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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of Group I, claims 1-10 in the reply filed on December 12, 2025 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)). Claims 11-19 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
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, 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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fan (CN-111205235-A, English translation provided).
Fan teaches a highly etherified hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin (Fan, [3] and [5]). The resin is produced by reacting melamine and formaldehyde to obtain a hexamethylolated melamine, reacting the hexamethylolated melamine powder with methanol, and distilling and filtering to obtain a hexamethoxymethyl melamine product (Fan, [17-22]). The hexamethoxymethyl melamine product reads on a melamine-formaldehyde resin. A chemical structure of hexamethoxymethyl melamine is shown below:
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Fan teaches that the degree of etherification is 5.5-5.95 (Fan, [25]). Fan further exemplifies resins with a degree of etherification of 5.92 (Examples 1 and 8, Fan, page 6, Table 5). As can be seen from the chemical structure above, an etherification degree of 6 corresponds to 100% etherification. One of ordinary skill would recognize that the remaining functional groups that are not etherified can be -NH2, -NH, and/or -CH2OH groups resulting from incomplete hydroxymethylation or etherification. Examples 1 and 8 would therefore be expected to have a ratio of -NH2, -NH, and -CH2OH functional groups to -OCH3 groups of about 0.014 ((6-5.92)/5.92 = 0.08/5.92 = 0.0135).
Fan is silent as to if the Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrum of the melamine-formaldehyde resin composition has a first peak at 3334 cm-1 to 3344 cm-1 and a second peak at 1072 cm-1 to 1074 cm-1 and a ratio of an intensity of the first peak to an intensity of the second peak is less than or equal to 0.021.
However, Fan teaches a composition that would be expected to have the claimed first and second peaks with a ratio of intensities within the claimed range. The instant application specifies that the first peak at 3334 cm-1 to 3344 cm-1 corresponds to active functional groups, such as -NH2 and -CH2OH (instant specification, page 4, lines 9-11 and page 15, lines 15-18). The second peak at 1072 cm-1 to 1074 cm-1 corresponds to ether functional groups, in particular -OCH3 (instant specification, page 4, lines 20-21 and page 15, lines 15-18). The instant specification also states that the ratio of active functional groups (-NH2, -CH2OH) relative to the ether groups (-OCH3) can be seen from the ratio of the intensity of the first peak to the intensity of the second peak (instant specification, page 17, lines 1-11). One of ordinary skill would expect the hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin of Fan to have -NH2, -NH, and/or -CH2OH functional groups of which at least -NH2 and CH2OH would contribute to a first peak at 3334 cm-1 to 3344 cm-1. Similarly, the hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin of Fan has -OCH3 groups from which a second peak at 1072 cm-1 to 1074 cm-1 would be expected. The ratio of -NH2, -NH, and -CH2OH functional groups to -OCH3 groups taught by Fan examples 1 and 8 is 0.014, as discussed above. Because the ratio of the first peak to the second peak results from the ratio of active functional groups to ether functional groups and this ratio is about 0.014 for Fan’s hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin, it is reasonable to expect the resin of Fan to have a first peak to second peak ratio within the range of claim 1. In particular, one would expect the ratio of the intensity of the first peak to the intensity of the second peak ratio to be up to about 0.014 because the ratio of active functional groups relative to the ether groups of Fan Examples 1 and 8 is about 0.014.
A range of less than or equal to about 0.014 falls within the claimed ranges of less than or equal to 0.021 (claim 1) and less than or equal to 0.018 (claim 3). A range of less than or equal to about 0.014 overlaps with the claimed range of greater than or equal to 0.010 and less than or equal to 0.021 (claim 2). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have selected the overlapping portion of the ranges disclosed by the reference because selection of overlapping portion of ranges has been held to be a prima facie case of obviousness. See MPEP § 2144.05.I.
The free formaldehyde content of Examples 1 and 8 is 0.09 wt% (Fan, Table 1). This falls within the claimed range of less than or equal to 0.093 wt% (claims 4-6).
Claim 7-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Van Dorp (US 3,624,232) in view of Fan (CN-111205235-A, English translation provided).
Regarding claims 7-8, Van Dorp teaches coating compositions prepared by mixing polyester with hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin (Van Dorp, col. 5, lines 20-25 and Table II). Polyester reads on a host resin and hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin reads on a melamine-formaldehyde resin.
Van Dorp is silent as to the FT-IR spectrum and/or purity of the hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin and therefore does not teach the melamine-formaldehyde resin composition as claimed in claim 1.
However, Fan teaches the melamine-formaldehyde resin composition as claimed in claim 1, as discussed above. Fan further teaches that hexamethoxymethyl melamine prepared in the prior art has unstable quality, high free formaldehyde content, high water content and long reaction times (Fan, [16]). In contrast, Fan teaches that hexamethoxymethyl melamine prepared by the method of Fan has the advantages of stable quality, low free formaldehyde content, low moisture, and short reaction time (Fan, [16]). Given the disclosure of Fan, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to have substituted the hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin of Van Dorp for the hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin of Fan. One would have been motivated to make this substitution in order to use a hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin with stable quality, low free formaldehyde content, low moisture, and short reaction times.
The coating composition of Van Dorp comprising the hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin of Fan reads on a coating composition comprising a host resin and the melamine-formaldehyde resin composition as claimed in claim 1 (claim 7) wherein the host resin is polyester resin (claim 8).
Regarding claims 9-10, modified Van Dorp teaches the coating composition as claimed in claim 7 and claim 8. Example 10 of Van Dorp is 90 parts by weight polyester resin and 10 parts by weight hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin and Example 11 is 85 parts by weight polyester resin and 15 parts by weight hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin (Van Dorp, Table II). These examples correspond to about 11-18 parts by weight melamine-formaldehyde resin composition (hexamethoxymethyl melamine resin) based on 100 parts by weight of the host resin (polyester).
Conclusion
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/AUDRA J DESTEFANO/Examiner, Art Unit 1766
/RANDY P GULAKOWSKI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1766