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
Claims 1-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 10/27/2025.
Claim Objections
The numbering of claims is not in accordance with 37 CFR 1.126 which requires the original numbering of the claims to be preserved throughout the prosecution. When claims are canceled, the remaining claims must not be renumbered. When new claims are presented, they must be numbered consecutively beginning with the number next following the highest numbered claims previously presented (whether entered or not).
Misnumbered claims 24-29 have been renumbered 23-28
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.
Claim(s) 21-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wells (US 20200309995 A1).
Re Claim 21, Wells discloses, on Fig. 8, an optical device with interference coating, comprising: a flexible elastomer substrate (electroactive layer 100) [Par 51]; a first monomer conformally deposited over said substrate and polymerized in situ by an iCVD process [Par 106-108] to form a first polymerized layer (dielectric layer 310 is included in anti-reflective coating (ARC) which includes multiple electrodes 210, which can be a plurality of electrodes, see Par 52, that are separated by a silicone polymer insulator, which is not shown, or a silicone liquid lens can be in said dielectric layers) [Par 52, 131, and 151] over the substrate; and a second monomer deposited over the first polymerized layer and polymerized in situ by an iCVD process to form a second polymerized layer (multiple electrodes, more than are explicitly shown in Fig. 8, would require multiple insulators and dielectric layers 310 and 320) [Par 52 and 131]; wherein said first and second polymerized layers form a flexible interference coating integrated with the substrate (actuator stack including ARC layers, electroactive material, and electrodes) [Par 150-152]; and wherein said interference coating has the property of remaining crack-free after 100 or more strain cycles at ε=1% or more strain without fracture (ARC containing actuator withstands
10
6
cycles of strain at approximately 1%) [Par 152].
Regarding the limitation, “a first monomer conformally deposited over said substrate and polymerized in situ by an iCVD process”, the applicant is advised that, even though product-by-process claims are limited by and defined by the process, determination of patentability is based on the product itself. The patentability of a product does not depend on its method of production. If the product in the product-by-process claim is the same as or obvious from a product of the prior art, the claim is unpatentable even though the prior product was made by a different process.” In re Thorpe, 227 USPQ 964, (Fed. Cir. 1985). In this case, the cited limitations failed to distinguish the claimed structure from the dielectric polymer layers of Wells. See MPEP § 2113
But Wells does not explicitly disclose wherein, remaining crack-free after 100 or more strain cycles at ε=1% or more equibiaxial strain without fracture.
However, Wells also teaches, optimizing the attendant strain in the ARC containing actuator in dimensions in order to control bending or curving the stack [Par 08], localized stress/strain profiles [Par 7], based on Possion’s ratio (ratio of transverse to axial strain) [Par 3]. Thus the prior art at least teaches the general conditions, of optimization of resistance to biaxial strain in flexible interference coatings for at least these reasons. Further Wells teaches wherein the interference coating is crack-free under at least one dimensional strain at over 1,000,000 cycles [Par 152]. Therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have been capable of optimizing the teaching of wells in order to obtain a interference coating that is crack-free after 100 or more strain cycles at ε=1% or more equibiaxial strain without fracture. Note that the Court has held that where 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; see In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to optimize he system of Welles, such that the interference coating has the property of remaining crack-free after 100 or more strain cycles at ε=1% or more strain without fracture, in order to control the bended and curving of the actuator stack and localized stress/strain profiles, as taught by Wells [Par 7-8].
Re Claim 22, modified Wells discloses, the optical device with interference coating of claim 21, further including one or more additional monomers sequentially deposited over the second polymerized layer and polymerized in situ to respectively form one or more additional polymerized layers (sequential layers of electrodes 210, more than are explicitly shown “…a first common electrode, connected to a first plurality of electrodes, and a second common electrode, connected to a second plurality of electrodes”) [Par 52 and 131], wherein said first and second and said one or more additional polymerized layers form said flexible interference coating integrated with the substrate (actuator stack including ARC layers, electrodes, and electroactive material) [Par 150-152].
Re Claim 23, modified Wells discloses, the optical device with interference coating of claim 22, and Wells further discloses on Fig. 8, wherein at least two of said first and second and said additional one or more polymerized layers have respective thicknesses that differ from each other (electrodes, and thus inherently their corresponding insulators, can have various thickensses anywhere between 0.35 nm and 1000 nm) [Par 55].
Re Claim 24, modified Wells discloses, the optical device with interference coating of claim 22, and Wells further discloses on Fig. 8, in which the material of at least two of said first and second and said one or more additional polymerized layers is the same (“…acrylate or silicone polymer.”, between three layers and two exemplative options, there must be at least two similar layers) [Par 52].
Re Claim 25, modified Wells discloses, the optical device with interference coating of claim 22, and Wells further discloses on Fig. 8, in which the material of each of said first and second and said one or more additional polymerized layers (dielectric layers that can contain silicone liquid or insulators that are silicone) [Par 52 and 151] differs from that of every other layer (the other layers that may contain silicone, electroactive polymer and optical element, also provide numerous alternative material options such as PVDF) [Par 41].
Re Claim 26, modified Wells discloses, the optical device with interference coating of claim 22, and Wells further discloses on Fig. 8, in which said monomers are organosilicon (Silicone is a type of organosilicon, or it insulator can be acrylate) [Par 52].
Re Claim 27, modified Wells discloses, the optical device with interference coating of claim 22.
But modified Wells does not disclose, in which said monomers are selected from among hexafluoropropylene, tetravinyltetramethyltetrasiloxane, butyl acrylate, butyl methacrylate, divinylbenzene, and vinyl pyrrolidone.
However, Wells teaches, the use of butyl acrylate as a monomer in polymer production and in conjunction with dielectric constants, electroactive devices, and flexible optics [Par 41 and 114-115]. Therefore, the prior art teaches the general use of butyl acrylate in flexible or deformable optics [Par 39]. One of ordinary skill in the art would have known to use butyl acrylate as a curable monomer in deformable optic polymers [Par 41], and would have been motivated to do so in order to control the emulsion destabilization properties of the deposited monomers [Par 117].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to modify the system of Wells to include, butyl acrylate as a monomer in the polymerized layers, in order to provide emulsion stabilization, as taught by Wells [Par 117].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 28 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Bright (US 8350451 B2), similarly teaches polymer interference films.
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/RAY ALEXANDER DEAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2872
/BALRAM T PARBADIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2872