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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of group I in the reply filed on 2/20/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 13-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected groups, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 02/20/2026.
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 Osada et al. (US 2007/0026223) in view of Matsuo et al. (WO 2020-121913) (See US 2021/0405439 for citations).
Regarding claims 1-2, Osada discloses laminated film (abstract) comprising two or more different types of thermoplastic resin layers (0054) wherein Osada discloses each layer preferably comprises different types of polyester (0072).
Osada does not disclose the laminated film having a lowest value of a ratio of an interface layer thickness to a film thickness as presently claimed.
Matsuo discloses laminated film (0040) comprising two or more different types of thermoplastic resin layers (0040) wherein polyesters are particularly preferred from the viewpoint of strength, heat resistance and transparency (0041), wherein specific examples of polyester resins are a copolymer of polyethylene terephthalate copolymerized with 10 mol% of isophthalic acid (0088) and a copolymer of polyethylene terephthalate copolymerized with 33 mol% of cyclohexane dimethanol (0092).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the specific polyesters of Matsuo in each polyethylene terephthalate based layers of Osada to obtain desired strength, heat resistance and transparency. Given that Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the same composition for each layer in laminated film as in the present invention, it is clear that the laminated film of Osada in view of Matsuo would intrinsically have the same lowest value of a ratio of an interface layer thickness to a film thickness as claimed in present claim.
Regarding claim 3, Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the laminated film of claim 1, wherein the laminated film is formed of three different types of thermoplastic resin layers (0054).
Regarding claims 4 and 9, Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the laminated film of claim 3, wherein when the three different types of thermoplastic resin layers are a layer A, a layer B, and a layer c in this order from an outermost layer, the laminated film has a structure of A(BCBA)n, i.e. a repeating unit in which the layer A, the layer B, the layer C and the layer B are arrange in this order, (0054).
Regarding claim 5, Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the laminated film of claim 1, wherein Osada in view of Matsuo discloses a thermoplastic resin as a main component of the layer A is a thermoplastic resin A and a thermoplastic resin as a main component of the layer C is a thermoplastic resin C and a layer can be prepared with blend of two resins, i.e. layer B, (0047). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the blend of resins used in layer A and C in the layer B as taught by Osada.
Regarding claims 6-8 and 12, Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the laminated film of claim 1, wherein Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the same composition for each layer in laminated film, it is clear that the laminated film of Osada in view of Matsuo would intrinsically have the same properties as claimed in present claims.
Regarding claim 10, Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the laminated film of claim 1, wherein Osada discloses laminated film includes 50 or more layers with two or more different types of thermoplastic resin layers (abstract).
Regarding claim 11, Osada in view of Matsuo discloses the laminated film of claim 1, wherein the thickness of each layer is less than 30 nm (abstract) and therefore when outermost layer has a thickness of 30 nm and thickness of the same thermoplastic resin layer excluding of the outermost layer is 1 nm, it meets the present claim.
Claim(s) 1-2, 6, 8 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuo et al. (WO 2020-121913) (See US 2021/0405439 for citations).
Regarding claims 1-2, 6, 8 and 12, Matsuo discloses laminated film (0040) comprising two or more different types of thermoplastic resin layers (0040-0041) wherein polyesters are particularly preferred from the viewpoint of strength, heat resistance and transparency (0041), wherein specific examples of polyester resins are a copolymer of polyethylene terephthalate copolymerized with 10 mol% of isophthalic acid (0088) and a copolymer of polyethylene terephthalate copolymerized with 33 mol% of cyclohexane dimethanol (0092).
In light of the overlap between the claimed laminated film and the laminated film disclosed by Matsuo, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a laminated film that is both disclosed by Matsuo and encompassed within the scope of the present claims, and thereby arrive at the claimed invention. Given that Matsuo discloses the same composition for each layer in laminated film as in the present invention, it is clear that the laminated film of Matsuo would inherently have the same lowest value of a ratio of an interface layer thickness to a film thickness as claimed in present claim.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAMIR SHAH whose telephone number is (571)270-1143. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00am - 5:00pm.
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/SAMIR SHAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1787
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