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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Response to Amendments
Applicant’s amendments filed 01/27/2026 have been entered.
Claims 1 and 16-18 have been amended.
The Section 112(b) rejection on claim 18 has been withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments.
The Section 103 rejections have been updated to reflect Applicant’s amendments.
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) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Furuta et al. (JP H10/258491 A; machine translation) in view of Uno et al. (US 2020/0029444 A1).
Regarding claims 1-2, 8, 11, 14-18, and 20,
Furuta teaches a laminate including a polymer film comprising: a liquid crystal polyester resin composition layer (corresponds to the claimed polymer and claimed layer A); adhesive layers may be placed between resin impregnated fiber layers, that each may be composed of polymers having functional groups, and the layers of liquid crystal polyester resin composition layers (either the adhesive layer or the fiber layers may correspond to claimed layer B and/or the compound having a functional group); and metal foil layers composed of copper (may correspond to claimed layer C) (Furuta: abstract; par. 0005, 0056-0060, 0062-0064, and 0068-0074). The layer ordering may thus be layer A->B->C. The metal layer may also be placed on the layer with a higher concentration of the functional group. There may also be an embodiment in which there are additional metal layers that may be considered to be disposed on both surfaces of the polymer film to form a laminate as the laminate may be alternating layers of six or more of the three layers types may be stacked and thus a laminate in which the layer (C/B/A)/C may be considered the claimed laminate polymer film and thus the metal foils would be on the surfaces. Any additional layers may be considered additional unrecited layers placed on the claimed polymer film (Furuta: par. 0068-0074). Further, the first and second metal layers may be considered to be disposed on both surfaces of the polymer film as the claim language does not preclude intervening layers and both metal layers may sandwich said polymer layer A within the laminate.
As the recited “polymer film” may be composed of layer A as an outermost surface of said polymer film, with a thickness of from 5 to 1000 µm and layer B having a thickness of from 5 to 1000 µm and layer C having a thickness of from 1 to 1000 µm, it may be considered to be a region of an outermost surface of said polymer film to a position within the polymer film corresponding to 10% of a thickness of the polymer film ((layer A + B) or (layers C + B + A)) given the thickness ranges there would exist an embodiment in which layer A is the outermost layer and corresponds to 10% of a thickness of the polymer film. The inside of the polymer film, such as layer B in the C/B/A configuration, refers to a region that is the middle layer and thus would be within a ±5% of the thickness from a center of the polymer film along a thickness direction of the polymer film, given the thickness ranges there would exist an embodiment which satisfies this range (Furuta: par. 0056, 0058, and 0069).
As both the adhesive layer and the fiber impregnated layers, both of which have functional groups and may be considered to have compounds having a functional group, may be laminated over the polymer layer in the claimed polymer film laminate, the concentration of the compound having a functional group would be higher on at least one surface of the polymer film (such as in layer B) compared to inside the polymer film (as it is not present in layer A) and as the adhesive and/or the fiber layers cover the layer A completely, the coverage on the surface of the polymer film may be 100% by area or more which is within the claimed range of 50% by area or more.
The liquid crystal polymer may be composed of a combination of hydroxycarboxylic acids and aromatic dicarboxylic acids and aromatic diols wherein the aromatic group may be phenylenes or naphthylene groups, which satisfies the options in claim 15 (Furuta: par. 0006-0014 and 0075-0076).
Furuta is silent towards the liquid crystal polymer composition having a dielectric loss tangent of 0.005 or less. However, Furuta does teach it is desired for the laminate to have a low dielectric loss tangent (Furuta: par. 0004).
Uno teaches a surface-treated copper foil comprising a copper foil substrate and a resin base material comprising a liquid crystal polymer (corresponds to the claimed polymer) having a dielectric loss tangent of preferably 0.0035 or less, which is within the claimed range of 0.005 or less to provide excellent dielectric properties (Uno: par. 0109).
Furuta and Uno are in the corresponding field of liquid crystal polymer/metal foil laminates which desire reduced dielectric loss tangents. Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to configure the liquid crystal polymer composition to have a dielectric loss tangent within the claimed range to provide improved dielectric properties.
