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
Claims 1-5 and 14-17 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group I, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 03/02/2026.
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 6-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP-2004/231734 to Masahito et al. in view of CN-1706998 to Hu et al.
As to claims 6 and 12, Masahito discloses a process for preparing a polyurethane elastic fiber comprising preparing a prepolymer 1 derived from diisocyanate, a polyether polyol or polyester diol including crystalline polyols such as polyethylene adipate or polytetramethylene glycol and preparing a prepolymer 2 derived from diisocyanate, a polyether polyol or polyester diol including crystalline polyols such as polyethylene adipate or polytetramethylene glycol and a low molecular weight wherein the diisocyanate and polyol component are different when preparing polyurethane elastic bodies (0039-0048). Masahito discloses melt spinning the fiber from solution to obtain the fiber.
Masahito does not expressly disclose a chain extension and chain crosslinking agent.
However, within the same field of endeavor Hu discloses a shape memory polyurethane fiber comprising 30-100 parts by weight of crystalline polyether or polyester diol, 5-30 parts of diisocyanate component, 0.1 to 2 parts of crosslinking agent, and 2-30 parts by weight of chain extender (0010-0019, 0042).
At the time of filing it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to include the chain extender and crosslinking agents within the amounts taught Hu to fiber process prior to spinning of Masahito to prepare a block structure shape memory polyurethane with improved interface adhesion and improved deformation recovery (0007).
The combination of Masahito and Hu teach steps (4) and (5) wherein a spinning solution containing the shape memory polyurethane is heated which would melt crystalline regions and dissociate hydrogen bonds, the fibers are elongated and cooled followed by further shrinkage and cooling to obtain a shape memory polyurethane fiber (0073-0075, Hu). The office is taking the position that because the polyurethane fiber is prepared within the same manner using the same reaction parameters that the fiber would contain reversible triple-shape memory properties. This is further supported by Hu that teaches these characteristics of the polyurethane fiber (0002, Abstract, 0007, 0029-0031).
As to claim 7, Masahito discloses a prepolymer temperature that ranges of 65° (0112-0117).
As to claim 8, Masahito in view of Hu teach the use of conventional tin catalysts to prepare the prepolymers (Hu, 0011, 0033). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to include the catalyst taught in Hu to control the reaction rate during the processing of Masahito.
As to claim 9, Masahito in view of Hu teach spinning solution temperatures of 40-55°C and bath temperatures of 30-40°C (0074).
As to claims 10 and 11, Masahito in view of Hu teach suitable chain extenders including short chain diols (0037) and crosslinking agents including trihydroxy polyols (0036).
As to claim 13, Masahito and Hu teach diisocyanates selected from diphenylmethane diisocyanate (Masahito, Examples), toluene diisocyanate, hexamethylene diisocyanate, or isophorone diisocyanate (Hu, 0035).
Conclusion
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/MICHAEL L LEONARD/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1763