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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Brothers et al. (US 6,232,372).
Regarding claim 1
Brothers discloses a composition that is a free flowing powder (abstract) comprising a plurality of multicomponent particles, one component of each being a melt fabricable fluoropolymer and another component being a high temperature resistant non-dispersed polymer binder (claim 1).
Brothers discloses that the high temperature resistant polymer binder may be a polyethersulfone (claim 14), and shows examples with a fluoropolymer and polyether sulfone (column 3, lines 1-10).
Brothers discloses that the fluoropolymer has an average diameter from about 5 to about 40 microns (column 7, lines 47-60).
Brothers discloses that the ratio of fluoropolymer resin to the polymer binder resin is preferably in the range of 85:15 to 70:30 (column 7, lines 32-46).
Brothers discloses that the melt viscosity (MV) of the fluoropolymer is preferably in the range of 0.5 x 10 ^3 Pa*s to 20 x 10^3 Pa*s (column 4, lines 15-25). Brothers further discloses the relation ship of MV to melt flow rate (MFR) of MV = 53.15/MFR (column 13, lines 3-8). As such the MFR of the fluoropolymer resin is 2.7 to 106.3 g/10 min. As the MFR range of the reference overlaps the claimed range, the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have selected the overlapping portion of the range disclosed by the reference because overlapping ranges have been held to be a prima facie case of obviousness. In re Malagari, 182 U.S.P.Q. 549.
Regarding claim 2
Brothers discloses the use of perfluoropolymer resins ((column 1, lines 19-25).
Regarding claims 3-4
Brothers discloses the free flowing powder may be used as a primer coat in a multilayer fluoropolymer coating system by making a solution of the fluoropolymer in NMP making a film on a steel substrate and pressing a TFE/PPVE copolymer onto the fluoropolymer/PAI coating at 350 C (Example 9).
Brothers discloses that the TFE/PPVE polymer is a meltable fluororesin (column 4, lines 26-53).
Conclusion
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JAMES E. MCDONOUGH
Examiner
Art Unit 1734
/JAMES E MCDONOUGH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1734
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