DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/978,623. Claims 55, 58-62, 64-71, 75-78, 80, 84, 85, 89, 91-93 are pending in the application. Claims 58-62 and 64-69 have been withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions.
The applicant’s amendment filed October 28, 2025 has been entered.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on July 28, 2025. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on October 28, 2025 and elected Group VI, claim 93 plus linking claims, without traverse.
Accordingly, claims 58-62 and 64-69 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to non-elected inventions.
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 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 55, 70, 71, 75-78, 80, 84, 85, 89, 91-93 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Sperry (US 3,409,129) in view of Iftime et al (US 2012/0235074) and Loccufier et al (US 2016/0200923).
Sperry teaches a plastic bottle having a film attached to the surface (col. 4, lines 15-20). The film contains a magnetic ink (col. 4, lines 30-45; Fig. 5). The magnetic ink is ferromagnetic as that term is described in the instant specification. The film is used as a label for a pharmaceutical container (col. 1, lines 32-40).
Sperry does not teach the composition of the magnetic ink.
However, Iftime et al teaches a magnetic ink comprising magnetic particles and polymer resins (par. 9, 74). The ink is used to print magnetic characters on a substrate (par. 4). The magnetic particles are ferromagnetic (par. 61). The magnetic particles include an alloy of iron and cobalt (par. 64). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the ink composition of Iftime et al with the magnetic ink of Sperry in view of Loccufier et al in order to obtain an ink useful for printing magnetic characters on a substrate or film.
Sperry does not teach the migration rate of the ink.
However, Loccufier et al teaches a printing ink which is a food or pharmaceutical contact substance and which has a migration rate of less than 10 µg/6 dm2 to comply with the majority of government regulations (par. 6, 196). 10 µg/6 dm2 is equivalent to about 0.0017 mg/dm2. Since the ink of Sperry is used for pharmaceutical packaging and Loccufier et al teaches a migration rate for pharmaceutical packaging, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the migration rate of Loccufier et al with the ink of Sperry in view of Iftime et al in order to comply with government safety regulations.
Regarding claims 70 and 71, the amount of ink applied to the label on the bottle and the size of the bottle would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art in view of the references. The references teach the same ink composition and the same use as the invention. The optimum amount of ink and optimum bottle size would have been determined by routine experimentation. Furthermore, the claimed amount of ink and bottle size are well known in the art (see Shafe et al, col. 4, lines 48-54). MPEP 2144.05(II).
Regarding claim 80, Iftime et al teaches that the resins include acrylic resin (par. 74).
Regarding claims 84, 85, 89, Iftime et al teaches an amount of magnetic particles of 0.5-30 wt % and an amount of resin of 0.1-10 wt % (par. 68, 77). The resulting weight ratio of magnetic material to resin includes 30/10 or 3/1. The ink is temporarily magnetized by an applied magnetic field (par. 62).
Regarding claim 91, Sperry teaches that the ink comprises at least one layer (col. 4, lines 30-45).
Regarding claim 93, Iftime et al teaches that the ink further comprises a colorant (par. 9).
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 January 6, 2026
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