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
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) 1-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moriyama (JP 2004-359965) and further in view of (a) Matsui (US 10,308,732) and/or Seno (US 2018/0319965) and (b) Journal of the Society of Materials Science (JSMC, of record) and
Moriyama is directed to a resin composition designed to provide a gas barrier property and including a modified ethylene vinyl alcohol resin having a primary hydroxy group structural unit at a side chain. More particularly, such a modified resin is obtained by copolymerizing 3,4-diacetoxy-1-butene, a vinyl ester based monomer, such as vinyl acetate, and ethylene in an analogous manner to the claimed invention. In such an instance, Moriyama fails to teach the inclusion of a conjugated diene.
It is initially noted that Moriyama does state that the resin composition can include common additives, including lubricants, plasticizers, fillers, antioxidants, and other resins. While Moriyama fails to specifically list conjugated dienes, such dienes are well recognized as being conventional additives that are commonly used as polymerization inhibitors with ethylene vinyl alcohol resins, as shown for example by Matsui (Column 11, Lines 39-58 and Column 12, Lines 40+) and/or Seno (Paragraphs 51 and 96). One of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to include a conjugated diene in the resin composition of Moriyama given the express disclosure by Moriyama to include conventional additives.
Lastly, regarding claim 1, Moriyama is silent with respect to the number of melting peaks in the resin composition.
JSMC is similarly directed to a composition designed to provide gas barrier property. More particularly, JSMC teaches a specific method in which vinyl acetate and 3,4-diacetoxy-1-butene are polymerized to form a vinyl alcohol and at least 5 melting peaks (see Figures). JSMC specifically states that the specific method results in improved air barrier properties and melt moldability. While JSMC does not include an ethylene compound, there is a reasonable expectation of success when polymerizing ethylene, vinyl acetate, and 3,4-diacetoxy-1-butene or polymerizing vinyl acetate and 3,4-diacetoxy-1-butene- there is absolutely nothing in JSMC that suggests the disclosed benefits would only be present when ethylene is excluded from the polymerization system. As such, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to carry out the method of JSMC when forming the modified ethylene vinyl alcohol resin of Moriyama and such would result in the presence of at least 5 peaks at all of the claimed analysis conditions, there being no conclusive showing of unexpected results for the claimed resin composition. It is particularly noted that the mere inclusion of at least 5 melting peaks does not unexpectedly result in certain benefits (Comparative Example 8, which includes 5 melting peaks and thus actually constitutes an inventive resin composition, has inferior thermal stability when compared with each of Comparative Examples 1-7 having less than 5 melting peaks).
Regarding claims 2 and 3, the claimed relationships appear to necessarily result when carrying out a method that results in at least 5 melting peaks.
With respect to claim 4, Matsui (Column 12, Lines 61+) and Seno (Paragraph 54 teach loadings in accordance to the claimed invention.
As to claims 5 and 6, Moriyama refers to single layer films and multiple layer films and further describes stretched films (see Pages 9 and 10 of the attached machine translation).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUSTIN R FISCHER whose telephone number is (571)272-1215. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 5:30-2:00.
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Justin Fischer
/JUSTIN R FISCHER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1749 August 14, 2026
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