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 based on an application filed in Japan on 3/24/2023. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the JP2023-049075 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
Page 3, paragraph 10, line 4 recites “is an A-A cross-sectional view” and should read “is a cross-sectional view”. The same error is present on page 5, paragraph 19, line 4.
Table 1 lists the “Area Ratio B of Island Portions in Region A”. Per page 13, this should read “Area Ratio B of Island Portions in Region B”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hoshio (European Patent Application Publication No. 2180376).
Hoshio teaches an electrostatic charging member including a base material and an outermost layer (Abstract). The charging member preferably has an elastic layer between the base material and the outermost layer ([0047]). The outermost layer preferably contains a conductive agent ([0096]). The surface roughness Rz of the outermost layer is 4 µm to 18µm ([0063]). The prime component of the resin in the outermost layer is preferably a polyamide resin, contained in an amount of 60% to 99% of all of the resins contained in the layer ([0067]). The layer preferably contains a second resin, preferably a polyvinyl acetal resin, in an amount of 0.1% to 40% of all the resins in the layer ([0072]). Many of the exemplary charging members comprise a nylon as the first resin and a polyvinyl butyral resin as the second resin, with an amount of the polyvinyl butyral resin of 10 to 50 parts to 100 parts of the nylon, or 9.1 to 33 parts of a total 100 parts of the resins (Tables 4-6).
The structure of the layer is not disclosed; however, it would have a sea/island structure as the two preferable resins are the same as the preferable resins of the instant application (Applicant [0035],[0037]). Applicant discloses that by adjusting the content of the second resin to be 10 parts by mass or more with respect to 100 parts by mass of the total of the first resin and the second resin, the area occupancy of the island potions is likely to be in the desired numerical range ([0046]). Therefore, as the content of the second resin is of a similar amount as the present application, the area ratio A would be in the range of 30% to 40%, the area ratio B would be in the range of 45% to 50%, and the absolute difference between the area ratio A and the area ratio B would be within 10%.
Carbon black may be used as the conductive agent for evenness in resistance ([0097]) and is contained in an amount of 3 to 30 parts per 100 parts of the primary component of the layer ([0098]). Most of the examples use MONARCH 1000 from Cabot Corporation for the conductive agent (Tables 4-8), which is the same as the conductive agent used in the instant application ([0091]). The average particle size is not disclosed, but as it is used in all the exemplary charging members of the instant application, it is presumed to fall within the most preferred size of 15 nm to 20 nm ([0041]). Adjusting the particle size to this range results in the current flowing between that particles ([0041]). Further, applicant states that the content of the conductive agent is preferably in the range of 10 to 15 parts to 100 parts of the total mass of the first and second resin, which also results in the currents ability to flow between particles ([0044]). Most exemplary charging members of Hoshio contain 17 parts of carbon black to 110 parts resin, or about 15 parts carbon black to 100 parts resin (Tables 4-8). As Hoshio uses the same conductive particles in the same amount it would be expected that the average current value would be 1.0x106 µA of more.
Hoshio teaches an electrostatic charging device comprising the charging member ([0133]). The charging device is contained in a process cartridge which is attached to and detached from an image forming apparatus ([0139]). The image forming apparatus comprises an image carrier (photoreceptor), the charging device, an electrostatic latent image forming device (exposure device), a developing device, and a transfer device ([0138-141]).
Conclusion
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/J.K./Examiner, Art Unit 1734
/PETER L VAJDA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1737 01/26/2026