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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi (US 2014/0182808) in view of Ren (CN 102674321 A) (2012).
Choi (US 2014/0182808) teaches producing a polymer foam structure and through UV polymerization and then coating it with a metal to form a metal nanostructure foam with pores and removing the polymer to form a metal lattice foam structure (See figures, claims and [0014-0016]). Choi teaches the prior art achieves micropores when desired too (See [0009]).
Regarding claims 2 and 7, Choi teaches a photomask (See above coted areas, Examples and claims).
Regarding claims 4 and 9, Choi teaches the metal can be nickel or copper (See claims).
While the art may not teach the claimed polymer it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing of the invention to provide photo-initiated and photo-maskable polymers absent a showing of criticality and unexpected results.
Choi doesn’t teach a graphitic material.
Ren (CN 102674321 A) (2012) teaches growing a graphene material foam from a porous metal foam template that is coated with carbon by CVD process that is converted to graphene through said process (see claims; particularly claim 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide a graphene or graphitic coating to produce a graphite foam.
Claim(s) 1-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi (US 2014/0182808) in view of Ren (CN 102674321 A) (2012), as above, further in view of Agrawal (WO 03046508).
The previously cited art may not teach functionalizing the metal surface.
Agrawal (WO 03046508) teaches a high surface area metal microstructure with pores that can form in tubes (See claims; including 62). The surface of the metal can be functionalized to form a hydroxylated surface or mercaptan to allow the material to interact with biomolecules (See claims and [0162-0164]).
Agrawal (WO 03046508) teaches it is well known in the art that mercaptans bond well to metals and one of ordinary skill in the art is aware of methods and compositions that effect this bonding mechanism [0162].
The metal may be coated with a polymer as well or (matrix) (See Claims and [0189-0190]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide polymer matrix with functional groups or the claimed functionalization of the metal since such functionalization is taught to be well known in the art.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL H MILLER whose telephone number is (571)272-1534. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 9-6.
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/DANIEL H MILLER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1783
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