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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of Application
1. This application is a 371 of PT/JP2022/010943, which was filed on 03/11/2022.
Claims 1-6 were originally presented in this application for examination.
Claims 1-6 are currently pending in this application and under consideration.
Specification
2. The examiner has not checked the specification to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors (grammatical, typographical, and idiomatic). Cooperation of the applicant(s) is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant(s) may become aware of in the specification, in the claims and in any further amendment(s) that applicant(s) may file.
Applicant(s) is also requested to complete the status of the copending applications referred to in the specification by their Attorney Docket Number or Application Serial Number, if any.
The status of the parent application(s) and/or any other application(s) cross-referenced to this application, if any, should be updated in a timely manner.
Claim Objections
3. Claims 1-4 are objected to because of the following informalities:
A. In claim 1, line 1, “Silica powder” needs to change to --A silica powder--.
B. In claim 2, line 1, “wherein” should be changed to --having--.
C. In claim 2, line 2, “is” should be changed to --of--.
D. In claim 3, line 2, “wherein” should be changed to --having--.
E. In claim 3, line 2, “is” should be changed to --of--.
F. In claim 4, line 2, “wherein” should be changed to --having--.
G. In claim 4, line 2, “is” should be changed to --of--.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102(a)(1)
4. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by WO 2021172294, hereinafter “WO ‘294”.
The claimed invention relates to a silica powder having a dielectric loss tangent of 0.004
or less, wherein the number of silicon metal particles in 10 g of the silica powder is 30 or less.
WO ‘294 discloses silica particles having a dielectric loss tangent of 0.0001 to 0.05 (Abstract).
Regarding claim 1, the reference teaches the claimed silica powder, and the instant claimed dielectric loss tangent range of 0.004 or less is falling within the disclosed range (Abstract).
With respect to the claim limitation on “the number of silicon metal particle in 10 g of the silica powder is 30 or less” in the instant claim 1, it would appear that the method of making the silica in WO ‘294 does not include metallic silicon and the instant specification at [0008] mentions that silicon metal particles are introduced into the powder when silicon metal particles are used as the raw material, the metallic silicon in the silica powder of the reference would be “0” silicon particles in 10 g of the powder, which meets the claim limitation.
Regarding claim 2, the claim further defines that the silica powder has “a content ratio of chlorine of 0.05% by mass or less”. It is considered the silica particles disclosed by the WO ‘294 does not contain any chlorine so the chlorine amount in the silica particles would be “0” since there was no chlorine gas used in the method of making silica, which meets the claim limitation.
Regarding claim 3, WO ‘294 teaches the silica particles having an average primary particle size of 50 nm to 10 um (p. 1 of translation, last paragraph), which is falling within the claimed range of “0.5 to 10 um”.
Regarding claim 4, the instant claimed specific surface area of “1 m2/g to 8 m2/g” is also met by the disclosed range of 1 to 300 m2/g (p. 1 of translation, last paragraph) since it falls within the disclosed range.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102(a)(1)
5. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Masaharu et al. (JP2001261352 (A)), hereinafter “JP ‘352”.
The claimed invention relates to a method for producing silica powder, comprising a heating step of heating silica powder in the presence of chlorine.
JP ‘352 discloses a purification method, which comprises application of an electric field to quartz powder (SiO2 powder) under introduction of chlorine gas at a high temperature, and evaporation and removal of metallic impurities in the quartz powder (see Abstract).
The reference teaches the claimed method thus the claim is anticipated by the reference.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Masaharu et al. (JP2001261352 (A)), hereinafter “JP ‘352”.
JP ‘352 discloses a purification method as discussed in the precedent paragraph, except for “a cooling step”.
The instant claim further defines that the method “further comprising a cooling step of cooling, in an inert atmosphere, the silica powder heated in the heating step”.
Examiner considers adding a cooling step to the method of JP ‘352 reference in order to facilitate handling of the silica powder product is prima facie obvious to a skilled person in the art at the time the invention was made, since this step does not require technical skill to do so.
Citations
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. All references are cited for related art. See PTO-892 Form prepared.
Conclusion
8. Claims 1-6 are pending. Claims 1-6 are rejected. No claims are allowed.
Contacts
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Primary Examiner CAM N. NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-1357. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F (8:30 am – 5:00 pm) at alternative worksite or at cam.nguyen@uspto.gov.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Anthony Zimmer, can be reached at 571-270-3591. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Cam N. Nguyen/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1736
/CNN/
February 19, 2026