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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 6/28/2023, 8/8/2023, 9/11/2024, and 5/7/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered by the examiner, except as noted below:
In the IDS form submitted on 5/7/2025 reference 7 appears to be attached without any English translation, and is therefore not being considered.
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) 1-2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NPL “Crystallization of Anatase from Amorphous Titania in Hot Water and In Vitro Biomineralization” Wu et al. Claim 1 recites “A method for manufacturing a titanium dioxide semiconductor”, in the preamble. This is considered intended use. MPEP 2111.02.II states “If the body of a claim fully and intrinsically sets forth all of the limitations of the claimed invention, and the preamble merely states, for example, the purpose or intended use of the invention, rather than any distinct definition of any of the claimed invention’s limitations, then the preamble is not considered a limitation and is of no significance to claim construction.”. In this case the limitations of the claimed invention are fully set forth in the body of the claim and the intended use of manufacturing a semiconductor does not suggest structural limitations or further method steps.
Claim 1 requires “comprising: a first immersion step of immersing a substrate containing titanium in hydrogen peroxide water at 70 °C or higher and 90 °C or lower for 1 hour or more and 28 hours or less”. Wu et al. discloses “A commercially available sheet of pure titanium, … Then each
piece of samples was chemically treated at 80 °C for 8 h in 10ml of a H2O2 solution” [Page 78, Section 2.].
Claim 1 further requires “and a second immersion step, wherein the second immersion step includes a normal temperature water immersion step of immersing the substrate subjected to the first immersion step in normal temperature water at 10 °C or higher and 30 °C or lower for 24 hours or more and 48 hours or less”. Wu et al. discloses “These samples were soaked in water at room temperature for 12h (RT water soaking)” [Page 78, Section 2.]. It is noted that the immersion time of Wu et al. (12 hrs) is different from the range claimed (24-48 hrs).
Claim 1 further requires “and a hot water immersion step of immersing the substrate subjected to the normal temperature water immersion step in hot water at 70 °C or higher and 90 °C or lower for 24 hours or more and 96 hours or less.”. Wu et al. discloses “These samples were soaked in water at room temperature for 12h (RT water soaking), and subsequently aged in water at 80 °C for 3d (hot-water aging).” [Page 78, Section 2.].
Regarding the feature not taught by Wu et al., namely a second immersion (RT water soaking) step of at least 24 hours, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have increased the soaking time as part of routine optimization. This is because Wu et al. teaches that the RT water soaking is a critical step, “Curve a) in Fig. 1 is the TF-XRD pattern of the titanium sample after the H2O2 treatment (soaking for 8h in the H2O2 solution). The two peaks corresponding to anatase were very broad and low in intensity. Thus, the chemical oxidation due to H2O2 yielded amorphous titania or anatase with low crystallinity or small crystallite size. Curve b) is for the sample subject to the H2O2 treatment and immediate hot-water aging for 3d without RT-water soaking. The narrower peaks in curve b) indicate that soaking the H2O2 treated samples immediately in hot water for 3d improved only a little crystallinity of the phase. However, the sample subject to the H2O2 treatment, RT-water soaking and hot water aging for 3d gave anatase crystals mature enough to yield curve c) with very sharp XRD peaks. This concludes that the intermediate RT-water soaking is essential to obtain the anatase layer of good crystallinity.” [Page 78-79, Section 3.1]. With the understanding that a RT water soaking step is critical to forming anatase crystals it would have been obvious to optimize the soaking time for the best crystallinity of the anatase phase by experimenting with longer soaking times. The motivation for a better anatase crystal is given by Wu et al. “Figure 2 shows the TF-XRD patterns of the Ti substrates that were subject to the chemical treatments to yield well-crystallized anatase in the surface layers, to autoclaving, and subsequently to soaking in SBF for up to 5d at 36.5 °C. … However, those samples giving curves a) and b) in Fig. 1, or having only poorly crystalline titania, deposited no apatite even after soaking in SBF for 7d after the autoclave treatment.” [Page 79, Section 3.3]. Therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected that a longer RT water soaking could have led to a purer anatase crystal which would have predictably led to the beneficial effect of more apatite being deposited (the titanium substrate of Wu et al. is intended to be a dental implant).
Claim 2 requires “a concentration of hydrogen peroxide in the hydrogen peroxide water is 20% by mass or more and 45% by mass or less.”. Wu et al. discloses “Then each piece of samples was chemically treated at 80 °C for 8 h in 10ml of a H2O2 solution with a concentration of 30 mass%
(Santoku Chemical Industries Co., Ltd., Tokyo)” [Page 78, Section 2.].
Claim(s) 3-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NPL “Crystallization of Anatase from Amorphous Titania in Hot Water and In Vitro Biomineralization” Wu et al., as evidenced by NPL “Titanium Dioxide Photocatalysis in Atmospheric Chemistry” Chen et al. Claims 3 and 4 similarly restrict Claim 1 or 2 (respectively) the same way, and are being treating together. Claims 3 and 4 require “the titanium dioxide semiconductor has a photocatalytic reactivity.”. Wu et al. does not disclose photocatalytic reactivity, however they do disclose that the titanium substrate forms the anatase crystal after treatment. Chen et al. discloses “TiO2 is a semiconductor material with a band gap of ∼3.2eV, corresponding to a wavelength of ∼390 nm. TiO2 has three major stable polymorphs, namely anatase, rutile, and brookite. Among those, anatase has generally shown the highest photocatalytic activity” [Page 5919, Paragraph 2]. Therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the anatase material of Wu et al. had photocatalytic reactivity regardless of whether Wu et al. had recognized that fact or not.
Conclusion
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/JOSHUA MAXWELL SPEER/
Examiner
Art Unit 1736
/DANIEL BERNS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1736
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