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.
Claim(s) 1 and 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Huang et al. (CN 101999751).
Regarding claim 1, Huang discloses a tobacco sheet comprising: a fibrous material (such as tobacco shred) and an inulin (Abstract [0025] [0032]).
Regarding claim 3, Huang discloses inulin-type fructan.
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.
Claim(s) 4-9, 12, 14-16 and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (CN 101999751) in view of Ishikawa et al. (WO 2020202254).
Regarding claims 4 and 12, Huang does not expressly disclose palmitic acid as a flavor additive. Ishikawa (see document, [0109], [0115]) discloses palmitic acid (having molar mass within the claimed range) can be used as a flavor component in a tobacco sheet wherein the preferred amount of flavor component is usually 10000 ppm to 50000 ppm overlapping with the claimed range (in case of overlapping ranges, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to pick the claimed range). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add palmitic acid as a flavor additive as taught by Ishikawa to the tobacco sheet of Huang.
Regarding claim 5, Ishikawa discloses palmitic acid corresponding to the claimed a single compound.
Regarding claims 6 and 14-16, Ishikawa discloses a tobacco-containing segment, comprising, as fillers the tobacco paper containing trace amount of lignin and hemicellulose [0003]; therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to perform routine experimentation to arrive to the claimed range.
Regarding claims 7 and 18-20, Ishikawa discloses the paper containing an aerosol-generating agent [0002].
Regarding claim 8, Ishikawa discloses a non-combustion heating-type flavor inhaler, comprising: a tobacco-containing segment containing the tobacco sheet for the non-combustion heating-type flavor inhaler (Abstract and fig. 1).
Regarding claim 9, Ishikawa discloses a non-combustion heating-type flavor inhalation system, comprising: the non-combustion heating-type flavor inhaler; and a heating device (by reference sign 104, fig. 1) configured to heat the tobacco-containing segment (Abstract and fig. 1).
Conclusion
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/PHU H NGUYEN/ Examiner, Art Unit 1747