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 § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-7, 9-12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita et al. (JP 2021-070239) in view of Anzai et al. (WO 2012/133667), Kito et al. (JP 2012-140615), and Hara (JP 2016-007737).
With respect to claims 1, 3-7, 9-12, and 14, Fujita et al. teach an image recording method comprising:
preparing a white ink (paragraph 0008) comprising a white pigment and a base ink having a hue that is different from that of the white ink;
forming a base layer by applying the base ink onto the substrate; and
forming a white ink layer by applying the white ink onto the surface of the base layer, in accordance with an ink-jet recording scheme.
The phrase “wherein a residual amount of a liquid component contained in the underlying layer is 0.1 g/m2 or less” is interpreted of including zero.
Anzai et al. teach a method for improving the wet spreadability of ink that is formed on an undercoat layer by imparting a surface energy of 20-50 mN/m (Anzai: paragraphs 0015 and 0023) to the undercoat layer, in an image recording method relying on an ink-jet recording scheme (Anzai: paragraph 0082). Kito et al. teach a method for reducing the repelling of ink for image formation and that is formed on a primer ink, in an image recording method relying on an ink-jet recording scheme, by setting the surface tension of the primer ink to be not lower than 25 mN/m (Kito: paragraph 0065). Hara teaches that the base ink that forms the base layer of the image recording method utilizes a black ink or color ink, as black inks and color inks ordinarily contain colorants other than white pigments (Hara: paragraphs 0049-0079).
A person skilled in the art would ordinarily consider, in a specific implementation of an image recording method using an ink-jet recording scheme, to adjust the surface energy of a base layer in the image recording method to or above an allowable value.
With respect to claim 2, Fujita et al. teach that the base ink that forms the base layer contains an aggregating agent. A person skilled in the art could decide as appropriate the specific value of the surface energy of the base layer that is to be set; therefore it would be obvious to a person skilled in the art to adjust the surface energy of the base layer and set the value of the surface energy of the base layer to be in the range from 45 mN/m to 85 mN/m (paragraphs 0079, 0080, 0161-0194).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 13 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/SONYA M SENGUPTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1745
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