DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 8/18/2026. Claims 20-38 are pending in the application.
The previous 112 rejections of claims 26 and 32 are withdrawn due to the amendment.
Claim Objections
Claim 20 is objected to because of the following informalities: the claim is identified as being amended, as the claim contains the language “(Currently Amended)” preceding the claim. However, it appears as though the claim 20 was not amended. If claim 20 was not amended, then the claim should contain “Previously Presented” rather than “Currently Amended”. Appropriate correction is required.
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 20-33 and 35-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scheinhardt et al. (WO 2020/152093 A1 as cited on the IDS dated 11/20/2023; US PG Pub 2023/0331911 A1 used as English Translation).
The disclosure of Scheinhardt et al. is adequately set forth on pages 3-6 of the Office Action dated 5/19/2026 and is incorporated herein by reference.
Regarding claim 20, Scheinhardt et al. teach a water-based pigment preparation comprising (Abstract):
at least one organic and/or inorganic pigment and/or filler thereby reading on (A);
at least one dispersant of the formula (I) or (II) or mixtures thereof:
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Wherein n is an integer greater than or equal to 1, z is an integer greater than or equal to 1, R1 is an aliphatic, linear or ranched hydrocarbon radical having 1 to 10 carbon atoms or a hydrogen atom or the structural unit -O-X or the structural unit -CH2-O-X (Abstract), thereby reading on (C);
customary dispersants and surfactants, comprising anionic, cationic, amphoteric or nonionic surface active compounds, wherein an anionic modified copolymer is produced using macromonomers from polyethylene/propylene glycol and mono(meth)acrylate esters [0058] which corresponds to the structure (provided by Sigma-Aldrich website):
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Polyethylene glycol monomer + methyl methacrylate monomer
wherein the polyethylene glycol reads on (B) (II) formula B1 when X is O, m is 0, Y is ethylene, R4 is H, R11, R12 and R13 are H, and wherein the mono(meth)acrylate ester reads on (B) (I) an anionic monomer selected methacrylic acid;
and water thereby reading on (H).
Scheinhardt et al. do not particularly teach the amount of structural units of (B) (I) and (B) (II) as required by the instant claim. Scheinhardt et al. does not particularly teach the components together in one embodiment.
However, the structural units in the mono(meth)acrylate ester taught by Scheinhardt et al. are not particularly limited and could be construed by someone having ordinary skill in the art to be 1:1, corresponding to 50/50 and thereby reading on the claimed ranges. Further, Scheinhardt et al. teach the components (A), (B), (C), (H) with “sufficient specificity” that one of ordinary skill in the art would arrive at the claimed combination. Moreover, one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the claimed invention would have found it “obvious to try” the (A), (B), (C) and (H) as the teaching represents a finite number of identified, predictable combinations. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Regarding claim 21, Scheinhardt et al. teach mono(meth)acrylate ester which reads on (B) (I) an anionic monomer selected methacrylic acid [0058].
Regarding claims 22-23, the structural units in the mono(meth)acrylate ester taught by Scheinhardt et al. are not particularly limited and could be construed by someone having ordinary skill in the art to be 1:1, corresponding to 50/50 and thereby reading on the claimed ranges.
Regarding claims 24-27, Scheinhardt et al. teach R4, R11, R12, R13 are H and X is O as set forth in the rejection above.
Regarding claim 28, Scheinhardt et al. teach the (B)(II) as set forth above, wherein the propylene glycol [0058] thereby meets the propylene.
Regarding claims 29-31, Scheinhardt et al. teach polyethylene/propylene glycol and mono(meth)acrylate esters [0058], however are silent on the particular m and n values in the claims.
However, Scheinhardt et al. teach “macro” monomers, wherein macro is known in the art to mean very large polymers which would encompass the claimed n and m integer ranges.
Regarding claims 32-33, Scheinhardt et al. teach the dispersant of formula (I) or (II) that corresponds to (C) as set forth above, and further teach a structural unit X which corresponds to the formula (III):
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Thereby reading on the styrene oxide and the formula (3) and (4).
Regarding claim 35, Scheinhardt et al. teach the component (A) is present from 5% to 80% by weight (claim 3).
Regarding claim 36, Scheinhardt et al. teach the further surfactants and dispersants are in the amount of 0% to 20% by weight (claim 5).
Regarding claim 37, Scheinhardt et al. teach the dispersant of formula (I) or (II) in the amount of from 0.1 to 30% by weight (claim 4).
Regarding claim 38, Scheinhardt et al. teach a method of producing a pigment preparation according to claim 1 (claim 15).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 34 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.
Scheinhardt et al. do not teach or fairly suggest the claimed pigment preparation wherein the pigment preparation comprises, in particular, the claimed copolymer (C) having the structure of formula (6).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/18/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding the rejections over Scheinhardt, Applicant states “The claimed B+C dispersant system provides broad and improved performance” and further explains the Table 1 replicated from the instant specification demonstrate the improvements across eleven chemically diverse pigments. Table 2 demonstrates the benefits of combining B and C by comparing the combination directly with the individual dispersants.
In response, it is acknowledged that both Table 1 and Table 2 demonstrate surprising and unexpected benefits among the specific “B” and “C” that were tested (B: 49 mol% methacrylic acid/51 mol% polyglycol MA750, C1: 1 mol% glycerol, 14 mol% styrene oxide and 85 mol% ethylene oxide, C2: a graft copolymer of styrene/maleic anhydride and Jeffamine M-2005). However, the data is not commensurate in scope with the claim language. Claim 20 is drawn to “(B) at least one anionic copolymer as dispersant, which contains (I) 40 to 95 mol% structural units of an anionic monomer selected from the group consisting of acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, itaconic acid, 2-carboxyethylacrylic acid, maleic acid, mixtures thereof and their salts and (II) 5 to 60 mol% of structural units of a monomer having repeat units of formula (B1), and (C) at least one nonionic copolymer which contains at least one structural unit having aromatic groups and at least one structural unit having polyethylene glycol groups. As such, the specific B, C1 and C2 that were tested are species of a broader and more generic genus as claimed by claim 20. There is no evidence to support that all the structures claimed by the broad language in claim 20 for B and C would have these same unexpected results. Further, the specific B, C1 and C2 were tested at only a few percentage points (for example 5.5% B and 1.0% for C2 in Example 5, and 2.2% for B and 1.6% for C1 in Example 6). Similarly, there is no evidence to support that these specific amounts would have the same results across all ranges in the claimed B and C as there are no ranges claimed. It is for these reasons the applicant’s arguments are not found to be persuasive.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LANEE REUTHER whose telephone number is (571)270-7026. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30-3:30.
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/ARRIE L REUTHER/Supervisory Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1764
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