DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-20 are pending.
The foreign priority application No.2020-218007 filed on December 25, 2020 in Japan has been received and it is acknowledged.
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 1-8, 11-17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ikeyama et al. (US 2019/0217651) in view of Ishiji et al. (US 2020/0041899).
With regard to claims 1, 6, 7, and 18, Ikeyama et al. teach a lithographic printing plate precursor laminate which is obtained by laminating a plurality of lithographic printing plate precursors in which an outermost layer on the side where the image recording layer is provided and the outermost layer on the side opposite to the side where the image recording layer is provided are laminated by being directly brough into contact with each other (par.0041).
This laminate meets the limitations of claim 18 for “the laminate is composed of a plurality of lithographic printing plate precursors directly stacked without intervention of interleaving paper”.
The lithographic printing plate precursor includes a hydrophilized aluminum support and a negative-type image recording layer, wherein an arithmetic average height Sa of a surface of an outermost layer on a side opposite to a side where the image recording layer is provided is in a range of 0.3 mm to 20 mm (abstract, par.0019).
Ikeyama et al. further teach that the image recording layer comprises an infrared absorbing agent, a polymerization initiator, a polymerizable compound, and a polymer compound (par.0020), but fail to teach the infrared absorber in claim 1.
Ishiji et al. teach a lithographic printing plate precursor including an image recording layer comprising an infrared absorber on a hydrophilic support(abstract). The infrared absorber may have a cation represented by the formula A-13:
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and the anion may be Na+, K+, or (CH3CH2)2NH+ (par.0119).
Ishiji et al. teach that the image forming layer comprises a polymerization initiator (abstract, par.0145), a polymerizable compound (par.0186), and a binder polymer (par.0238). The lithographic printing plate precursor produces a lithographic printing plate excellent in printing durability (par.0010).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to use the infrared absorber of Ishiji et al. in the image recording layer of Ikeyama et al., in order to produce a lithographic printing plate precursor capable of producing a lithographic printing plate with excellent printing durability.
The image recording layer of Ikeyama modified by Ishiji meets the limitations of claims 6 and 7 of the instant application.
Therefore, the laminate of Ikeyama modified by Ishiji is equivalent to the laminate of negative tone lithographic printing plate precursors in claims 1, 6, 7, and 18 of the instant application.
With regard to claim 2, the infrared absorber having a cation represented by the formula A-13 and the anion is Na+, K+, or (CH3CH2)2NH+ has HOMO of -5.45eV (par.0119 of Ishiji et al.)
With regard to claim 3, the infrared absorber having a cation represented by the formula A-13 and the anion is Na+, K+, or (CH3CH2)2NH+ (par.0119 of Ishiji et al.) is an infrared of Formula (1) wherein Y1 and Y2 are -(CH3)2C- (dimethylmethylene group), Ar1 and Ar2 are groups forming a benzene ring having a group X, X is Cl, A1 is -NR9R10, R9 and R10 are aryl groups with 6 carbon atoms, R1 and R2 are alkyl groups bonded to form a ring, R3, R4, R5, and R6 are hydrogen atoms, R7 and R8 are alkyl groups with 1 carbon atom, and Za is a counterion.
With regard to claim 4, the infrared absorber having a cation represented by the formula A-13 and the anion is Na+, K+, or (CH3CH2)2NH+ (par.0119 of Ishiji et al.) is an infrared of Formula (1) wherein A1 is -NR17R18, R17 and R18 are aryl groups with 6 carbon atoms.
With regard to claim 5, the infrared absorber having a cation represented by the formula A-13 and the anion is Na+, K+, or (CH3CH2)2NH+ (par.0119 of Ishiji et al.) is an infrared of Formula (1) wherein X is Cl.
With regard to claim 8, Ikeyama et al. teach that the image recording layer comprises an infrared absorbing agent, a polymerization initiator, a polymerizable compound, and a polymer compound (par.0020).
With regard to claim 11, Ikeyama et al. teach that the image recording layer contains inorganic particles with an average size of 5 mm to 10mm (par.0474). This range is within the claimed range.
With regard to claim 12, Ikeyama et al. teach that the image recording layer contains inorganic particles with an average size of 5 mm to 10mm (par.0474) and thermoplastic polymer particles with an average particle diameter of 0.005 mm to 2.0 mm (par.0442).
With regard to claim 13, Ikeyama et al. teach that the lithographic printing plate precursor includes a protective layer on the image recording layer (par.0493).
With regard to claim 14, Ikeyama et al. fail to teach that the protective layer comprises particles.
