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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on July 14, 2026 has been entered.
Claim Objections
Amended claims 1 and 9 now require the presence of a, “block chain… present at a terminal… on the side of the reactive silicon group.” This is an awkward characterization of the placement of this structural attribute and possibly raises questions of intent. The Examiner suggests that Applicant merely state that the block is “adjacent to” the reactive silicon groups, plural because there is an average of more than one per molecule.
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 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Okamoto, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0093679 with Higuchi et al., U.S. Patent No. 5,068,304 relied upon for an evidentiary teaching.
Okamoto teaches a building cladding/coating/sealing material comprising a silane-functionalized polyoxyalkylene having 1 to 80% by weight oxyethylene content (abstract) obtained by reacting a hydroxyl-terminated polyoxyalkylene comprising oxyethylene and oxypropylene units [0026] with a compound bearing isocyanate- and reactive silyl groups [0050] with favored embodiments of the latter anticipatory of formula (2) of instant claim being outlined in [0053]. The skilled artisan appreciates that said isocyanato-functional silanes, upon reacting with the hydroxyl terminal moieties of the oxyalkylene copolymer will furnish both groups (i) and (1). For instance, polymers derived from isocyanatopropylmethyldimethoxysilane would provide groups (1) where R is methyl, “a”=2, and X= an alkoxy hydrolyzable group. The polymer component preferably has a number-average molecular weight of 3,000-30,000 [0060], 1.1 to 5 silyl groups per polymer molecule [0061] and the polyether backbone is preferably obtained by polymerizing ethylene oxide and propylene oxide in the presence of a double metal cyanide complex because polymers formed using that catalyst have low degrees of unsaturation and narrow Mw/Mn (also known as polydispersity or molecular weight distribution). See [0082]. One of ordinary skill appreciates that copolyethers made by this synthetic approach will have inherently possess a molecular weight distribution less than 2 and a degree of unsaturation lower than 0.1 meq/g as claim 10 requires. (Paragraph [0068] contemplates as candidate polymers to be employed in the practice of the prior art invention ones having a molecular weight distribution of 1.6 or less and paragraph [0078] alludes to polymers prepared according to the teachings of U.S. 5,068,304 which says in the abstract that the polyethers described therein, also made with metal cyanide complexes (column 9, lines 43-49), have a degree of unsaturation below 0.07 meq/g.
The silylated copolymers representing the main aspect of the aforementioned cladding material is formulated with several other components (Table 1) including a plasticizer that is incorporated in quantity consistent with the requirement of claim 6.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Okamoto, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0093679 in view of Zhu et al., CN 113024795 and/or Esselborn et al., EP 042505, and Reese et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0147479.
Whereas Okamoto mentions both an alkali metal compound-initiated polymerization and that promoted using double metal cyanides, there is no disclosure of a polymerization approach that employs both in a step-wise fashion. The skilled artisan knows that compounds bearing primary hydroxyl groups are substantially more reactive towards isocyanate groups than are those featuring secondary hydroxyl groups. See [n0002] of CN 113024795 and [0002] of EP 042505. Hence, it would be obvious to tailor the polymerization so that, only ethylene oxide is added in a second stage to assure that the polymers have only primary hydroxyl groups at their termini. However, according to Reese, polyoxyalkylene copolymers prepared using double metal cyanide complexes, the favored approach of Okamoto, typically don’t homopolymerize ethylene oxide well [0004].
Therefore, that passage continues, it is known to polymerize onto an intermediate comprising a mixture of propylene- and ethylene oxide units a second amount of ethylene oxide only using a conventional base catalyst to provide a so-called ethylene oxide, or EO, tip. See also [0002]. The Examiner takes notice of the fact that alkali metal hydroxides are the predominant initiators used in this capacity.
To summarize, it would be obvious to employ a two-step method as recited in claim 12 wherein the blends of ethylene- and propylene oxide are initially polymerized using a double metal cyanide catalyst as Okamoto prefers to obtain a copolymer intermediate that will inherently possess an undesirably high number of secondary hydroxy terminal groups. Subsequently, said intermediate fulfills the role of a starting diol compound that is deprotonated with alkali metal hydroxide and a second amount of ethylene oxide is polymerized thereon at both ends to provide a more reactive ethylene oxide end group for further modification via reaction with an isocyanato-functional alkoxysilane.
Response to Arguments
Applicant contends that a comparison of Examples 9 and 14 demonstrates that there is a, “significant difference in elongation properties at Mn = 8,000. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. All that is gleaned from this comparison is that the crosslinked polymer derived from a higher molecular weight precursor (Mn=8,000) has greater elongation than does that derived from a lower molecular weight precursor (Mn=2,900) and this is easily explained by there being more molecular weight or, put differently, lengthier/higher DP segments between crosslinks.
As for the block chain at the terminal, this is an inevitable consequence of the 2 stage method of claim 12 that the Examiner had deemed obvious where the only monomer added during the second stage is ethylene oxide.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARC S ZIMMER whose telephone number is (571)272-1096. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:00.
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August 4, 2026
/MARC S ZIMMER/Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1765
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