DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the Applicant’s filing dated June 24th, 2026.
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
This application is a 371 of PCT/CA2022/050883 filed on June 2nd, 2022; and has a PRO of 63/195,836 filed on June 2nd, 2021.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-7, 22-23, 27-29, 34, 37, 40, 62-64, 68, 77, 93 and 97 are pending in the instant application. Acknowledgement is made of Applicant's remarks and amendments filed on June 24th, 2026. Acknowledgement is made of Applicant's cancelation of claims 8-21, 24-26, 30-33, 35-36, 38-39, 41-61, 65-67, 69-76, 78-92, 94-96 and 98-101.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Group I in the reply filed on June 24th, 2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the grounds that it would not be unduly burdensome to perform a search on all of the claims together. This is not found persuasive because there is no special technical feature linking all groups as to form a single inventive concept, and unity of invention is not present.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 22-23, 27-29, 34, 37, 40, 62-64, 68, 77, 93 and 97 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on June 24th, 2026.
Applicant’s election without traverse of (a) polydopamine (PDA), (b) poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA), and (c) antimicrobial peptide E6 in the reply filed on June 24th, 2026 is acknowledged.
A prior art search was conducted for the elected species.
This search retrieved prior art.
In the interest of compact prosecution, the Examiner expanded search to include the full scope of the limitations of subsection (b) of claim 1.
The Examiner’s search will not be further extended unnecessarily to additional species in/for/during this Office action.
Claims 1-7 read on the elected species and will be examined herein.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hadjesfandiari et al (Advanced Healthcare Materials, (2017), 7, 1700839, 1-13).
Regarding claims 1, 3-5 and 7, Hadjesfandiari teaches coating composition comprising polydopamine (herein referred to as PDA), poly(N,N-dimethylacryladmide) (herein referred to as PDMA) co- N-3(3aminopropyl)methylacrylamide (herein referred to as APMA) polymer and an antimicrobial peptide (herein referred to as AMP) (page 1, Abstract). Hadjesfandiari expressly discloses an antifouling polymer coating composition comprising an anchoring PDA layer followed by a polymer layer formed of PDMA and APMA known as DA51, further teaching the conjugation at the thiol group on the AMP E6 to the DA51 polymer via a maleimide linker (page 1, Abstract; page 2, right column, first paragraph; page 8, Figure 6).
Regarding claim 2, Hadjesfandiari teaches the average molecular weight of the copolymers used for the coating was between 75-110 kDa, and the polydispersity of each was less than 1.2 (page 2, right column, second paragraph). This reads on a high molecular weight polymer, defined as any polymer having a molecular weight between ≥100 kDa and ≤200 kDa or alternatively having a polydispersity index of between 1 to 3, in the specification on page 16 in the last paragraph.
Thus, the teachings of Hadjesfandiari anticipate the coating composition of instant claims 1-5 and 7.
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hadjesfandiari et al (Advanced Healthcare Materials, (2017), 7, 1700839, 1-13); in view of Lim et al (Acta Biomaterialia, (2015), 15, 127-138).
Regarding claim 6, Hadjesfandiari anticipates the coating composition of claims 1-5 and 7 as described in the above rejection.
Hadjesfandiari does not teach a coating composition wherein the AMP is conjugated by an amine group or a thiol group to a quinone group on the PDA.
Lim teaches direct conjugation of an AMP onto a PDA coating via the AMP’s exposed thiol and/or amine groups binding to PDA quinone functional groups by Michael addition and/or Schiff-base reactions, noting the abundance of reactive quinone groups and the hydrophilic nature of the PDA film surface present an ideal platform for covalent and non-covalent AMP attachment (page 131, Figure 1; page 133, right column, last paragraph; page 134, left and right columns). Lim reports that the resulting PDA-AMP surface exhibits potent antimicrobial and antibiofilm properties and describes the method as simple and effective means for immobilizing an AMP onto a PDA substrate (page 127, Abstract).
It would have been prima facie obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the AMP containing coating composition of Hadjesfandiari by conjugating the AMP directly to the PDA layer as taught by Lim, because Lim teaches that PDA provides a simple, robust and effective platform for covalent conjugation of AMPs, through an abundance of reactive quinone functional groups on polymeric surfaces while retaining antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity. Hadjesfandiari and Lim are directed to the same general field of antimicrobial polymeric surface coatings using PDA an AMPs. One of ordinary skill in the art would therefore have had a reasonable expectation of success in employing Lim’s disclosed AMP to PDA conjugation technique in the coating of Hadjesfandiari, because Lim demonstrated successful conjugation of AMP on PDA through the recited reactive quinone functionality while retaining the desired antimicrobial properties. Accordingly, the conjugation of AMP directly to PDA in a polymeric antimicrobial surface coating represents the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions, yielding nothing more than predictable results.
“[T]he rationale to support a conclusion that the claim would have been obvious is that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. KSR, 550 U.S. at 416, 82 USPQ2d at 1395.
Taken together, all of this would result in the coating composition of instant claim 6 with a reasonable expectation of success.
Conclusion
Claims 1-7 are rejected.
No claim is allowed.
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/C.L.J./Examiner, Art Unit 1691
/RENEE CLAYTOR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1691
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