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 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.
Application Status
This is a first action on the merits. A preliminary amendment was filed on 08 January 2024 amending claims 3-6. Claims 1-7 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 08 January 2024, 30 December 2024, 07 April 2025, 18 June 2025, 13 October 2025, 27 October 2025, 02 December 2025, 07 January 2026, 17 March 2026, and 15 April 2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities. Appropriate correction is required.
Regarding claim 1, requirements 1, 6, and 7 of the claim refer to a “rate” rather than “ratio”. Thus the claim should refer to “a ratio of a thickness…”, and “a heat shrinkage ratio at 150°C…”.
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
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.
Claims 1 and 3-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP H10-180963 A in view of WO 2020/137790 A1. A machine translation of JP '963 was relied upon for analysis, and Yamada (U.S. Pub. 2021/0388193) was relied upon as the translation of WO '790.
Regarding claim 1, JP '963 discloses a laminated film comprising a base polypropylene layer A and a surface polypropylene resin layer B, see paragraph [0005]. The laminate is biaxially oriented, see paragraphs [0031] and [0064]. The laminated film meets the following claimed properties:
1) the thickness of each layer B is less than 1/3 of the total thickness of the laminated film, see paragraph [0014]. In Example 1, the laminate has a layer structure of B/A/B in which the thicknesses are 1 micron / 13 microns / 1 micron, see paragraph [0055], which means the thickness of layer A with respect to the entire thickness of the film is 13 microns out of 15 microns, or about 87%. In Example 2 at paragraph [0058], the B/A/B laminate has thicknesses of 1 micron / 18 microns / 1 micron, and thus the thickness of layer A with respect to the entire thickness of the film is 18 microns out of 20 microns, or about 90%. In Example 2, a B/A/C laminate structure having layer thickness of 1 micron / 12 microns / 2 microns is obtained, see paragraph [0060], and thus the thickness of layer A with respect to the entire thickness of the film is 12 microns out of 15 microns, or about 80%.
2) the polypropylene of Layer A includes a mixture of polypropylene resins, one of which has a mesopentad fraction of 92% or more, see paragraph [0033]. In Example 1 at [0054], this resin has a mesopentad fraction of 98.5%.
3) the propylene of Layer B has a mesopentad fraction of 70-90%, see paragraph [0033]. In Example 1 at [0054], this resin has a mesopentad fraction of 85.1%.
JP '963 does not specify requirements (4)-(7).
Yamada describes a biaxially oriented polypropylene film used for packaging and industrial applications, see p. 1, [0001]. The film may be laminated with other layers, see p. 3-4, [0043]. Regarding the film properties:
2) the polypropylene resin has a mesopentad fraction of 97.0% or higher, see p. 1, [0010]. The mesopentad fraction is preferably 98.5% to 99.3%, see p. 2, [0020].
4) The film has a stress at 5% elongation (F5) in the longitudinal direction measured at 23 °C of 40 MPa or more, preferably from 45-60 MPa, see p. 8, [0096].
5) The film has a stress at 5% elongation (F5) in the width direction measured at 23 °C of 160 MPa or more, preferably from 170-240 MPa, see p. 8, [0097].
6) The film has a heat shrinkage ratio in the longitudinal direction measured at 150 °C of 10% or less, preferably less than 7%, see p. 7, [0088]. This overlaps the claimed range. Example 3 shown in Table 3 on p. 18 has a heat shrinkage ratio in the longitudinal direction at 150 °C of 4.2%.
7) The film has a heat shrinkage ratio in the width direction measured at 150 °C of 30% or less, preferably less than 25%, see p. 7, [0088]. This overlaps the claimed range.
JP '963 and Yamada are analogous as they each describe biaxially oriented polypropylene which may be used in a laminate structure. It would have been obvious to have used a polypropylene having the heat shrinkage ratio and stress at 5% elongation properties as in Yamada as the core Layer A polypropylene of JP '963 to arrive at the claimed invention as this provides desirable features such as avoiding wrinkles during heat sealing (see Yamada at p. 7, [0088]) and having high stiffness so that bag shape is maintained during formation and is not easily deformed by a subsequent printing step (see Yamada at p. 8, [0096-0097]).
Regarding claim 3, JP '963 reaches that a corona discharge treatment is performed on the layers of the laminated film to provide a wetting tension of 35 mN/m or more, see paragraph [0028]. This overlaps the claimed range.
Regarding claim 4, JP '963 teaches that the haze of the film is 2.0% or less, preferably 1.5% or less, see paragraph [0030]. This is within the claimed range of 5.0% or less.
Regarding claim 5, the Examples of JP '963 have an overall laminate thickness of 15 microns (see Example 1 at paragraph [0055]) or 20 microns (see Example 2 at paragraph [0058]).
Regarding claim 6, Comparative Example 6 of JP '963 laminates the biaxially stretched Layer A of Comparative Example 1 to an unstretched Layer B, see paragraph [0071]. Additionally, Yamada teaches that an unstretched sheet may be provided on the polypropylene film, see p. 11, [0134].
