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 Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities: please delete one of the following redundant statements “the polyether polyol is selected from the group consisting of high purity polyoxytetramethylene glycol, polyoxypropylene glycol, and polyethylene glycol”. Appropriate correction is required.
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 8-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2007/0112165 to Chen et al. with support from “Effect of Soft Segment Polydispersity on the Elasticity of Polyurethane Elastomers” to Prisacariu et al. or U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2022/0041790 to Yamashita et al. in view of U.S. Patent No. 6,399,003 to Umezawa.
As to claims 8-9, 11 and 13-14, Chen discloses a thermoplastic polyurethane comprising 48 wt% of polyethylene glycol 2,000, 17 wt% of poly(1,4-butylene adipate), 28 wt% of diphenylmethane diisocyanate, and 7 wt% of 1,4-butanediol as a chain extender. Chen teaches properties of thermoplastic polyurethanes such as PDI that range from 1.6-2-4 and melt flow index values that range from 6,000-12,000 ps (0027). The properties of the material of Claim 8 would follow from the particular combination of starting materials, since adding/altering the amount of components with certain structural characteristics (for example the use of branched components to reduce crystallinity) is known in the art to have specific effects on properties of the final material. The weight average molecular weight/number average molecular weight (also referred to as the polydispersity index) is a property determined by the polymerization conditions used in the generation of the material (with known effects on processability of the material) and hence within the control of one skilled in the art. Thus, while some experimentation would have been required to the ratios of the input materials, the final properties of the material would have been predictable based upon the results from this experimentation and the desired outcome reasonably likely to be achieved by one skilled in the art.
Further, Yamashita teaches thermoplastic polyurethanes with PDI that range from 1.5 to 2.5 and teaches that controlling the molecular weight distribution to below 1.5 requires a special purification treatment. Accordingly, one of ordinary skill using the knowledge within the art would maintain the PDI within the claimed range based on routine experimentation and without the use of economically disadvantageous purification treatments taught in Yamashita (0171).
Chen does not expressly disclose the use of chain terminators. However, Yamashita teaches small amounts of chain terminators such as methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, and hexanol, or octadecanol (stearyl alcohol) may be added (0189).
At the time of filing it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to add the chain terminator taught in Yamashita to the process of Chen to further control the molecular weight of the polyurethane within the desired range based on final applications.
As to claim 10, Chen discloses the use of polytetramethylene ether glycol instead of polyethylene glycol (0023). With regards to the purity level, the mere purity of the reactant or the product prepared from that reactant, by itself, does not render the product nonobvious (See MEPP 2144.03 VII.)
As to claim 12, Chen in view of Yamashita disclose the addition of antioxidants of 0.0001 to 2.5 mass% of antioxidants such as Irganox 1076 or 1010 (0220).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-7 are allowable over the prior art of record.
Conclusion
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/MICHAEL L LEONARD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1763
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