DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/710,606. Claims 1-16 are pending in the application.
Claims 13-16 have been withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on April 24, 2026. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on June 23, 2026 and elected Group I, claims 1-12, without traverse. Accordingly, claims 13-16 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to non-elected inventions.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because it contains two sentences. A claim must contain one sentence with a period at the end. Correction is required.
Claim 1 is objected to because the figure “106” appears to be a typographical error. The specification shows the figure to be 10--6. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC §§ 102 and 103
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Kim et al (US 2022/0238886).
Kim et al teaches a dispersion liquid comprising a conductive agent and carboxymethyl cellulose dispersant (par. 60). The conductive agent is single-walled carbon nanotubes (par. 46-47). The carbon nanotubes are not required to contain impurities. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use carbon nanotubes free from impurities. The carboxymethyl cellulose has a degree of substitution of 0.1 to 3 (par. 62) and a weight average molecular weight of 50,000 to 150,000 (par. 61). A corresponding value according to formula 1 is 1/100,000*106, which equals 10.
The carbon nanotubes have a BET surface area of 500-1000 m2/g (par. 53). The carbon nanotubes have an average length of 1-100 µm (par. 52). The claimed ranges of D50 and D10 substantially overlap the prior art size range and so the claimed ranges are obvious over the prior art range.
The amount of carbon nanotubes in the dispersion is 0.1-1 wt % (par. 73). The dispersion medium includes water (par. 74). Kim et al further teaches a method of preparing the dispersion which includes mixing and dispersing the ingredients (par. 68).
Regarding claim 10, Kim et al does not teach the viscosity of the dispersion. However, the teaching of Kim et al has rendered obvious the instantly claimed ingredients including the carbon nanotubes, the cellulose dispersant and the aqueous solvent, and the amounts thereof in the dispersion. Therefore, it is reasonable that a person of ordinary skill in the art would expect the claimed viscosity to naturally arise.
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 July 13, 2026
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