Regarding claim 7, JP '963 teaches that the heat sealable laminated films are placed on top of each other and peeled such that the 90-degree peeling force was over 100 gf/1.5 cm, see paragraph [0051]. This is at least 0.98 N force per 15 mm, which overlaps the claimed range.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP H10-180963 A in view of WO 2019/244708 A1. A machine translation of JP '963 was relied upon for analysis, and Yoshii (U.S. Pub. 2021/0213720) was relied upon as the translation of WO '708.
Regarding claim 1, JP '963 discloses a laminated film comprising a base polypropylene layer A and a surface polypropylene resin layer B, see paragraph [0005]. The laminate is biaxially oriented, see paragraphs [0031] and [0064]. The laminated film meets the following claimed properties:
1) the thickness of each layer B is less than 1/3 of the total thickness of the laminated film, see paragraph [0014]. In Example 1, the laminate has a layer structure of B/A/B in which the thicknesses are 1 micron / 13 microns / 1 micron, see paragraph [0055], which means the thickness of layer A with respect to the entire thickness of the film is 13 microns out of 15 microns, or about 87%. In Example 2 at paragraph [0058], the B/A/B laminate has thicknesses of 1 micron / 18 microns / 1 micron, and thus the thickness of layer A with respect to the entire thickness of the film is 18 microns out of 20 microns, or about 90%. In Example 2, a B/A/C laminate structure having layer thickness of 1 micron / 12 microns / 2 microns is obtained, see paragraph [0060], and thus the thickness of layer A with respect to the entire thickness of the film is 12 microns out of 15 microns, or about 80%.
2) the polypropylene of Layer A includes a mixture of polypropylene resins, one of which has a mesopentad fraction of 92% or more, see paragraph [0033]. In Example 1 at [0054], this resin has a mesopentad fraction of 98.5%.
3) the propylene of Layer B has a mesopentad fraction of 70-90%, see paragraph [0033]. In Example 1 at [0054], this resin has a mesopentad fraction of 85.1%.
JP '963 does not specify requirements (4)-(7).
Yoshii describes a polypropylene laminate comprising core layer A and heat seal layer B. The laminate film is biaxially stretched, see p. 4, [0065]. The laminated film meets the following properties:
1) Table 4 on p. 10 shows that Layer A has a thickness of 18.8 microns and Layer B has a thickness of 1.2 microns in Examples 1 and 2. Thus Layer A constitutes 94% of the thickness of the overall laminate.
2) Example 1 shown in Table 4 uses 100 wt. % of PP-11 polypropylene for Layer A which is formed from base polymer PP-1 (see table 2) which has a mesopentad fraction of 98.7 % (see Table 1 on p. 9). This is within the claimed range.
3) Examples 1 and 2 shown in Table 4 each use a blend of PP-7 and PP-8 polypropylene resins for Layer B, each of which have a mesopentad fraction of less than 95%, see Table 1 on p. 9.
6) and 7) the film has a heat shrinkage ratio at 150 degrees C of 0.5% or more and 8% or less in both the machine direction (MD) and transverse direction (TD), see p. 1, [0013] and p. 5, [0094-0095]. The preferred heat shrinkage ratio is from 2.5% to 7%, see p. 5, [0094-0097].
While neither JP '963 nor Yoshii specifies the stress at 5% elongation (F5) of requirements 4) and 5), this property is dependent upon the composition and stretching processing of the laminate layers. As the polypropylene of the core layer A and surface layer B meets the other properties as claimed, the Examiner has reason to believe that the stress at 5% elongation in each direction also meets the claimed values.
JP '963 and Yoshii are analogous as they each describe biaxially oriented polypropylene laminated structures. It would have been obvious to have used a polypropylene having the heat shrinkage ratio and stress as in Yoshii in the laminate layers of JP '963 to arrive at the claimed invention as this provides desirable features such as avoiding wrinkles during heat sealing (see Yamada at p. 7, [0088]).
Regarding claim 2, Yoshii teaches that the laminated film has a plane orientation coefficient of 0.0125 or greater, see abstract and p. 6, [0104]. The most preferable range is 0.0128 to 0.0145, see id. This overlaps the claimed range of 0.0134 or less.
Regarding claim 3, JP '963 reaches that a corona discharge treatment is performed on the layers of the laminated film to provide a wetting tension of 35 mN/m or more, see paragraph [0028]. This overlaps the claimed range.
Regarding claim 4, JP '963 teaches that the haze of the film is 2.0% or less, preferably 1.5% or less, see paragraph [0030]. This is within the claimed range of 5.0% or less.
Regarding claim 5, the Examples of JP '963 have an overall laminate thickness of 15 microns (see Example 1 at paragraph [0055]) or 20 microns (see Example 2 at paragraph [0058]).
Regarding claim 6, Comparative Example 6 of JP '963 laminates the biaxially stretched Layer A of Comparative Example 1 to an unstretched Layer B, see paragraph [0071].
Regarding claim 7, JP '963 teaches that the heat sealable laminated films are placed on top of each other and peeled such that the 90-degree peeling force was over 100 gf/1.5 cm, see paragraph [0051]. This is at least 0.98 N force per 15 mm, which overlaps the claimed range.
Conclusion
All claims are rejected.
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/Scott R. Walshon/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1759
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