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 .
This is the initial office action for US Patent Application No. 18/582661 by Akira Sakaguchi.
Claims 1-13 are currently pending and have been fully considered.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claim 6 is objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of claim 5. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 1-10 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Enomoto et al. (WO 2020/262692 A1), herein referred to as Enomoto, listed on Applicant’s IDS filed 8/8/2024. Enomoto et al. (US 2022/0111629 A1) is used as an English Translation of the WO prior art reference.
Regarding claims 1, 2 and 7-9, Enomoto teaches (Claim 1) an on-machine development type planographic printing plate precursor, comprising a support and an image-recording layer on the support, wherein the image-recording layer contains an initiator, an infrared absorber capable of donating electrons to the initiator, and a color-developing substance precursor, in a case where the image-recording layer is exposed to an infrared laser with a wavelength of 830 nm at an energy density of 110 mJ/cm2, a brightness change ΔL of the image-recording layer before and after the exposure is 3.0 or more, a molar light absorption coefficient F of a color-developing substance generated from the color-developing substance precursor is 35,000 or more, a ring-opening rate of the color-developing substance precursor calculated by the following equation is 40 mol % to 99 mol %, ring-opening rate=molar light absorption coefficient of the color-developing substance precursor to which 1 molar equivalent of acid is added/molar light absorption coefficient F of a color-developing substance generated from the color-developing substance precursor ×100, a color-developing substance generated from the color-developing substance precursor has a maximum absorption wavelength of 500 nm to 650 nm in a wavelength range of 380 nm to 750 nm.
Enomoto further teaches (Table 6) a color-developing substance precursor SR-5 having maximum light absorption wavelengths at 572 nm and 672 nm which fall within the claimed ranges. Therefore, claims 1, 2 and 7-9 are anticipated by Enomoto.
Regarding claim 3, Enomoto teaches [0126] the color forming substance precursor is a leuco compound.
Regarding claim 4, Enomoto teaches [0030] the color forming substance is an acid color developing agent.
Regarding claims 5 and 6, Enomoto teacjes [0182] two or more kinds of color forming substance precursors may be used.
Regarding claims 10 and 12, Enomoto teaches [0059] a planographic printing method including a step of exposing the on-machine development type planographic printing plate precursor in the shape of an image, a step of supplying at least one material selected from the group consisting of a printing ink and dampening water on a printer so as to remove the image-recording layer in a non-image area and to prepare a planographic printing plate, and a step of performing printing by using the obtained planographic printing plate. Therefore, claims 10 and 12 are anticipated by Enomoto.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11 and 13 are 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEWART A FRASER whose telephone number is (571)270-5126. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 7am-4pm, EST.
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/STEWART A FRASER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1724
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