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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 5/27/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1-7 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu (Liu, Synthesis of MoX2 (x= Se or S) monolayers with high-concentration 1T’ phase on 4H/fcc-Au nanorods for hydrogen evolution, Nano Research, 2019, 12(6), pg. 1301-1305) ) in view of Qiao (Qiao, Solution-phase synthesis of transition metal oxide nanocrystals: Morphologies, formulae, and mechanisms, Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, 244, 2017, pg. 199-266).
Regarding Claim 1, Liu teaches a method of forming a 1T′-phase transition metal dichalcogenide monolayer (abstract) comprising: mixing a transition metal precursor, a non-oxygen chalcogen precursor, and a solvent to form a mixture; injecting the mixture into a nanorod mixture at a temperature of 300C to form a third mixture; and recovering 1T′-transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers from the third mixture (2.2). Liu teaches a 4H gold nanorod substrate (2.2).
Liu does not explicitly teach separate injection of the transition metal precursor and the non-oxygen chalcogen precursors in solutions as claimed; however, Selection of any order of mixing ingredients is prima facie obvious. MPEP 2144.04 IV C. It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the method of Liu to include any order of mixing the ingredients because selection of any order of mixing ingredients is prima facie obvious.
Liu teaches quick injection but is silent as to the injection time and does not explicitly teach wherein the first mixture is injected into the second mixture in such a way that the first mixture is completely enveloped by the second mixture within a period of time of 1-3 seconds; therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to related art to determine a suitable injection time. Qiao teaches details of the nucleation process depend on the injection process wherein results are sensitive to injection speed (2.2.1.2 2a.ii. Hot injection). It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to optimize the injection speed of Liu, as suggested by Qiao, in order to achieve the desired nucleation process and nuclei size distribution, and in such an optimization one of ordinary skill in the art would have arrived at applicant’s claimed injection speed.
Regarding Claims 2-3, Liu teaches the solution is oleyl amine (2.2).
Regarding Claims 4-5, Liu teaches molybdenum chloride (2.2).
Regarding Claim 6, Liu teaches selenium (2.2).
Regarding Claim 7, Liu teaches MoSe2 (2.2).
Regarding Claim 13, Liu teaches the recovering is performed by centrifugation (2.2).
Claim(s) 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu (Liu, Synthesis of MoX2 (x= Se or S) monolayers with high-concentration 1T’ phase on 4H/fcc-Au nanorods for hydrogen evolution, Nano Research, 2019, 12(6), pg. 1301-1305) ) in view of Qiao (Qiao, Solution-phase synthesis of transition metal oxide nanocrystals: Morphologies, formulae, and mechanisms, Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, 244, 2017, pg. 199-266) as applied to claims 1-7 and 13 above, and further in view of Chen (Chen, Ag@MoS2 Core-Shell Heterostructure as SERS Platform to Reveal the Hydrogen Evolution Active Sites of Single-Layer MoS2, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2020, 142, pg. 7161-7167) and Wang (Wang, Investigation of Au nanoparticles assembled on periodic wrinkled PDMS as a flexible SERS substrate, Mater. Res. Express, 2019, 6, 085009, pg. 1-7).
Regarding Claim 14, Liu does not explicitly teach depositing the monolayers on a polymer substrate having a hard transparent coating formed thereon to create a substrate for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS); however, Chen teaches Ag@MoS2 core-shell heterostructures for hydrogen evolution as a SERS Platform (abstract). It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the method of Liu to include further use of the structures in SERS applications, as suggested by Chen, because Chen teaches it is a desirable use for Ag@MoS2 heterostructures for hydrogen evolution and one of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of predictably using the product of Liu with a SERS substrate as suggested in Chen.
The combined references do not explicitly teach the structures deposited on a polymer substrate having a hard transparent coating formed thereon; however, Wang teaches PDMS with a top hard thin layer as a desirable SERS substrate (2.1). It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the SERS application of the combined references to include a substrate, as taught in Wang, because it is a known SERS substrate in the art and one of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of predictably achieving the SERS platform of the combined references with a substrate as in Wang.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see amendment, filed 5/27/2026, with respect to the prior art rejection in view of Sokolikova have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
Applicant's other arguments filed 5/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues the high phase-purity growth is achieved due to a clean interface achieved by the synergistic effect of using one-dimensional 4H-Au nanowires together with the specifically controlled process step in which "the first mixture is injected into the second mixture in such a way that the first mixture is completely enveloped by the second mixture within a period of time of 1-3 seconds." Applicant argues the claimed 1-3 second time window is technically significant and by completing the enveloping step within this narrow time window, the synthesis process promotes directional alignment and crystallization of the precursor species, thereby forming phase-pure one-dimensional 4H-Au nanowires having a clean interface capable of stabilizing the otherwise thermodynamically unfavorable 1T' phase in the TMD monolayers. In response to applicant’s argument, Liu teaches quick injection. While Liu is silent as to the injection time, they teach the claimed 1T’ phase, which applicant attributes to a 1-3 second time window. Furthermore, optimization of the injection time is suggested by Qiao as discussed above.
Applicant argues the dependent claims are allowable for the same reasons; however, this is not convincing as discussed above.
Conclusion
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/TABATHA L PENNY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1712
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