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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 8-9 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.
Regarding Claims 8-9
The term “about” in claims 8 and 9 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1- 3, 8, 11-12 and 17 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Robertson (US 5,855,969) in view of Uyttendaele (US 2014/0285612 A1).
Regarding Claim 1 ROBERTSON teaches a method for producing laser marked metal tags (48) comprising the steps of: (abstract) (a) providing a plurality of metal tags (48), each metal tag (48) being connected to an adjacent metal tag (48) by a breakable junction (70) , each metal tag (48) having a front face and a back face (Fig 3); (b) coating each metal tag on at least a portion of its front face with a laser markable coating (see Fig 3).
ROBERTSON is silent regarding (c) overlaying at least a portion of a laser markable coating with an overlay coating that is less than completely transparent to a laser beam; and (d) presenting each overlayed coated tag front face to a laser beam effective to create images within the laser markable coating without compromising the overlay coating covering the images.
However, Uyttendaele teaches a method for producing laser marked tags including overlaying at least a portion of a laser markable coating (22) with an overlay coating (23) that is less than completely transparent to a laser beam (see par.0066, 0075); and presenting each overlayed coated tag front face to a laser beam effective to create images within the laser markable coating without compromising the overlay coating covering the images (par.0029). Doing so allows a reduction in cost of manufacturing.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art to have modified Riely to include the teachings of Uyttendaele by overlaying at least a portion of a laser markable coating with an overlay coating that is less than completely transparent to a laser beam; and presenting each overlayed coated tag front face to a laser beam effective to create images within the laser markable coating without compromising the overlay coating covering the images. Doing so allows a reduction in cost of manufacturing.
Regarding Claim 2 ROBERTSON teaches a single metal tag without connection to an adjacent metal tag (see Fig 4).
Regarding Claim 3 Uyttendaele teaches wherein the breakable junction (70) between each metal tag of the plurality of metal tags (48) is broken after step (d) (See Fig 3, col.4 lns. 20-30).
Regarding Claim 8 Uyttendaele teaches wherein the overlaid coating in step (c) exhibits a transmittance of at least about 95% to the laser wavelength used for marking the laser markable coating (par.0029).
Regarding Claim 10 ROBERTSON teaches wherein each metal tag of the plurality of metal tags (48) has a width and the overlaid coating in step (c) the covers less than the width of the tag front face (See Fig 3).
Regarding Claims 11 and 12 ROBERTSON teaches a metal tag produced by the method of Claims 1 and 3.
Regarding Claim 17 ROBERTSON teaches an array of the metal tags (48) of Claim 11.
Allowable subject matter
Claims 4-7, 13-16 and 18-20 are objected to but would be allowable if rewritten including all the limitations of the base claims and all the intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/ABIY TEKA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3745
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