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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 August 12, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
The rejection over Moon is withdrawn in view of (i) their teaching that limits the amount of epoxy-functional silane to 0.1 parts per 100 parts of adhesive-forming monomers, and (ii) Applicants’ demonstration in the March 31, 2026 Declaration that a similarly-constituted adhesive to that which has been exemplified, but where the amount of epoxy-functional silane is limited to 0.1 phr, exhibits a variation in shear strain rate higher than what is now required.
However, while Applicants’ prior arguments/evidentiary showing are indeed germane to the Examiner’s deliberations over the application of a reference cited infra, the Examiner ultimately concluded that they wouldn’t preclude the formulation of the following rejection because Applicants’ data establishing the criticality of using the epoxysilane coupling agent is not commensurate in scope with the breadth of the invention defined by claim 1. That is to say, Applicant only confirmed that the inclusion of 0.2 parts of glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane was essential to lower the variation of shear strain in an acrylic adhesive comprising 59% of ethylhexyl acrylate, 17% of 2-hydroxybutyl acrylate, and 24% of an acrylic acid ester monoethylhexyl-oxy-terminated diethylene glycol whereas the claims are encompassing of any acrylic copolymer featuring structural contributions from monomer that produces a homopolymer with a Tg of -50° or less.
Claim Objections
In line 4 of claim 12, the first incidence of the word “an” should be removed.
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 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Han et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20160177147.
Han teaches an adhesive composition for optical displays [0005,0007-0010] comprising (i) a monomer mixture that contains 5-40 wt.% of hydroxyl group-containing (meth)acrylate monomer and 60-95 wt.% of co-monomers , (ii) organic nanoparticles, and (iii) an epoxysilane coupling agent [0109-0110] in quantities ranging from 0.01-5 parts per hundred parts of the monomer mixture. The co-monomers may be any of those types outlined in [0063-0073] for which the corresponding homopolymer would have a glass transition temperature of between -150° C and -20° C. The reference is silent as to the variation of the sheer strain in the prior art adhesive before and after subjecting the adhesive to heat and moisture over a specified duration but [104] of the instant Specification says that this characteristic will be satisfied where an epoxysilane is present. As for claim 2, [82] of Specification indicates that the magnitude of the initial sheer strain is attributable to the polymer being constituted of the low Tg monomers in homopolymer phase. To the extent that the prior art acrylic copolymer contains these same monomers, and with comparable weight contributions [0089], the A values will be similar and, because the incorporation of an epoxysilane is suggested, the magnitude of the B value will be within 10% of that of the A value as claim 1 had stipulated. Likewise, copolymers derived from the aforementioned monomer mixture will inherently be in possession of initial moduli recorded at the temperature conditions of claims 3 and 4 insofar as they are comprised of the same low Tg monomers having been incorporated in similar weight fractions as [80] and [81] of the Specification tie this property to the presence of said low Tg monomer.
The Examiner acknowledges the lack of an exemplification of the prior art invention for which the amount of the epoxysilane component exceeds 0.1 parts. See entries 5 and 6 of Table 1 where 0.1 parts of glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane are combined with the monomer materials. It is, nevertheless, submitted that the formulation of other compositions differing primarily in the amount of epoxysilane added would be prima facie obvious, there being a reasonable expectation on the part of a skilled practitioner that the same target properties would be realized. It is reiterated here that, although Applicant has provided a limited demonstration that quantities of the epoxysilane component double those in prior art Examples 5 and 6 are unexpectedly critical to achieving a variation rate of the shear strain in the adhesive, they have not yet met their burden of providing a showing commensurate in scope with the claimed invention.
As for claims 5-8, the realization of all these properties appears to be associated with the presence of an epoxysilane as the lone compositional distinction between the comparative- and inventive trials is the presence/absence of an epoxysilane. (Comparative examples 1, 2, and 3 contain a silane other than an epoxy-functional silane.) To the extent that favored permutations of the prior art composition(s) contain this permutation of a coupling agent, and insofar as the reference also discloses acrylic copolymers of comparable makeup, it is concluded that they will inherently be in possession of each of these properties.
As for claims 11 and 12, the monomer mixture defined in [0161-0164] includes the same branched chain alkyl acrylate and “alkylene glycol- group containing” (meth)acrylic acid ester used in the exemplified embodiments of the instant invention.
The amount of nanoparticles (b1) or (b2) used in the prior art examples is consistent with the requirement of claim 18. Paragraph [0087] indicates that the core-shell nanoparticles employed in the practice of the prior art invention should conform with the same limitation as in claim 19.
Concerning claim 18, [0101] advocates for the use of 0.1 to 15 parts of the nanoparticles per 100 parts of the monomer mixture. The nanoparticles conform with claim 19 as is verified by [0096].
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARC S ZIMMER whose telephone number is (571)272-1096. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:00.
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September 10, 2026
/MARC S ZIMMER/Primary Patent Examiner of Art Unit 1765
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