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 .
International Search Report
Philip Morris Products S.A. (WO 2020/064682 A1) and Rossoll Andreas Michael et al (US 2020/0138105 A1) were cited as “X” and/or “Y” references in the International Search Report for International Application PCT/EP2022/062080 to which the instant application claims priority.
WO 2020/064682 A1 is used in the rejections herein.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 26-32 and 34-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2020/064682 A1, which was published 2 April, 2020, more than one year prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, and with the evidence of Moronov et al (US 2022/9369717) and Rossoll et al (US 2020/0029623).
Claims 26, 28 and 35: WO2020/064682A1 discloses an inductively heatable aerosol-generating article comprising an aerosol-forming substrate and a susceptor assembly for inductively heating the substrate. In disclosed embodiments, the susceptor assembly is a multi-layer susceptor assembly comprising adjacent layers comprising a first susceptor material forming a first layer and a second susceptor material forming a second layer in intimate physical contact with each other. (Abs; p 1, lines 4-9; p 2, lines 24-31; p 6, lines 4-5; p 8, lines 19-23).
Preferably, the second susceptor material may comprise one of mu-metal or permalloy. Mu-metal is a nickel-iron soft ferromagnetic alloy. Permalloy is a nickel-iron magnetic alloy, for example with about 80% nickel and 20% iron content. (p 5, lines 16-19). Mu-metal compositions known for use in the art can comprise approximately 77 weight percent nickel, 16 weight percent iron, 5 weight percent copper, and 2 weight percent chromium or molybdenum, which is the same as a claimed composition (see Moronov et al, [0033]). Alternatively, the known mu-metal may comprise 80 weight percent nickel, 5 weight percent molybdenum, small amounts of various other elements, such as silicon, and the remaining 12 to 15 weight percent iron, which overlays another of the claimed compositions (see Moronov et al, [0033]). Absent convincing evidence of unexpected results commensurate in scope with the claims, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to select a claimed composition for the nickel-iron alloy of WO2020/064682A1, with a reasonable expectation of success in obtaining a suitable susceptor.
Claim 27: WO2020/064682A1 discloses that the first susceptor material may comprise one of aluminum, gold, iron, nickel, copper, bronze, cobalt, conductive carbon, graphite, plain-carbon steel, stainless steel, ferritic stainless steel or austenitic stainless steel. (p 6, lines 1-3).
Claim 29: WO2020/064682A1 discloses an example in which the first susceptor layer has a thickness of about 50 mm and the second susceptor layer has a thickness of between 5 mm and 30 mm, for example 10 mm (p 9, lines 20-26).
Claims 30-32: WO2020/064682A1 discloses an alternative embodiment in which the susceptor assembly comprises a first susceptor 221, a second susceptor 222 and a third susceptor 223 that forms a third layer, wherein the three layers are arranged on top of each other with first and third layers 221 and 223 arranged on opposite sides of the second layer 222, and adjacent layers are intimately coupled to each other (p 26, lines 13-22; Fig. 5). WO2020/064682A1 discloses that the first and second layers are identical to those previously described. The third layer comprises the identical material to the first susceptor (p 26, lines 22-24). As noted above, the first susceptor material may comprise austenitic stainless steel. Austenitic stainless steel is an anti-corrosion material (see Rossoll et al, [0024] for evidence).
Therefore, absent convincing evidence of unexpected results commensurate in scope with the claims, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to select austenitic stainless steel for the first and third susceptor layers, with a reasonable expectation of success in obtaining suitable susceptor.
Claim 34: in the alternative embodiment discussed above, the first and third layers 221 and 223 arranged on opposite sides of the second layer and adjacent layers are intimately coupled to each other. Therefore, the third layer is adjacent to the second layer , which is adjacent to the first layer of the multi-layer susceptor assembly.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 36-45 are allowed.
Claim 33 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: WO2020/064682A1 is the nearest prior art. In the embodiment wherein the multi-layer susceptor comprises three layers, WO2020/064682A1 discloses that the first and second susceptors are identical to the first and a second susceptors of the bi-layer susceptor assembly, and that the third layer comprises the same material and layer thickness as the first susceptor, which provides a highly symmetric layer structure showing essentially no out-of-plane deformations, and a higher mechanical stability. As discussed above, the thickness of the third susceptor layer is much greater than the claimed range of between 2 mm and 6 mm.
In other prior art, Rossoll et al (US 2020/0029623) discloses a multi-layer susceptor comprising a first layer comprising a first susceptor material intimately coupled to a second layer comprising a second susceptor material and a third layer intimately coupled to a second layer The first layer comprises stainless steel and has a thickness between 10 mm and 50 mm, such as 25 mm or 35 mm. The second layer comprises nickel or a nickel alloy. The third layer comprises an anti-corrosion material such as austenitic stainless steel and has a thickness of 10 mm.
Rossoll et al (US 2020/0093179) discloses a multi-layer susceptor comprising a first layer comprising a first susceptor material intimately coupled to a second layer comprising a second susceptor material and a third layer intimately coupled to a second layer. The first layer comprises stainless steel and has a thickness between 10 mm and 50 mm, such as 25 mm or 35 mm. The second layer comprises nickel or a nickel alloy. The third layer comprises the same stainless steel and thickness as the first layer. In an alternative embodiment, the third layer comprises an austenitic stainless steel of undisclosed thickness that is different from the thickness of the first layer.
The disclosure of Rossoll et al (US 2020/0138105) is similar to that of US 2020/0093179 and of US 2020/0029623 and will not be described further.
The prior art fails to disclose or render obvious a multi-layer susceptor having a third layer with a thickness as claimed and provides no motivation to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the prior art susceptors to form the claimed susceptor with an expectation of success in obtaining a suitable susceptor.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DENNIS R CORDRAY whose telephone number is (571)272-8244. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8 AM-5 PM (EST).
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/DENNIS R CORDRAY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1748