DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/702,728. Claims 1, 2, 5-8, 11-16 are pending in the application. Claims 2, 5, 11-14 and 16 have been withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
The applicant’s amendment filed January 26, 2026 has been entered.
The previous grounds of rejection are withdrawn in light of the applicant’s amendment.
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 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 1, 6-8, 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Mizowaki (JP 2018-009079, m.t., included in the applicant’s IDS) in view of Hino et al (JP 2010-144150, m.t., included in the IDS) and Yamazaki (US 4,696,764).
Mizowaki teaches a conductive adhesive composition comprising metal powder, binder resin and organic acid (par. 8, 60). The metal powder includes tin (par. 10). The metal powder is spherical (par. 10). The binder resin includes bisphenol epoxy resin (par. 11, 21). In an example, the amount of tin powder is 88 % and the amount of binder is 12 % by weight (par. 32). The binder includes 32 % epoxy and 9 % organic acid (Table 1). The resulting amount of tin powder is 88/92.9 = 94.7 % by weight of the total of tin, epoxy and organic acid. The composition is used for forming circuit connections (par. 60).
Mizowaki does not teach the size of the metal powder.
However, Hino et al teaches a conductive resin composition comprising solder particles including tin (par. 41). In an example, the solder particles have an average size of 15 µm (par. 63). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need for a powder size to combine the particle size of Hino et al with the composition of Mizowaki in order to obtain a tin powder size known to be suitable for a conductive adhesive composition.
Mizowaki does not teach a solvent.
However, Yamazaki teaches conductive adhesive comprising a solvent (col. 8, lines 39-45). The solvent includes benzyl alcohol (col. 8, line 44). The solvent dries at a temperature below the curing temperature of the resin (col. 8, lines 39-45). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine the solvent of Yamazaki with the composition of Mizowaki in view of Hino et al in order to include a known suitable component of a conductive adhesive which dries below the curing temperature of the resin.
Regarding claim 6, Mizowaki does not teach a conductive ink containing the conductive adhesive composition.
However, Yamazaki teaches conductive adhesive composition contained in an ink (abstract). The ink is a printing ink (abstract).
Mizowaki suggests printing the conductive adhesive composition (par. 18). Yamazaki teaches a printing ink containing a conductive adhesive (abstract). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the printing ink of Yamazaki with the composition of Mizowaki in view of Hino et al in order to obtain a printable conductive adhesive.
Response to Arguments
The previous grounds of rejection are withdrawn in light of the applicant’s amendment. New grounds of rejection are presented above.
Examiner’s Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to William Young whose telephone number is (571) 270-5078. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Angela Brown-Pettigrew, can be reached at 571-272-2817. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000./WILLIAM D YOUNG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1761 March 17, 2026
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