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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/17/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The specification is objected to as failing to provide proper antecedent basis for the claimed subject matter. See 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1) and MPEP § 608.01(o). Correction of the following is required:
The Claims mention: “a wet shrinkage”, a “CD direction”, a “tensile stiffness index MD/CD ratio” and a “length weighted mean fibre length”. The terms are mentioned in the Specification but not properly defined on it.
Claim Objections
The numbering of claims is not in accordance with 37 CFR 1.126 which requires the original numbering of the claims to be preserved throughout the prosecution. When new claims are presented, they must be numbered consecutively beginning with the number next following the highest numbered claims previously presented (whether entered or not).
Two consecutive claims are included with the numeral 6 as identifier. The second one will be considered misnumbered and will be renumbered as Claim 12.
Regarding Claim 8:
The claim is being considered a multiple dependent claim, but it is not written properly. It should read:
“A method of wrapping articles comprising providing a packaging material as claimed in any one of the preceding claims…”
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1 to 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding Claims 1 and 2:
The claims include the limitation “the CD direction” that is not defined in the claim or properly in the specification. For prosecution it will be considered that paper is made in the paper making machine on a “machine direction” that will be considered a “direction MD”, and that a “cross-machine direction”, perpendicular to the “machine direction” will be considered the “direction CD”.
The Claims also include the limitation “wet shrinkage” that is not defined in the claim or properly in the specification. For prosecution it will be considered the shrinkage of the paper when losing water while drying.
Regarding Claims 3 and 4:
The claims include the limitation “length weighted mean fibre length” that is not defined the claim or properly in the specification. For prosecution it will be considered the fibre length.
Regarding Claims 5 and 6:
The claims mention a “wet tensile strength” as a percentage of a “dry tensile strength”, but fail to mention the direction they are being measured. For prosecution it will be considered that they are measured on the “cross-machine direction”, perpendicular to the “machine direction” will be considered the “direction CD”.
Regarding Claims 7 and 12:
The claims include the limitation “tensile stiffness index MD/CD ratio” that is not defined the claim or properly in the specification. For prosecution it will be considered the quotient of the tensile stiffness in the MD and CD directions as defined.
Regarding Claim 11:
The claim includes the limitation “the packaging material is oriented in such a way that it preferentially shrinks around the articles in the material's CD direction”. The claim is confusing since the limitation “preferentially” creates ambiguity about whether that feature is essential or just an example, failing to clearly define the boundaries of the invention.
Regarding Claims 1 to 12:
Claim 1 reads “A packaging material comprising paper having a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of at least 3%”. As written the claim can be interpreted as the packaging material comprising a paper, the paper having a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of at least 3%. But Claim 2 reads “A packaging material as claimed in claim 1 having a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of at least 4.5%”; that means that the packaging material, not the paper, has the mentioned property.
The same problem repeats on the rest of the claims, it is unclear if the properties correspond to the packaging material or to the paper comprised by the packaging material. For prosecution it will be considered that the properties correspond to the paper.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1, 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Becher (US 2009/0301631).
Regarding Claim 1:
Becher discloses a packaging material comprising paper having a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of at least 3% (Paragraph 0015, wet elongation, measured transverse to the machine direction, of not greater than 3%, so 3% is included).
Regarding Claims 3 and 4:
Becher discloses a packaging material having a length weighted mean fibre length of at least 2mm (Paragraph 0019, the paper is made of long-fibre chemical pulp, such as softwood sulphate or softwood sulphite pulp, of a 3.0 – 3.7 mm typical range length, Attached Technical Note 191, United States Dept of Agriculture; Table 1 gives typical average fiber lengths for long fibre softwoods).
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:
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.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Becher (US 2009/0301631) in view of Drolet (US 2021/0102337).
Regarding Claim 2:
As discussed for Claim 1 above, Becher discloses the invention as claimed.
Becher does not disclose a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of at least 4.5%.
It would have been an obvious matter of design choice to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of at least 4.5% since a wet shrinkage of 3% would perform equally well.
