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 Claims 1-11 in the reply filed on 02/27/2026 is acknowledged. Claim 12 is withdrawn as non-elected invention.
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.
Claims 1-3 and 6-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koichi et al. (JP 2007151805 A).
Claim 1: Koichi teaches a metal porous thin plate 21 produced by forming a slurry containing metal powder into a sheet shape, wherein the metal porous thin plate has a porosity of 40-97% (Fig. 1a, Fig. 1b and page 3, lines 16-23). Koichi teaches a process comprising steps of decomposing, degreasing and/or sintering in order to obtain the metal porous thin plate 21 (page 11, lines 11-17). Koichi does not expressly teach the metal porous thin plate 21 contains components other than the metal porous body. It is also interpreted that the process of decomposing, degreasing and/or sintering removes all components except the metal porous body; thus, the metal porous thin plate without the other components in the slurry would be obtained as the final product.
Claim 2: Koichi teaches the particle size of the metal powder is 0.5-50 µm (page 5, lines 21).
Claim 3: Koichi teaches the metal porous thin plate has a porosity of 40-97% (page 3, line 21).
Claim 6: Koichi teaches a process comprising steps of decomposing, degreasing and/or sintering in order to obtain the metal porous thin plate 21 (page 11, lines 11-17). Koichi does not expressly teach the metal porous thin plate 21 contains components other than the metal porous body. It is also interpreted that the process of decomposing, degreasing and/or sintering removes all components except the metal porous body; thus, the metal porous thin plate without the other components in the slurry would be obtained as the final product.
Claim 7: Koichi teaches does not expressly teach that the metal porous thin plate 21 includes a metal foil.
Claim 8: The claimed “for an interfacial bonding material” is an intended use; and it has been held that a recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed article is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed article from a prior art article satisfying the claimed structural limitations. Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647 (1987).
Claim 9: The claimed “for a thermal interface material” is an intended use; and it has been held that a recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed article is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed article from a prior art article satisfying the claimed structural limitations. Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647 (1987).
Claim 10: Koichi teaches the metal porous thin plate 21 (32) is joined to a medical device body 31 (Fig. 2 and page 8, lines 12-14). The medical device body 31 meets the claimed carrier substrate).
Claim 11: Koichi teaches the metal porous thin plate 21 (32) is bonded to a part of the surface of the medical device body 31 depending on the purpose (page 9, lines 26-27), but does not teach applying the metal porous thin plate 21 (32) in a pattern form. However, it would have been an obvious matter of design choice to apply the metal porous thin plate in a pattern form, since applicant has not disclosed that the pattern form solves any stated problem or is for any particular purpose and it appears that the invention would perform equally well with non-pattern form.
Claims 4 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koichi et al. (JP 2007151805 A) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Joo (US 2008/0118385 A1).
Koichi teaches the claimed invention as set forth above.
Claim 4: Koichi does not teach silver as the metal material. However, Joo teaches a porous metal made of silver, titanium or stainless steel [0020]. Joo shows that silver is an equivalent material known in the porous metal art. Therefore, because titanium, stainless steel and silver were art-recognized equivalents before the effective filing date of the invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to substitute silver for titanium or stainless steel.
Claim 5: With respect to the mass per unit area, the experimental modification of this prior art in order to ascertain optimum operating conditions fails to render applicants’ claims patentable in the absence of unexpected results. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to adjust the mass per unit area of the porous metal, and the motivation would be to control density and porosity of the porous metal. A prima facie case of obviousness may be rebutted, however, where the results of the optimizing variable, which is known to be result-effective, are unexpectedly good. In re Boesch and Slaney, 205 USPQ 215.
Correspondence
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BS
March 16, 2026
/BETELHEM SHEWAREGED/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1785
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