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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. JP2022-113902, filed on 7/15/2022.
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 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Terui (US PGP 2020-0026208) in view of Kototani (US PGP 2022-0128918).
Terui teaches a toner comprising toner base particles and an organosilicon polymer, wherein the organosilicon polymer forms protruded portions on the surface of the toner (Abstract). The shape of the protruded portions is defined by the ratio D/w of the protrusion diameter D to the protrusion width w ([0045] line 3-5), which is inverse of the average aspect ratio of the protrusion x of the instant application L/s (Pg 29), wherein the long axis diameter L is equivalent to the width, w, and the short axis diameter s is equivalent to the diameter, D. The ratio D/w of 0.33 to 0.80 ([0045] line 5-6) is equivalent to an aspect ratio if the protrusion x of 1.3 to 3.0. The protrusion shape is measured from portions having a height of 40 to 300 nm ([0045] line 9-10). A density Spd of the protruded portions having peak heights of at least ¾ of the max peak height value of Sp is not disclosed. However, The addition amount of the organosilicon polymers in the exemplary toners is from 10 to 16 parts (Table 1) and the instant application discloses a further preferable quantity of the organosilicon polymer of 10.0 to 30.0 parts (Pg 11), so the density of the protruded portions would be expected to fall in the range of 25 to 65 protruded portions/µm2. Similarly, the ratio (Sc/S) of the surface area coated with the organosilicon polymer to the total surface area of the toner would be expected to fall in the range of 0.40 to 0.70, as the content and shape of the organosilicon polymer is similar.
Terui is silent regarding an average angle of inclination derived from a surface roughness analysis and the toner base particle having an organosilicon compound segment. Kototani teaches a toner including an organosilicon compound, wherein in a time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry of the toner particle, a normalized intensity of silicon ions is 7.00x10-4 to 3.00x10-2, or 0.0007 to 0.0300 (Abstract). When the toner particle comprises an organosilicon compound, the toner can exhibit a high degree of injection charging suitability, wherein the charge can be injected not only in the vicinity of the toner surface, but also in the interior of the toner in the injection process and that leakage of charge from the vicinity of the toner surface is unlikely to occur in other processes ([0030-33]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the toner of Terui to have included an organosilicon compound in order to produce a toner with a high degree of injection charging stability.
Applicant discloses that the average angle of inclination Δa can be adjusted by adjusting the wettability between the toner base particle and the organosilicon polymer forming the protruded portions, and that the wettability can be adjusted by altering the composition at the surface of the toner base particle (Pg 7). When the toner has an organosilicon segment and has the claimed normalized intensity, it shows that the surface of the toner base particle has been treated to a suitable degree by a component having high affinity for the organosilicon polymer (Pg 13). Therefore, the toner of Terui modified with the organosilicon polymer of Kototani would be expected to have an average angle of inclination Δa of 1.0 to 2.0°.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Terui and Kototani as applied to claims 1-5 above, and further in view of Shibahara (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2022-025866).
The entire discussion of Terui and Kototani above is included herein. Terui and Kototani include binder resins comprising a styrene acrylic resin (Terui [0157-158], Kototani [0386]), but are silent regarding the binder resin comprising a monomer unit represented by Formula (1). Shibahara teaches a toner containing a vinyl resin having a monomer unit A (Abstract). The monomer unit A is represented by formula (1) ([0033]), which is equivalent to Formula (1) of instant claim 6. R1 represents an alkyl group having 12 to 36 carbon atoms ([0035]). Exemplary toners contain behenyl acrylate, hexadecyl acrylate, and dodecyl acrylate, which have 22, 16, and 12 carbon atoms in the alkyl group respectively (Table 1), corresponding to an m value in Formula (1) of 21, 15, and 11. When the resin contains this monomer unit the electron density of the carbonyl groups increase and an excessively charged toner is less likely to occur ([0033]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the styrene acrylic resin of Terui to have included a monomer unit having a long chain acrylate in order to avoid the toner becoming excessively charged.
Conclusion
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/J.K./Examiner, Art Unit 1734
/PETER L VAJDA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1737 01/12/2026