Ishiji et al. teach that the lithographic printing plate precursor includes a protective layer on the image recording layer (par.0308). The protective layer contains an inorganic layered compound for the purpose of enhancement of oxygen blocking properties. The inorganic layered compound may be mica, with a particle size of 0.5mm to 10mm (par.0311, par.0316).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to include mica with a particle size of 0.5-10 mm in the protective layer of Ikeyema modified by Ishiji, in order to enhance the oxygen blocking property of the protective layer.
With regard to claim 15, Ikeyama et al. teach that the printing plate precursor comprises a resin layer including at least one kind of particles having an average particle diameter of 0.5 mm to 20 mm provided as the outermost layer on the side opposite to the side where the image recording layer is provided (par.0025)
The resin layer is equivalent to “the outermost layer on the side opposite of the at least one layer containing an infrared absorber with reference to the support” in claim 15.
With regard to claims 16 and 17, Ikeyama et al. teach that the aluminum support includes an aluminum plate and an aluminum anodized film disposed on the aluminum plate, the anodized film comprising micropores (par.0038). The micropores are formed of large-diameter pores extending to a position at a depth of 10nm to 1,000 nm from the surface of the anodized film and small-diameter pores extending to a position at a depth of 20 nm to 2,000 nm from a communication position, the average diameter of the large diameter pores is in a range of 15 nm to 150 nm, and the average diameter of the small-diameter pores is 13 nm or less (par.0040).
With regard to claim 20, Ikeyama et al. teach a method comprising the steps of:
-image-wise exposing the lithographic printing plate precursor, and
-supplying at least one of printing ink or dampening water to the exposed image recording layer (par.0043, par.0514).
It is understood the claimed step of “taking out a lithographic printing plate precursor from the laminate” is performed prior to the step of image-wise exposing a lithographic printing plate precursor.
The lithographic printing plate precursor of Ikeyama modified by Ishiji is a negative-tone precursor (see the abstract of Ikeyama et al.), so the non-exposed portions of the image recording layer is removed in the developing step.
Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ikeyama et al. (US 2019/0217651) modified by Ishiji et al. (US 2020/0041899) as applied to claim 8 above, and further in view of Hayashi et al. (US 2017/0217149).
With regard to claim 9, Ikeyama modified by Ishiji teach the laminate of claim 8 (see paragraph 5 above). Ikeyama et al. teach that the image recording layer may comprise a polymer compound having particle shape (par.0399), but fail to teach the claimed polymer.
Hayashi et al. teach a negative-working infrared radiation-sensitive lithographic printing plate precursor (abstract), wherein the precursor includes a substrate having a hydrophilic surface and an imageable layer including a polymerizable compound, an infrared absorber, an initiator, and a polymeric binder (par.0011-0017).The polymeric binder may be in the shape of particles and may comprise repeating units derived from styrene and acrylonitrile (par.0154-0155).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to use a polymer comprising repeating units derived from styrene and acrylonitrile as the polymer compound having particle shape of Ikeyama modified by Ishiji, because the polymer is specifically taught for this purpose.
Hayashi et al. further teach a polymer comprising styrene: acrylonitrile in a weight ratio of 1:3.5 (see Table 1 in par.0171).
This ratio is within the range in claim 10.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ikeyama et al. (US 2019/0217651) modified by Ishiji et al. (US 2020/0041899) as applied to claim 6 above, and further in view of Namba et al. (US 2020/0166846).
With regard to claim 19, Ikeyama modified by Ishiji teach the laminate of claim 6 (see paragraph 5 above), but fail to teach the claimed sheer drop shape of the end part of each printing plate precursor.
Namba et al. teach a lithographic printing plate precursor including an aluminum support and an image-recording layer provided in the support, a sheer droop shape in which an amount X of shear droop is from 25 to 150 mm and a width Y of shear droop is from 70 to 300 mm is provided on an edge portion of the lithographic printing plate precursor (abstract, par.0019). The occurrence of edge stain can be prevented without decreasing performance (par.0261).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to make the lithographic printing plate precursor of Ikeyama modified by Ishiji with a sheer droop shape in which an amount X of shear droop is from 25 to 150 mm and a width Y of shear droop is from 70 to 300 mm is provided on an edge portion of the lithographic printing plate precursor, in order to prevent the occurrence of edge stains.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Namba et al. (US 2024/0278550) teach a stack including a lithographic printing plate precursor including an image-recording layer which contains an infrared absorber, a polymerizable compound, and a polymerization initiator (abstract). The infrared absorber has a HOMO of preferably -5.30eV or less (par.0114).
Arimura et al. (US 2024/0391232) teach a lithographic printing plate precursor including an image-recording layer in a support, in which the image-recording layer contains an infrared absorber A (abstract). The infrared absorber has a HOMO of preferably -5.30eV or less (par.0088).
However, the references above are not available as prior art.
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/ANCA EOFF/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1722