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 .
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.
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) 1 – 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 202045073A to Maekawa, Tetsuya hereinafter “Maekawa” and as referenced by EP 3176001 A1 to Nakajima, Hiroki hereinafter “Nakajima”. EP 3626482 A was used as the English language equivalent of Maekawa.
Maekawa is directed to pneumatic tires having a tread (Abstract, [0005]).
Regarding claims 1 – 4, 7 and 9, Maekawa teaches a composition at least at Ex 3 of Table 1 which comprises 30 parts SBR1, 50 parts SBR2, 20 parts BR, 10 parts carbon black, 80 parts silica and 2 parts of Resin 1. SBR-1 is a solution polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber, Sprintan SLR-6430 with a styrene content of 40% by mass [0153]. The silica level to total silica + carbon black level is 80 / 90 = 88.8 %. This is within the required level.
Maekawa is silent as to a trial using a rubber with an isoprene skeleton however, Maekawa teaches that the diene based rubber can comprise isoprene based rubber [0045]. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill to add or substitute isoprene rubber for the BR (butadiene rubber) as this is directly taught by Maekawa.
Maekawa is silent as to a trial using Resin 2 and the MW of Resin 2 but teaches the use of aromatic modified terpene resins where the aromatic modification can comprise styrene [0109 – 0110]. Additionally, Maekawa discloses that Resin 2 is CLEARON M125, a hydrogenated aromatic modified terpene resin with a softening point of 125C manufactured by Yasuhara Chemical Co. [0153]. This is the same resin used in the trials in Table 2. The Examiner take the position the MW is >1200 and less than 1600 g/mol.
The evidentiary reference to Nakajima discloses that M125 is a reaction product of a heptane compound and styrene [0030]. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill to add or substitute Resin 2 for Resin 1 as this is directly taught by Maekawa for the same purpose.
As to claims 5 – 6, 8 and 10 – 18, Maekawa discloses that pneumatic tires comprising the tread for said tires was extruded and vulcanized from the compounds in Table 1 and then evaluated for driving performance. See the bottom of Table 1.
Prior Art of Record
WO 2022249637 A1
JP 2020249637 A1
EP 3176001 A1
Conclusion
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PAS 7/24/26
/PETER A SALAMON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1759
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