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 .
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: the “related Applications” section should be update in the response to this office action.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-2 and 4-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Applicants’ Admission of Prior Art, (hereinafter AAPA).
With regard to claims 1-2 and 4-6, Table 12 of the current application compares similar made retail towels with the product of example 1 and shows that the Bounty Paper Towels that are 2-ply product made by the TAD process (this is shown on Table 12), i.e., a wet-laid structured process (reading on claim 4) and made using 100% cellulosic fibers of the wood type1 (reading on claims 5 and 6). Bounty towels 4th and 3rd from the bottom (hereinafter Bounty4th and Bounty3rd respectively) having properties that falls within the range of the above claims, see table below:
Product
Valley Volume Parameter (Svo) (µm)
Pit Density (Pockets/cm2)
Absorbency
(g/g)
Bounty4th
16.99
21.25
25.2
Bounty3rd
17.47
24.62
18.3
As it can be seen the Bounty towels have Svo between 18-25 µm, Pit Density between 16-25 Pockets/cm2 and absorbency greater than 16 g/g.
It seems that the Bounty products have all the limitations of the above claims or at the very least the minor modification(s) to obtain the claimed invention would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art does not teach nor fairly suggest a paper towel having the claimed properties, i.e., the Valley Volume Parameter and Pit density for a towel having the basis weight of less of 43 g/m2 of claim 3. See also Interview Summary and applicants' arguments filed on May 14 and 24, 2021 respectively, presented in the parent case 16/798,606 and applicants arguments filed on December 17, 2021 in the related application 16/798,625.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure in the art of “Absorbent Structures with High Absorbency and Low Basis Weight.”
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSE A FORTUNA whose telephone number is (571)272-1188. The examiner can normally be reached MONDAY- FRIDAY 11:30 PM- 9:00 PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Abbas Rashid can be reached at 571-270-7457. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOSE A FORTUNA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1748
JAF
1 See for example page 6, lines 48-52 and Table 1 of EP 0095917 B1, which discloses:
The physical properties of the abaca web were compared with a typical commercially available disposable towel sheet (BOUNTY from The Procter & Gamble Company). This commercial towel is a wet laid web of wood pulp fibers, reinforced with a water soluble polyacrylamide wet strength additive (Parez 631 NC resin from American Cyanamid Company). The physical properties of the abaca web and the BOUNTY towel are compared in the table below (Table not shown here)