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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-16 and 19-21, in the reply filed on 9/25/2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 17, 18 and 22-24 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to nonelected inventions, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 9/25/2025.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 21 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 1 on line 10, the formula (1) appears a second time in the claim. This is objected to as the formula was moved to line 5 of the claim, and therefore the formula being present a second time does not make sense syntactically. The Examiner recommends using double brackets to express the deletion of the formula.
In claim 21 on line 8, the formula (1) appears in the claim. This is objected to as the formula being present in this claim does not make sense syntactically.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 9, 13 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
In claim 9, the limitations of the “laminate…comprising: a sublimation thermal transfer image receiving layer (c) on at least one surface of the laminate” renders the claim indefinite because if the sublimation thermal transfer image receiving layer is part of the laminate, then it cannot also be on a surface of the laminate. This rejection can be overcome by changing the claim to require the sublimation thermal transfer image receiving layer to be on one of the resin layers (a) or (b).
In claims 13 and 14, the limitations require that laminate is “configured as at least part of a card” or “configured as at least part of a passport”, respectively, but these limitations render the claim indefinite as it is unclear if the claim is now drawn to a card or passport, or if this is a functional property of the laminate. The rejection can be overcome by changing the claims to be “wherein the laminate can be used as at least part of a card” and “wherein the laminate can be used as at least part of a passport” which is how the claims will be interpreted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 1-8, 10-16 and 19-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yokoki et al. (JP 2012-143872), machine translation included, as evidenced by “Bismuth (III) oxide safety data sheet” (https://prochemonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/1252.BismuthIIIOxide-1.pdf).
With regard to claims 1-3, 6, 8, 13, 15, 19 and 20, Yokoki et al. teach the Example 1 having an over sheet having a 100 micron thickness made from the polycarbonate (A-1) that is made from an isosorbide dihydroxy at 50 mol%, which reads on applicants’ resin layer (a) having a structural unit (A1) derived from a dihydroxy having a moiety of formula (1), and a core sheet that includes a polycarbonate and a color former of mica coated with doped tin oxide (B-1), which reads on applicants’ resin layer (b) having a laser color developer of a metal oxide [0061]-[0065]. These layers are laminated together to form a card and can be laser marked [0065] and [0070]. They also teach that it is known in the art to blend polycarbonate resins made from bisphenol A, e.g. the aromatic polycarbonate (A-2) of the examples, with the polycarbonates made from the dihydroxy compound having a moiety of formula (1) used as the main component of the color developing layer to improve the heat resistance and moldability [0011], [0035] and [0061].
Since blending of a bisphenol A polycarbonate is explicitly suggested in the reference, it would have been obvious to have blended a bisphenol A polycarbonate into the color development layer of Example 1 in order to improve the heat resistance and moldability of the laminate layers. The resultant color development layer having bisphenol A polycarbonate blended therein reads on applicants’ resin layer (b) having a polycarbonate resin (B) other than the polycarbonate resin (A) of the resin layer (a).
With regard to claims 4, 5 and 7, the metal oxide color former may be a bismuth oxide [0043]; however, Yokoki et al. do not specifically use bismuth oxide in the examples.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have substituted bismuth oxide color former as the color former of Example 1. The results of such a substitution would have been predictable to one having ordinary skill as Yokoki et al. teach this as a known material for such a color developer. As evidenced by the “Bismuth (III) oxide safety data sheet”, Bismuth oxide has a specific gravity of approximately 8.93 g/cm3, which means the content per unit area of color developer of Example 1 of Yokoki et al. would be approximately 179 microgram/cm2 (= 8.93 x 106 x 0.1 x 2 x 10-4).
With regard to claims 10-12, the Rz of the over sheet and the core sheet are in the range claimed, i.e. 15 and 5 microns [0063]-[0065]. Given that the card rendered obvious above is made of the same polycarbonates as claimed and has the same Rz as claimed, the over sheet and core sheet of Yokoki et al. will intrinsically possess the same kurtosis (Rku), and arithmetic average roughness (Ra) as claimed.
With regard to claims 14, 16 and 19, please note that the preamble “passport” or the intended use of passport in claims 14, 16 and 19 are being interpreted as a statement of intended use and does not result in a structural difference; further, the card of Yokoki et al. could be used as a passport card, which would read on the intended use of a passport as claimed.
With regard to claim 21, the card with the magnetic stripe may satisfy a JIS credit card standard [0066].
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have made the card of Yokoki et al. into a credit card as this is one of the known uses of magnetic stripe cards and the card meets the standards of a credit card. Credit cards have a standard size of approximately 8.56 x 5.4 cm, which would be an area of approximately 46.2 cm2 and would read on this claim.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yokoki et al. (JP 2012-143872) in view of Kubokawa (JP 2019-025754), machine translation included.
Yokoki et al. render obvious all of the limitations of claim 1 above; however, they do not specifically teach a sublimation thermal transfer image receiving layer on one of the resin layer (a) or the resin layer (b).
Kubokawa teaches laser color developing card that can have a sublimation thermal transfer image receiving layer 40 on an over sheet 20 of the card [0036], [0049], [0068] and Figure 3B.
Since Yokoki et al. and Kubokawa are both drawn to laser color developing cards made of polycarbonate, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have combined in the sublimation thermal transfer image receiving layer of Kubokawa on the over sheet layer of Yokoki et al. The results of such a combination would have been predictable to one having ordinary skill; further, each of the elements would have performed the same in combination as they had separately. The rationale to add this layer is to add for full color printing along with the laser coloring of the color former.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The Examiner disagrees with the position of the EPO and JPO as there is no rationale, save improper hindsight to have combined the polycarbonates of JP 2011-201304, i.e. US 2012/0328855 or EP 3034302, with WO 2018/163889, i.e. US 2020/0016877 or EP 3593996. The laminate in US 2012/0328855 is for display covers or building materials while the laminate of US 2020/0016877 is for cards or passports, and therefore there is no rationale to combine these references.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GERARD T HIGGINS whose telephone number is (571)270-3467. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-6pm (variable one work-at-home day).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Mark Ruthkosky can be reached at (571) 272-1291. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Gerard Higgins/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1785
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