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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of Group I in the reply filed on 4/3/26 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)).
Claims 12-20 have been withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 4/3/26.
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 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunyadi Murph et al. (US 2021/0380405) in light of O’Connell et al. (“Liquid Ink Deposition from an Atomic Force Microscope Tip: Deposition Monitoring and Control of Feature Size,” Langmuir 2014, 30, pp. 2712-21).
Claims 1, 4-8 and 11: Hunyadi Murph teaches a deposition system (Abst.), comprising: a first capillary having a first end and a second end and an inner diameter of 1500 µm or less (¶¶ 0036-0040; Fig. 1); a second capillary (¶¶ 0036-0040; Fig. 1); a first mixing region (¶¶ 0036-0040; Fig. 1); a first pump configured to pump fluid through the first capillary (¶¶ 0036-0040, 0050; Fig. 1); a second pump configured to pump fluid through the second capillary (¶¶ 0036-0040, 0050; Fig. 1); ad a print head comprising a suitable needle to deposit nano-scale material on a substrate (¶¶ 0070-0071, 0079).
While Hunyadi Murph teaches that any suitable needle or other similar structure can be attached to the print head to deposit the nano-scale material (¶ 0079), Hunyadi Murph does not expressly teach an atomic force microscope. O’Connell teaches that atomic force microscopes are suitable needle structures for printing fluids with sub-50 nm resolutions (Abst.; p. 2712). O’Connell explains that such an atomic force microscope utilizes a cantilever and an outlet with an opening diameter of less than 100 nm (p. 2713, Col. 1). The simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results is prima facie obvious. MPEP § 2143. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the time of filing to have utilized an atomic force microscope as the needle in communication with the mixing region in Hunyadi Murph with the predictable expectation of success.
Claims 2 and 3: O’Connell teaches that the AFM tip is made of silicon nitride (§ 2.4).
Claims 9 and 10: Hunyadi Murph further teaches that the print head and a print bed are moved relative to one another and that the system is controlled by a controller (¶¶ 0070-0073).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Robert A Vetere whose telephone number is (571)270-1864. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30-4:00 EST.
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/ROBERT A VETERE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1712
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