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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-4 and 7-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishizuka et al. (US PGP 2023/0086684) in view of Watanabe et al. (US PGP 2014/0322643).
Ishizuka teaches a toner comprising a binder resin that comprises a hybrid polyester-vinyl resin and a crystalline polyester resin. In embodiments, the crystalline polyester resin is taught to comprise a 1,6-hexanediol monomer (c1-1, Table 2) which reads on the Applicant’s limitation that the crystalline polyester resin comprises an aliphatic polyhydric alcohol with a carbon number of from 2 to 6. The amorphous resin is taught to comprise a polyester segment formed from a neopentyl glycol monomer which reads on the Applicant’s limitation of an aliphatic polyhydric alcohol with a carbon number of from 2 to 10. Furthermore, the difference in carbon numbers in the two polyhydric alcohol components is 3 (see Example 10, Table 3). The molecular weight of said amorphous resin (specifically a2-9) is taught to be 88,000 (Table 3 and [0066]). Additionally, the weight average molecular weight may be as low as 7,000 ([0063]). The molecular weight is measured using GPC-HPLC of a THF soluble component and therefore it is understood that 100% THF soluble components are envisioned by Ishizuka ([0066]). The amorphous hybrid resin is taught to include methacrylic acid ([0095-116]). Additionally, aliphatic diols in the amorphous polyester resin are taught to include ethylene glycol ([0089]) and aliphatic diols in the crystalline polyester resin are also taught to include ethylene glycol ([0125]). The toner may further be paired with a magnetic carrier to form a two-component developer ([0175-185]). Ishizuka does not teach a suitable melting point for the crystalline resin.
Watanabe teaches a toner comprising a crystalline polyester resin (Abstract). Additionally, Watanabe teaches that a crystalline polyester resin should have a melting point in the range of 50 to 100 °C in order to improve the heat-resistant storage stability, the storage stability of the toner image after fixing and the low-temperature fixing ability of the toner ([0083]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to any person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the instant application to have imparted the crystalline polyester resin of Ishizuka with a melting point within the range taught by Watanabe in order to perfect the properties associated therewith.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 5-6 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.
Conclusion
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/PETER L VAJDA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1737 06/08/2026
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