DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-13 in the reply filed on 3/13/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 14-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected articles, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 3/13/2026.
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, 5-8, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horio et al. (US 20060134426) in view of Klun et al. (US 8981151).
Horio discloses an optical laminate. Concerning claim 1, Horio discloses the optical laminate comprises a substrate and a hard coat is formed from a composition that includes a photoinitiator, an acrylate-based compound that is a urethane acrylate (para. 0035-0039), an ethylene glycol (meth)acrylate having a molecular weight from 200 to not more than 10000 g/mol which is considered to be equivalent to the claimed polyester acrylate reactive diluent (para. 0026-0029). However, Horio is silent to the claimed perfluoropolyether fluorine-based compound. With respect to claim 5, the hard coat is irradiated to cure the coating and contains a photoinitiator and can include the claimed classes of photoinitatiors (Examples, Irgacure® 184; para. 0064). Regarding claim 7, the hard coat composition can further include 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate which allows for introducing some level of flexibility (para. 0030-0034 and 0062).
Concerning claim 8, while it is noted that butyl methacrylate is listed as an ionizing resin, the resins of the hard coat are also listed as ionizing resins as shown in the Examples, wherein it is noted that butyl methacrylate is a monofunctional resin which allows for flexibility (para. 0060 and 0062). As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a butyl methacrylate as part of the hard coat compositions in order to allow for some level of flexibility. With respect to claim 13, the thickness of the hard coat is from 0.1 to 100 microns (para. 0025). However, Horio is silent to the claimed perfluoropolyether fluorine-based compound.
Klun discloses perfluoropolyether compounds used in acrylate-based hard coats, wherein such compounds improve durability of hard coats (cols. 1-16). As such, in the interest of improving at least the durability of the hard coat, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added the perfluoropolyether compound of Klun into the hard coat composition of Horio.
Claims 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horio et al. (US 20060134426) in view of Klun et al. (US 8981151) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Decker et al. (Progress in Organic Coatings) and CIBA Tinuvin® P Datasheet.
The prior art discloses the above but is silent to the claimed UV absorbers.
Decker discloses adding UV absorbers such as those classes claimed in claim 3 for improving light-fastness and prevent yellowing (Decker; pp. 85-87), wherein Tinuvin® P specifically provides high degrees of photostability over long periods of time (CIBA Datasheet). As such, for the above reasons, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add a UV absorber to the hard coat of Horio.
Claims 9-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horio et al. (US 20060134426) in view of Klun et al. (US 8981151) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Yamamoto et al. (WO 2022/004785) and Liu et al. (Applied Materials & Interfaces). US 20240027652 is the PG-Pub of the National Stage Application and used as the translation. See MPEP 1893.01(d).
Horio discloses the above, including apply a low refractive index layer having hollow particles of a diameter of 5 to 300 nm and addition an anti-fouling layer to the low refractive index layer, wherein the anti-fouling layer contains a fluorocompound (para. 0087-0101). However, the prior art is silent to the claimed refractive indices and high refractive index layer.
Yamamoto discloses a hard coating disposed on a substrate with a high refractive index layer having the claimed refractive index (para. 0203-0205) wherein such materials include zirconia and titanium dioxide nanoparticles that can be dispersed in a matrix as shown by Liu (Liu; entire disclosure). The low refractive index layer has a refractive index of 1.20 to 1.49 wherein the materials of Yamamoto are the same as that disclosed in Horio (Yamamoto; para. 0160-0169). The addition of the high index layer allows for enhancing the antireflection ability of the coating structure (para. 0203). As such, for producing and also enhancing the AR effect, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to have the claimed refractive index for each layer and also add the high refractive index layer as claimed into the coating structure of Horio.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 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 prior art is silent to the claimed combination of elements and materials thereof.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PRASHANT J KHATRI whose telephone number is (571)270-3470. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10AM-6:30PM.
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PRASHANT J. KHATRI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1783
/PRASHANT J KHATRI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1783
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