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 .
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.
Claim Objections
Applicant is advised that should claim 5 be found allowable, claim 19 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m). In this case, the claims are identical since the structure of formula (V) in claim 19 is the only possible structure for straight chain C5 to C8 alkynes.
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 1-10, 12, and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nishiyama et al. (WO 2021/193651) in view of Hagen et al. (US 2020/0208257).
Note: since WO 2021/193651 is not published in the English language, citations in this action refer to US 2023/0110364 (the printed US national stage application resulting from WO 2021/193651).
Nishiyama is directed to coating of a plastic bottle using atmospheric pressure plasma CVD (paragraph 0001). The plasma may be generated using a microwave device (paragraph 0016). The power used is preferably 5 to 30 W/cm3 (paragraph 0074). The method comprises generating a plasma of a raw material gas and a carrier gas followed by ejecting the gas towards the substrate (paragraphs 0101-0106). The substrate may be a polyolefin, such as polyethylene or polypropylene (paragraph 0107). The bottle may be used to hold a beverage (paragraph 0109). The raw material gas may be a hydrocarbon, such as acetylene, ethylene, or combinations thereof (paragraphs 0116).
Nishiyama does not teach the use of a C5 to C8 alkyne as the hydrocarbon.
Hagen is directed to forming coating layers by plasma enhanced CVD (paragraph 0001). The reaction gas may be a alkyne, such as ethyne (i.e., acetylene), pentyne, hexyne, heptyne, or octyne (paragraph 0030).
Hagen shows that acetylene, pentyne, hexyne, heptyne, and octyne are known in the art as functionally equivalent gases for forming coating films by plasma enhanced CVD. Therefore, because these gases were art-recognized equivalents at the time the invention was made, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to substitute pentyne, hexyne, heptyne, or octyne for the acetylene taught by Nishiyama.
Regarding claims 2 and 16, the limitations of this claim are met since the claim, while further limiting the lactam of claim 1, does not require the fluorine-free compound to be a lactam.
Regarding claims 3 and 17, the limitations of this claim are met since the claim, while further limiting the lactone of claim 1, does not require the fluorine-free compound to be a lactone.
Regarding claims 4 and 18, the limitations of this claim are met since the claim, while further limiting the polyvinylpyrrolidone of claim 1, does not require the fluorine-free compound to be a polyvinylpyrrolidone.
Regarding claims 5 and 19, in the absence of a showing of criticality or unexpected results, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use any pentyne, hexyne, heptyne, and octyne, including straight chain molecules.
The limitations of claims 7 and 20 are met since the raw material gas of Nishiyama may be a single compound.
Regarding claim 9, in the absence of a showing of criticality or unexpected results, it would have required no more than ordinary skill and routine experimentation to arrive at a suitable mixture of raw material gases.
Regarding claim 10, one of ordinary skill in the art would expect the monolayer binding capacity of a coating to be a function of the material and method by which the coating is formed. Since Nishiyama taken in view of Hagen teach the same materials and coating method, one of ordinary skill in the art would expect the resulting coating to intrinsically satisfy the limitations of claim 10.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11, 13, and 14 are 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 invention of claim 11 is directed to the coated polyolefin substrate of claim 1 wherein a layer comprising a reaction product of acetylene is present between the substrate's surface and the coating comprising the reaction product of the fluorine-free compound.
The inventions of claims 13 and 14 are directed to methods for applying the fluorine-free compound of claim 1 onto a polyolefin substrate wherein the plasma is generated at a pressure of less than 0.1 mbar and the power density is in the range of 0.01 to 1 W/cm3.
Nishiyama and Hagen represent the closest prior art. However, neither reference - individually or taken together - teach of fairly suggest a coated polyolefin substrate as recited in claim 1 which further comprises a layer comprising a reaction product of acetylene between the surface of the substrate and the plasma CVD coating. Moreover, neither reference teaches or fairly suggests depositing a coating formed from depositing a fluorine-free compound of claim 1 on a polyolefin substrate using plasma CVD wherein the plasma is generated at a process of less than 0.1 mbar and a power density of 0.01 to 1 W/cm3.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAMSEY E ZACHARIA whose telephone number is (571)272-1518. The best time to reach the examiner is weekday mornings, Eastern time.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Callie Shosho, can be reached on 571 272-1123. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RAMSEY ZACHARIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1787
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