Regarding claim 3,
Furuta in view of Uno teach the polymer film required by claim 1. Furuta further teaches that when the compound having a functional group is the fiber layer, the fibers may be composed of quartz or fibers (contains silicon atoms) (Furuta: par. 0059).
Regarding claims 4-6 and 9-10,
Furuta in view of Uno teach the polymer film required by claims 1 and 8. Furuta further teaches that when layer (B) is the fiber layer it may contain a third component such as the prepreg thermosetting resin comprising an polyfunctional epoxy resin that is cured and thus is capable of immobilizing the liquid crystal polymer to some degree as explained in Applicant’s specification (Furuta: par. 0062 and Applicant’s specification: par. 0290-0293). As the third component is in layer B and not layer A, the third component in layer B is higher than a content of the third component in layer A. Additionally, the third component may interact to some degree with the compound having a functional group would be the fibers and the third component acts as a prepreg that cures with the fibers to form a prepreg reinforced with fibers (Furuta: par. 0058-0068).
Regarding claim 7,
Furuta in view of Uno teach the polymer film required by claim 1. Furuta further teaches adhesive layer or the pre-impregnated fiber layer, which may each contain an epoxy functional group is considered the compound having a functional (Furuta: par. 0062, 0072, and 0073). Applicant’s specification teaches an epoxy functional group example of a suitable functional group and thus would be expected to satisfy the claimed difference in the SP value of the liquid crystal polymer and the compound having a functional group when tested with the Hoy method being 5 MPa0.5 or less.
When the claimed and prior art products are identical or substantially identical in structure or composition, or are produced by identical or substantially identical processes, the prior art products necessarily possess the characteristics of the claimed product. See MPEP 2112.01.
Regarding claims 12 and 13,
Furuta in view of Uno teach the polymer film required by claim 1. Furuta further teaches the liquid crystal resin composition further comprises fillers (Furuta: par. 0044-0045). As the filler is only in the liquid crystal resin and not in an outer layer such as the fiber or metal layer, the number density of the filler is higher inside the polymer film than on a surface of the polymer film.
Regarding claim 19,
Furuta in view of Uno teach the laminate required by claim 17. Furuta teaches the metal layer is a copper layer as explained in the rejection of claim 1. Furuta is silent towards the peel strength between the polymer film and the copper layer being 0.5 kN/m or more.
Uno teaches high adhesion is preferred between the copper foil and the liquid crystal polymer film which can be attained by surface modification to provide a peel strength of 0.70 N/mm (0.70 kN/m) or more which is within the claimed range of 0.5 kN/m or more (Uno: par. 0113).
Furuta and Uno are in the corresponding field of liquid crystal polymer/metal foil laminates which desire reduced dielectric loss tangents. Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to configure the peel strength between the polymer film and the copper layer of Furuta to be within the claimed range to improve adhesion between the two layers as taught by Uno.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 01/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not found persuasive.
Applicant argues that Furuta teaches distinct layers in a stepwise layered construction with heterogenous compounds which does not teach claim 1, which Applicant argues is a gradient construction. Applicant argues the amended limitations further reinforce the differences between a gradient and a laminate of discrete layers.
The argument is not found persuasive as the claims do not preclude a laminate of discrete layers. No “gradient” or single continuous matrix is explicitly claimed and dependent claims, such as claims 8-11, disclose the polymer film having discrete layers A, B, and C. That is, the claim does not preclude the interpretation taken in the prior art rejection in view of amended claim 1. See the updated rejection for further details. Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). See MPEP 2145 VI.
Applicant appears to argue Uno cannot be used as a reference as it teaches away from the claimed functional group gradients as it states it is difficult to obtain chemical adhesion even when a coupling agent is used and requires roughening of the metal foil layer for adhesion. Applicant appears to imply the claims preclude the use of roughening to improve adhesion.
The argument is not found persuasive as the claims do not preclude improving adhesion in the claimed manner, one or ordinary skill in the art would not be dissuaded, even if Uno was used in this manner, but see it as another avenue to further improve adhesion as proposed by the rejection above. However, Uno is utilized to teach a dielectric loss tangent property for the LCP film layer, and is not utilized to improve adhesion to metal foils as implied by Applicant.
Conclusion
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
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/TRAVIS M FIGG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1783