DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/264,213. Claims 1 and 4-22 are pending in the application.
Claims 5, 7 and 10-20 are withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
The applicant’s amendment filed June 4, 2026 has been entered.
The previous grounds of rejection are withdrawn in light of the applicant’s amendment.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 21 is allowable over the closest prior art of Tong (US 2005/0139807) in view of Clever (US 5,710,329). The references do not teach an amount of anti-fouling dispersant of 10-50 wt %.
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 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 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Tong (US 2005/0139807) in view of Clever (US 5,710,329).
Tong teaches an anti-fouling composition (par. 1). The composition comprises polymerization inhibitors including one or more of hydroquinone (HQ), phenothiazine (PTZ) and monomethyl hydroquinone ether (MEHQ) (par. 3, 42). The composition further comprises anti-fouling dispersants including sulfonates (par. 43).
Tong does not teach the amount of the anti-fouling dispersant.
However, Clever teaches that an effective amount of anti-fouling dispersant is 10-20,000 ppm (col. 6, lines 31-34; abstract). 20,000 ppm equates to 2 wt %.
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the dispersant amount Clever with the composition of Tong in order to obtain an effective amount of anti-fouling dispersant.
Claims 4 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Tong in view of Clever and Aoshima et al (US 4,518,462).
Tong in view of Clever teaches polymerization inhibitors including HQ, PTZ and MEHQ as described above. Tong does not teach the weight ratio of HQ to PTZ.
However, Aoshima et al teaches that polymerization inhibitors HQ and PTZ are included in a composition in amounts of 0.02 % and 0.03 %, respectively (col. 9, lines 30-36). The corresponding weight ratio HQ:PTZ is 0.67:1.
Tong further teaches an amount of MEHQ of 200 ppm, which equates to 0.02 % (par. 51). Combined with the amounts of HQ and PTZ of Aoshima et al, the ratio of MEHQ to inhibitor is (0.02)/(0.02+0.02+0.03)=28%.
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the amounts of HQ and PTZ of Aoshima et al with the composition of Tong in view of Clever in order to obtain an anti-fouling composition having known effective amounts of polymerization inhibitors.
Claims 1, 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Tong (US 2005/0139807) in view of Latos et al (US 4,409,121).
Tong teaches an anti-fouling composition (par. 1). The composition comprises polymerization inhibitors including one or more of hydroquinone (HQ), phenothiazine (PTZ) and monomethyl hydroquinone ether (MEHQ) (par. 3, 42). The composition further comprises anti-fouling dispersants including sulfonates (par. 43).
Tong does not teach the amount of the anti-fouling dispersant.
However, Latos et al teaches that the amount of anti-fouling dispersant is preferably about 1-5 % by weight (col. 5, lines 50-66). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the dispersant amount Latos et al with the composition of Tong in order to obtain an effective amount of anti-fouling dispersant.
Claims 1, 4, 8 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Tong (US 2005/0139807) in view of Clever (US 5,710,329) and Yokota et al (US 4,855,377).
Tong in view of Clever teaches polymerization inhibitors including HQ and PTZ as described above. Tong does not teach the weight ratio of HQ to PTZ.
However, Yokota et al teaches that polymerization inhibitors HQ and PTZ are each included in the composition in amounts of 0.01-5 % by wt (col. 9, lines 60-65). The corresponding weight ratio of HQ to PTZ includes 1:1.
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the amounts of HQ and PTZ of Yokota et al with the composition of Tong in view of Clever in order to obtain an anti-fouling composition having known effective amounts of polymerization inhibitors.
Response to Arguments
The previous grounds of rejection are withdrawn in light of the applicant’s amendment. New grounds of rejection are presented above.
Conclusion
The applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Examiner’s Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to William Young whose telephone number is (571) 270-5078. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Angela Brown-Pettigrew, can be reached at 571-272-2817. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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