DETAILED ACTION
Claim Interpretation
The terms grinding and granulating, as used in the prior art, are often used inter-changeably with the Examiner finding teachings such as “grinding the resin to obtain granules” or “granulating the resin, followed by grinding to a powder”. In fact, applicants’ own specification (paragraph 47, page 19) teaches that “granulating” can occur by using a sieve or filter. This is not within the strict definition of granulating. Dictionaries indicate that “granulate” results in larger particles than “grinding” such that grinding followed by granulating (as in the claims) seems inapplicable.
As such these steps in the claims are being given a broad interpretation such that the grinding and granulating steps embrace steps that serve to reduce the size of the molded product and the final granulated material.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 3 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The method by which this porosity is measured is unclear and the basis for and
type of percentage is unknown. As such the breadth of this claim is unclear.
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 to 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP H04-248,841 (English translation, provided by applicants in the IDS dated 3/21/23) in view of Chiong 2016/0244569.
The JP reference teaches a process of producing a polyarylene sulfide (herein
PAS) by compressing and granulating the PAS, followed by crosslinking the powder (paragraph [006]).
More specifically paragraph [0012] teaches that an uncrosslinked PAS powder is mechanically compressed, meeting the claimed “compression molding” step.
This is then pulverized to obtain a granulated product. The resulting powder preferably falls within a specific particle size range. Note that paragraph [0018] teaches molding, pulverizing and sizing, all in a granulator. The steps of pulverizing and sizing appear to correspond to the claimed steps of grinding and granulating since paragraph 47 of the specification teaches that granulating can occur by using a filter or a sieve. This is the same as, or comparable to, “sizing” in the prior art (i.e. it results in particles having a desired particle size range).
The resulting granulated product then undergoes oxidative crosslinking.
As such the teachings in JP differ from that claimed in that they do not include the step of measuring the porosity of the compression molded material.
Chiong teaches a PAS in which the porosity is an important feature. See for instance paragraph 45 which teaches a preferred pore area range and a volume range. See also paragraph 3 which refers to PAS that has excessively high porosity or too low of a porosity. See also paragraph 9.
From this it follows that one would want to measure the porosity of the PAS to ensure that it lies within this range in an effort to obtain properties associated therewith. Note that Chiong does not provide any specific teaching of criticality regarding when the porosity is measured or if it is measured on a film or a flake or particle.
Thus one having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to measure the porosity of the polyphenylene sulfide film in the JP reference prior to performing additional steps that might be pointless (if the porosity is outside of a useful range). The skilled artisan would have realized that a porosity within the range of 35 to 60 m2/g is a preferred value. Such motivation comes from the teachings in Chiong which indicate that within this range beneficial properties are achieved. In this manner claim 1 is rendered obvious.
For claim 2, note that the pulverizing and sizing in the JP reference is random and will result in irregular, or amorphous, particles.
For claim 3, while it is unclear what weight to give this claim (see the rejection supra) note that optimizing the porosity of the PAS in the JP reference would have been well within the skill of the ordinary artisan, in an effort to optimize and/or adjust the porosity of the final product for the intended future use.
For claims 4 and 5, note that the JP reference subsequently melt kneads and molds the granulated material therein. See paragraph [002], [0014], [0015] and [0021].
The remaining claims 6 - 12 are directed to embodiments in which the limitations have already been addressed above. As such, for the same reasons and in view of the same teachings noted supra, these claims are rejected.
Claims 1 to 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Edmonds 3,592,783 in view of JP H04-248,841 (English translation, provided by appli-cants in the IDS dated 3/21/23).
Edmonds teaches a process of making porous poly(arylene sulfide). See the
steps found in the abstract which teaches a compression molding step that meets the claimed compression molding step and a heating step to crosslink the PAS. See also column 4, lines 53 to 58. This meets the oxidatively crosslinking step. While the entirety of the teachings in Edmonds et al. refer to porosity column 6, line 17, to line 50, specific-ally show this measuring step. The grinding in column 6, line 35 meets the claimed grinding and/or granulating step.
This differs from that claimed in that it does not specifically teach the steps in the
claimed order. For explanation purposes the Examiner will refer to Examples III and IV.
Clearly, both the teachings in Edmonds and the claims begin with a compression molding step.
From this, Example III teaches drying the slab and weighing which results in a calculation of the pore volume. This meets the claim requirement of measuring the porosity of the compression molded material.
Example 4 teaches that the porous slabs are crosslinked and then ground. This is the opposite order of that claimed, in which grinding and granulating occurs prior to oxidatively crosslinking.
To this point, please see the JP reference H04-248841. As can be seen from paragraphs [001] to [006], the process therein is an improvement over conventional methods of preparing crosslinked particles in that it crosslinks the PAS after grinding/ granulating for improved recovery and productivity.
As such one having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to first crosslink the PAS in Edmonds followed by forming the particles in an effort to reduce dusting (paragraph [026]) and other negative side effects.
The Examiner notes that while Edmonds teaches only that the PAS was ground to form particles, column 4, lines 67 to 68, teaches that conventional method of machin-ing can be used on the final porous PAS such that the skilled artisan would have found grinding followed by granulating and/or filtering to have been obvious to obtain the desired final particle size. Note paragraph 1, supra, which refers to claim interpretation of these two steps. See also column 3, lines 55 and 56 that each known means of reducing particle size including grinding, ball milling and the like.
For claim 2, note that grinding is random and will result in irregular, amorphous particles.
For claim 3, see the wide range of porosity that is disclosed by Edmonds as well as the pore size (see column 5, lines 15 to 21). From this the skilled artisan would have been motivated to adjust the total porosity of the PAS therein in an effort to optimize and/or adjust the final properties of the PAS. It has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art.
For claims 4 and 5, note that the PAS particles formed in Edmonds are used to form articles such as bearings, molded articles, insulators and more (column 4, lines 70 and 71). See also the bottom of column 1 which teaches the formation of shaped articles. From this the skilled artisan would have immediately envisioned melt kneading and molding of the PAS particles, as this is the known manner by which particles are treated or processed to form such final products.
The remaining claims 6 - 12 are directed to embodiments in which the limitations have already been addressed above. As such, for the same reasons and in view of the same teachings noted supra, these claims are rejected.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARGARET MOORE whose telephone number is (571)272-1090. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday, 10 am to 5 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Heidi Kelly, can be reached at 571-270-1831.
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Mgm
3/16/26
/MARGARET G MOORE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1765
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