been entered. Claims 1-8 and 10-15 are pending.
Claim Objections
Claim 12 is objected to because of the following informality. In line 3, the term “And” should be in lowercase, i.e., “and”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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, 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.
Claims 1-6, 8, and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uto et al. (US Pub 2014/0127485 A1) in view of Arends et al. (USPN 5,360,659).
With respect to claim 1, Uto et al. disclose a transparent laminate for radiative cooling, the transparent laminate comprising: a first near-infrared reflective layer including a first layer containing a first polymer and a second layer containing a second polymer stacked alternately with the first layer, wherein the first near-infrared reflective layer reflects a near-infrared ray with a wavelength in a range from 900 to 1,2000 nm, and wherein the second polymer has lower refractive index than the first polymer (claim 22). The laminate contains 50 or more layers of two or more thermoplastic resins having different optical properties, wherein one of more of the thermoplastic resin layers can be a polycarbonate layer on top of another polymer reflecting layer (para 0039-0040), which reads on the presently claimed infrared emissive layer formed on the second near-infrared reflective layer. With respect to the limitation that “the second near-infrared reflective layer contains at least one selected from a group consisting of Au and C”, Uto et al. disclose various polymers suitable for use as the second near-infrared reflective layer (0040) which using a broadest reasonable interpretation would contain carbon (C).
With respect to claim 2, Uto et al. disclose that the total number of layers is preferably not less than 400 and more preferably not less than 500.
With respect to claim 3-6, Uto et al. disclose that the first and second layers can comprise various different thermoplastic polymers, including polyethylene terephthalate and poly(methyl methacrylate) (0040). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have selected any of the polymers disclosed in Uto et al. based on the desired optical properties of the multilayer laminate (0040 and 0045).
With respect to claim 8 and 10, Uto et al. disclose that the thickness of each layer is from about 120 to 220 nm and the number of layers is not less than 400, preferably not less than 500, which would result in a laminate have the claimed thickness ranges.
With respect to claim 11-13, Uto et al. disclose using a polyurethane-based adhesive having a thickness of 7 µm (0150) to laminate the layers in the multiple layered film.
With respect to claims 14-15, Uto et al. disclose that the laminate is useful as a radiative cooling material in a vehicle or building (0001).
Uto et al. do not disclose that the second near-infrared emissive layer reflects near-infrared rays with a wavelength in a range from 1,500 to 2,000 nm. Arends et al., which is also directed to infrared reflecting films, disclose that it is known in the art to incorporate infrared reflecting polymer layers, such as polycarbonate (col 4, line 10) that reflect light having wavelengths up to 2,000 nm (col 3, line 39). It is noted that polycarbonate is a polymer that contains carbon. It would have been obvious to the skilled artisan to have used the polycarbonate layer of Arends et al. as an infrared emissive layer which is formed on the second near-infrared reflective layer of the Uto et al. laminate, motivated by the desire to obtain a laminate that reflects wavelengths from 900-2,000 nm.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uto et al. in view of Arends et al. as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Hatazawa et al. (US Pub 2019/0111659 A1).
Uto et al. and Arends et al. are silent as to the molecular weight of the first and second polymer. Hatazawa et al, which is also directed to near-infrared reflecting films, discloses that it is conventional in the art to use polymers within the presently claimed molecular weight range (0066 and 0154). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have used polymers within the presently claimed molecular weight range in the laminate of Uto et al. as modified by Arends et al., as taught in Hatazawa et al, since use of such polymers are conventional in the prior art for obtaining near-infrared reflecting films having desired optical properties.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on December 18, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The present amendment and arguments with respect to the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections over Uto et al. in view of Arends et al. and either Nagahama et al. or Hatazawa et al. are persuasive. Accordingly, these rejections are withdrawn.
The 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections over Uto et al. in view of Arends et al. are maintained for the reasons set forth above. Specifically, claim 1 recites that “the second near-infrared reflective layer contains at least one selected from a group consisting of: Au and C” (emphasis added) and, as set forth in the above rejection of Uto et al. in view of Arends et al., Arends et al. disclose near-infrared reflective layers that contains carbon, i.e., polycarbonate.
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/BLAINE COPENHEAVER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1781