DETAILED ACTION
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 with traverse of Group 1, claims 1 – 36, species of a composition of claim 1 filed on 7/25/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that (i) the claimed species are not mutually exclusive and (ii) that examination of all claimed invention together would not present a serous burden on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
With respect to (i), it is not found persuasive because they amount to a general allegation that the species are not mutually exclusive without any explanation how they are not mutually exclusive.
With regard to (ii) applicants allegation that joinder of these distinct inventions would not present a serious burden to the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office, such allegations relied on the unsupported assumption that the search and the examination of both the invention would be coextensive. Further, while there may be some overlap in the searches of the two inventions, there is no reason to believe that the searches would be identical. Therefore, based on the additional work involved in searching and examining both distinct inventions together, restriction of the distinct inventions is clearly proper.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 16-39 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected species and invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 7/25/2026.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mansfeld (WO2004/024853).
In setting forth this rejection a machine translation of WO2004/024853 has been relied upon and all citations to paragraph numbers in the discussion below are with respect to the machine translation.
Claim 1, 7-12, 14-15: Mansfeld teaches an odorant composition comprising 100 parts by weight of methyl methacrylate, 0.1-10 parts by weight of 2-ethyl-3-ethoxypyrazine
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and 0.001-0.5 parts by weight of BHA t-butylhydroxyanisole
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or BHT t-butylhydroxytoluene both of which are polymerization inhibitors (pages 4-7, table 4). The content of MMA overlaps the claimed range.
It is noted that the species in Markush group of claim 10 includes both genus and species. Genus are hydroquinone and 4-methoxyphenol.
Claim 2-6: 0.1-10 parts by weight of 2-ethyl-3-ethoxypyrazine in 100 parts by weight of methyl methacrylate, the concentration of the pyrazine is about 5700-566000 umol/L. 0.001-0.5 parts by weight of BHA t-butylhydroxytoluene in 100 parts by weight of methyl methacrylate, the concentration of BHA is about 52-26100 umol/L.
Claim 13: the pyrazine compound can be 2-methyl-3-methoxypyrazine etc. (page 6).
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/WENWEN CAI/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1763
