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 .
Withdrawn Rejections
Any rejections and/or objections, made in the previous Office Action, and not repeated below, are hereby withdrawn due to Applicant’s amendments and/or arguments in the response dated August 24, 2026. However, new rejections may have been made using the same prior art if still applicable to the newly presented amendments and/or arguments.
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.
Claims 16, 17, and 19 – 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kon et al. (EP 0 452 808 B1) in view of JP H05271630 A1 and Barker (GB 2 412 335).
A machine-generated translation of JP H05271630 A1 accompied the previous office action. In reciting this rejection, the examiner will cite this translation.
Kon et al. disclose a double-sided adhesive flexographic printing plate underlay for use in the manufacture and mounting of flexographic printing plates (Page 2, lines 3 – 4; A recitation of the intended use of the claimed invention must result in a structural difference between the claimed invention and the prior art in order to patentably distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art. If the prior art structure is capable of performing the intended use, then it meets the claim. The adhesive of Kon et al. may be adhered to a variety printing plates, making it useful in the manufacture and mounting of flexographic printing plates.), the underlay comprising: a glass clear polyethylene terephthalate (PET) carrier sheet that is transparent to UV radiation (Page 6, lines 31 – 34), said sheet coated on a front side and a back side thereof with a transparent solvent acrylic adhesive that is transparent to UV radiation (Page 3, lines 16 – 37); and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) release liner (Page 7, lines 38 – 41), wherein the release liner is adhered to the front side of the carrier sheet by way of the solvent acrylic adhesive (Page 7, lines 36 – 43), the release liner being siliconized on both sides thereof (Page 6, lines 53 – 58; Page 7, lines 38 – 41) as in claim 16. With respect to claim 23, the underlay is stored in a rolled up form (Page 6, lines 53 – 58). For claim 24, the level of siliconization applied to a first side of the release liner is different than the level of siliconization applied to a second side of the release liner, such that when the underlay is either rolled or unrolled, the release liner adheres more strongly to the adhesive coating on the front side of the carrier sheet than it does to the adhesive coating on the back side of the carrier sheet (Page 6, lines 53 – 58). For claim 25, flexographic printing plate, comprising the underlay adhered to a rear face of the flexographic printing plate (Page 2, lines 3 – 4). However, Kon et al. fail to disclose the adhesive is stripe-coated such that each adhesive stripe is separated from its neighbors by a 0.9-1.1mm gap of non-coated carrier sheet, a glass clear polyethylene terephthalate (PET) release liner that is transparent to UV radiation, wherein the release liner is adhered to the front side of the carrier sheet by way of the solvent acrylic adhesive stripe-coating, each adhesive stripe has a width of 2.5mm to 3.5mm, the gaps on the front side of the carrier sheet are laterally offset from the gaps on the back side of the carrier sheet, there is no overlap between the gaps on the front side of the carrier sheet and the gaps on the back side of the carrier sheet, the carrier sheet is 0.125mm thick, and the release liner is 0.036mm thick.
JP H05271630 A1 teach a double-sided adhesive flexographic printing plate underlay for use in the manufacture and mounting of flexographic printing plates (Figures; Abstract), the underlay comprising polyethylene terephthalate (PET) carrier sheet coated (Page 3, line 42; Figure 1, #1) on a front side and a back side thereof with an adhesive (Figure 1, #2 and 3); wherein the adhesive is stripe-coated such that each adhesive stripe is separated from its neighbors (Figure 1, #2 and 3; Page 3, line 46; Page 4, line 5) for the purpose of adhering a tape to a flexographic plate (Abstract).
Barker teach an adhesive flexographic printing plate underlay for use in the manufacture and mounting of flexographic printing plates (Figures; Abstract) having a solvent acrylic adhesive wherein the adhesive is stripe-coated such that each adhesive stripe is separated from its neighbors by a gap of non-coated carrier sheet (Page 2, line 25 to Page 3, line 4), a release liner adhered to the front side of the carrier sheet by way of the solvent acrylic adhesive stripe-coating (Figures, #3; Page 2, line 25 to Page 3, line 12), a glass clear polyethylene terephthalate (PET) release liner that is transparent to UV radiation (Claims 6 and 8), each adhesive stripe has a width of 2.5mm to 3.5mm (Page 7, lines 8 – 16), the carrier sheet is 0.125mm thick (Page 5, lines 31 – 33), the release liner is 0.036mm thick (Page 7, lines 21 – 24), and the underlay is stored in a rolled up form (Page 3, lines 13 – 15) for the purpose of forming air channels in the adhesive layer (Page 2, line 32 to Page 3, line 4).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a solvent acrylic adhesive stripe-coating on the front and back surfaces and materials with the desired thicknesses in Kon et al. in order to adhere a tape to a flexographic plate as taught by JP H05271630 A1 and to form air channels in the adhesive layer as taught by Barker,
With regard to the limitation of “each adhesive stripe is separated from its neighbors by a 0.9-1.1mm gap of non-coated carrier sheet, the gaps on the front side of the carrier sheet are laterally offset from the gaps on the back side of the carrier sheet, and there is no overlap between the gaps on the front side of the carrier sheet and the gaps on the back side of the carrier sheet”, Barker clearly teaches that the adhesive strips may take a variety of arrangements (Page 2, line 25 to Page 3, line 4; Figure 2; Page 7, lines 8 – 16). It is well settled that a particular shape of a prior invention carries no patentable weight unless the applicant can demonstrate that the new shape provides significant unforeseen improvements to the invention. In the instant case, the application does not indicate any new, significant attributes of the invention due to the shape of the adhesive layers which would have been unforeseen to one of ordinary skill in the art. A change in size or shape is generally recognized as being within the level of ordinary skill in the art, absent unexpected results. MPEP 2144.04 (I) and (IV).
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kon et al. (EP 0 452 808 B1) in view of JP H05271630 A1 and Barker (GB 2 412 335) as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Scappini et al. (EP 1 074 593 A2).
Kon et al., as modified with JP H05271630 A1 and Barker, disclose the claimed invention of a double-sided adhesive flexographic printing plate underlay for use in the manufacture and mounting of flexographic printing plates except for the adhesive coating on the front side and the back side of the carrier sheet has a coat weight of 65-70g/m2.
Scappini et al. teach an acrylic adhesive coating having a coat weight of 5 to 50 g/m2 (Paragraph 0020), wherein the adhesive is aqueous emulsion (Paragraph 0019) before drying, thereby having a solvent adhesive coating of 65-70g/m2 due to the additional liquid for the purpose of having an adhesive removable nature that does leave residue (Paragraph 0021).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a solvent adhesive coating of 65-70g/m2 in the modified JP H05271630 A1 in order to have an adhesive removable nature that does leave residue as taught by Scappini et al.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 16 - 25 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
With regard to the amendments made in the response, please see the newly presented rejection in view of Kon et al.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 Patricia L Nordmeyer whose telephone number is (571)272-1496. The examiner can normally be reached 10am - 6:30pm EST, Monday - Friday.
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/Patricia L. Nordmeyer/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1788
/pln/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1788 September 9, 2026
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