Additionally; Drolet teaches a method of making a high stretch paper, citing prior art that involves adding a polymer, such as latex (Paragraph 0008) and reducing the restrain to the paper during drying to allow the paper to shrink under unrestrained conditions between 3 and 10% (Paragraph 004, this basically mean to allow for a wet shrinkage between 3 and 10%).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate to Becher the teachings of the prior art mentioned on Drolet and increase the stretch characteristics of the paper by adding a polymer and allowing for additional wet shrinkage to over 4% of the paper to increase the stretch characteristics of the paper.
Claims 5 to 10 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Becher (US 2009/0301631) in view of Theisen (US 2004/0091585).
Regarding Claims 5 to 7 and 12:
As discussed for Claim 1 above, Becher discloses the invention as claimed.
Becher does not disclose relationships between the wet tensile strength and the dry tensile strength of the material or any particular tensile stiffness index MD/CD ratio.
Theisen teaches a treated paper product including a barrier to be used in combination with food products including bacon, ice cream cones, cheese, meat, and quick service food items (Paragraph 001), to be used on dry or wet environment as a food wrap (Paragraph 0013); the paper product has a wet tensile strength CD on a range of 2 to 5 lb./in and a dry tensile strength CD on the range of 12 to 14 lb./in (Table 4), making the wet tensile strength CD above 15% of the dry tensile strength CD and a tensile stiffness index MD/CD over 2.5 (Table 4, Stiffness Taber CD on the range of 0.1 to 1.0 and Stiffness Taber MD on the range of 0.4 to 1.5, that can make indexes of over 2.5, about 4 at the lower end).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate to Becher the teachings of Theisen and make the packaging material coated and having a wet tensile strength CD above 15% of the dry tensile strength CD and a tensile stiffness index MD/CD over 2.5 to be used as wrapping for a food product under wet or dry conditions.
Claims 8 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Becher (US 2009/0301631).
Regarding Claims 8 and 11.
Due to clarity issues with claim 8, claim 8 is understood to depend from claim 1. Becher discloses a method of wrapping articles comprising providing a packaging material , wetting the packaging material, wrapping said articles with said wetted packaging material, and drying the packaging material such that it shrinks to tightly bind the wrapped articles; Becher, as disclosed for Claims 1, 3 and 4 and the modified inventions of Becher of Claims 2 and 4 to 7 and 12, teach using a packaging material having a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of 3%, or 4.5 %, the material is to be used for “wet labeling” of containers (Paragraphs 002, 003, 0011) the material is applied an adhesive of high water content so that in subsequent press-on steps and drying steps it no longer slips or falls from the bottle (Paragraph 11); the paper of the present invention conforms to the bottle that is to be labelled when applied to the bottle (Paragraph 0066).
The material of Becher has a wet shrinkage in the CD direction of 3% but of not greater than 0% in the machine direction (Abstract), so it will preferentially shrink in the CD direction.
Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Becher (US 2009/0301631) in view of Battista (US 2738060).
Regarding Claim 10:
As discussed for Claim 8 above, Becher, or the modified inventions of Becher disclose the invention as claimed.
Becher mentions a drying step but does not specifically mention the packaging material is dried by the application of heat or blowing heated air over the packaging.
Battista teaches drying a wet packaging stretch material by exposure to the action of warm air circulated around the packages (Column 1, lines 22 to 24).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate to Becher the teachings of Battista and get the packaging material dried by blowing heated air over the packaging.
Regarding Claim 9:
As discussed for Claim 8 above, Becher, or the modified inventions of Becher disclose the invention as claimed.
Becher mentions a drying step but does not specifically mention the packaging material is dried by blowing unheated air over the packaging.
Battista teaches drying a wet packaging stretch material by exposure to the action of warm air circulated around the packages (Column 1, lines 22 to 24).
It would have been an obvious matter of design choice to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have the packaging material dried by blowing unheated air over the packaging since blowing heated air over the packaging would get them dried just as well.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. In particular Doege (US 2017/0050294) and Yoshida (JP H0657686) teach packaging material with relevant paper materials, same as Gupta (9273417).
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/EDUARDO R FERRERO/Examiner, Art Unit 3731
/SHELLEY M SELF/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3731