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 § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Koyama et al. (Macromol. Chem. Phys., 1997).
The claims are drawn to a method for producing a (meth)acrylamide by reacting a (meth)acrylic acid with a primary amine in the presence of a condensing agent.
Koyama et al. disclose a process, wherein methacrylamides monomers are produced from optically active amino alcohols. For example, the reference discloses a process wherein l-alaninol or l-leucinol (primary amines) are reacted with methacrylic acid in the presence of 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylamino-propyl) carbodiimide hydrochloride, i.e., EDC-HCl (condensing agent), to produce the corresponding methacrylamide. The reaction mixture is washed with water, aqueous sodium hydrogencarbonate solution, followed by aqueous citric acid and water (pages 3701-3702). The process(es) disclosed by Koyama et al. anticipate the instant claims.
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) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koyama et al. in view of Klee et al. (U.S. 2004/0266906).
The instant claim limits the primary amine used in the claimed method to a diamine compound. Koyama et al. do not teach the use of diamines in their process for making methacrylamide monomers. Klee et al., however, teach polymerizable acrylic acid amide monomers, wherein the preferred monomers are bis- and mono-acrylic acid amides. The bis-(meth)acrylic acid amide monomers are prepared by reacting a diamine with acrylic acid or its acid halide (examples).
In view of the combined reference teachings, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art that the primary amines used in the process taught by Koyama et al. may have been replaced with diamines, if such a person wanted to produce bis-(meth)acrylic acid amide monomers in stead of mono-(meth)acrylic acid amide monomers, that would produce stable polymers upon polymerization if used in the preparation of adhesives, as taught by Klee et al.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SIKARL A WITHERSPOON whose telephone number is (571)272-0649. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-9pm IFP.
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/SIKARL A WITHERSPOON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1692
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