DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/905,928. Claims 1-18 are pending in the application.
Claims 15-18 have been withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on January 21, 2026. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on February 18, 2026 and elected Group I, claims 1-14, without traverse. Accordingly, claims 15-18 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to non-elected inventions.
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 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by, or, alternatively, under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Choi et al (US 2022/0356343).
Choi et al teaches a conductive resin composition comprising 100 parts by weight of a base resin (par. 14). The base resin comprises polyarylene ether, aromatic elastomer and polyamide (par. 14, 36). The composition includes 3-12 parts by weight of two or more polyfunctional reaction agents (par. 14). The polyfunctional agent includes polyphenylene ether (a polyarylene ether) modified by maleic acid (par. 56-57). The composition includes 0.1-3 parts by weight of carbon nanotubes (par. 14). The composition further includes 0.5-8 parts by weight bisphenol A epoxy resin (par. 63). Bisphenol A epoxy is an aromatic phenol resin.
Regarding claim 2, the term “comprised as a masterbatch” is merely a definition of a masterbatch as comprising modified polyarylene ether and carbon nanotubes. The order of mixing the components into the composition is a product by process limitation. Since the prior art composition includes all of the required components, the product by process limitation is satisfied.
Regarding claims 3 and 4, the base resin contains 15-60 % by weight polyarylene ether (par. 40) and 1-30 % by weight aromatic elastomer (par. 49). In an example, the base resin contains 50 % by weight polyamide (Table 2). The aromatic elastomer includes styrene-based rubber (par. 48).
Claims 6-9, 11, 12: the amount of polyphenylene oxide functionalized with maleic acid is 1-10 parts per 100 parts base resin (par. 62). When the amount of polyphenylene oxide functionalized with maleic acid is 1 part per hundred base resin, the amount of maleic acid is necessarily less than 1 % by weight. The polyfunctional reaction agent comprises carboxyl group and epoxy group (par. 54).
The carbon nanotubes have a BET surface area of 180-600 m2/g (par. 71). The composition has a water absorption rate of 0.1 % (par. 17). The composition has a heat distortion temperature of 180 C or higher (par. 101).
Claim 10: Choi et al is silent with respect to the softening point of the aromatic phenol resin. However, Choi et al teaches the same aromatic phenol resin as the claimed invention. Therefore, it is reasonable that a person of ordinary skill in the art would expect the claimed softening point to naturally occur.
Claim 13: Choi et al is silent with respect to the volume resistance of the composition. However, Choi et al teaches the claimed conductive resin composition, including the conductive carbon nanotubes and amount thereof. Therefore, it is reasonable that a person of ordinary skill in the art would expect the claimed volume resistance to naturally arise.
Claim 14: Choi et al is silent with respect to the flow index of the composition. However, Choi et al teaches the claimed conductive resin composition, including all of the components and amounts thereof. Therefore, it is reasonable that a person of ordinary skill in the art would expect the claimed flow index to naturally arise.
In the event that the above disclosure is not sufficiently specific to anticipate the above listed claims, the examiner submits that the selection of the instantly claimed components and resultant properties would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art since Choi et al teaches a conductive resin composition comprising each of the claimed components within the claimed ranges.
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 March 25, 2026
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