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 .
Priority
The foreign priority documents are not in English, thus the claims are given an effective date of the filing of the PCT: 4/27/22
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 6/4/25, 3/5/25, 12/2/24, 2/6/24 has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 8 is 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.
Claim 8 has the limitation “daily necessity”. It is unclear what a daily necessity is. It is food, water, shelter, transportation? The specification seems to infer it to be some kind of solid food container like a pudding or yogurt container, but, “food container” is already separately listed in the claim. As such it is unclear what the term is.
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-6, 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kimi (JP2014101484 English translation provided).
Kimi discloses propylene resin compositions for injection molding (title). Said compositions comprise a propylene polymer A, that is preferably a homopolymer of polypropylene (page 2 para 5) having a MFR (melt flow rate) from 0.01-400 g/10 min measured at 230C under load of 2.16 kg (page 3 para 5), preferably 0.5-100 g/10 min [meeting the requirements A, ai and aii of claim 1], and, an ethylene-alpha olefin copolymer C having a density from 880-920 kg/m3 and MFR 0.1-100 g/10min (page 4 para 7) wherein the copolymer has 70-99 mol% ethylene and 1-20 mol% of an alpha-olefin such as 1-hexene (page 4 para 9 and 11) [meeting B, bi and bii of claim 1].
Table 1, Examples 1-6 exemplify 60 parts A and 30 parts C, calculated to be 66.7 and 33.3, respectively, if based on only A and C [meeting the respective wt% of A and B of 100 mass% of claim 1].
In light of the picking and choosing and overlapping ranges (MFR, density, wt%) a prima facie case of obviousness exists over claim 1. See In re Wertheim.
Elements above also meet claims 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The injection molded object may be a food container (page 6 para 4), as required by claim 8
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 7 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: Kimi (above) stands as the closest prior art to claim 1 and the required wt%, MFR and densities thereof for an injection molded article. Kimi requires a nucleating agent (page 5 para 5), thus does not meet claim 7.
Other close prior art to note includes:
JP2017036390 (ISR X reference), however nucleating agents are also required therein, JP2011208149 (ISR A reference), however the mass% of A and B of claim 1 are not met, JP2015010105 however ‘105 does not suggest or disclose the composition requirements of claim 1.
Conclusion
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/ALICIA BLAND/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1759
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