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 .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yano (US 8,759,435).
Yano teaches a highly transparent cured article comprising the following:
(A) a mixture composed of a polyoxypropylene polymer having a reactive silicon group and a (meth)acrylic acid ester polymer having a reactive silicon group, where the silicon group is preferably diethoxymethylsilyl groups (col. 5, ll. 26-39), and the (meth)acrylic acid ester polymer is taught as comprising (meth)acrylic acid ester monomers, preferably using butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, and 2-methoxyethyl acrylate/2-ethoxyethyl acrylate, specifically a copolymer of ethyl acrylate/butyl acrylate/2-methoxyethyl (ratio by weight of 40-50/20-30/30-20) (col. 9, l. 4 to col. 10, l. 34);
(D) 1-250 parts, preferably 10-200 phr silica, and
0.1-150 phr of a plasticizer, specifically listed to include phthalic acid esters, phosphates, trimellitic acid esters, etc. (col. 21, l. 51 to col. 23, l. 24) and exemplified as diisodecyl phthalate in Example 7 (col. 37), which is an aromatic acid ester plasticizer. Yano exemplifies the polyoxyproyplene as having a number average molecular weight of 25,500 (col. 29, ll. 9-37).
The amount of plasticizer taught by Yano overlaps with the claimed range of at least 60 phr, and it has been held that overlapping ranges are sufficient to establish prima facie obviousness. See MPEP 2144.05.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have selected from the overlapping portion of the range taught by the reference because overlapping ranges have been held to establish prima facie obviousness.
As to the haze, Yano prefers the composition to be transparent, and Yano exemplifies a haze of 23% as being satisfactory (col. 37, Example 7). While the haze is not measured as claimed, one of ordinary skill in the art would expect the haze to be low, as claimed, as Yano teaches the claimed components in the claimed amounts.
Yano is prima facie obvious over instant claims 1-5 and 8-9.
As to claims 6-7, Yano teaches that the method for synthesizing the (meth)acrylate acid ester polymers is not limited but is preferably a living radical polymerization method, where the crosslinkable functional group is at its molecular chain terminal, in view of the polymer having a narrow molecular wight distribution and a low viscosity (col. 10, ll. 35-61), where the crosslinkable group is the hydrolysable silicon-containing group.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIEANN R JOHNSTON whose telephone number is (571)270-7344. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM EST.
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/Brieann R Johnston/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1766
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