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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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(s) 1-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chidate et al. (# US 2019/0249021) in view of Butler et al. (# US 2004/0123773) and Koganehira (# US 2006/0235108).
Chidate et al. discloses:
1. An ink jet ink composition (see Abstract) comprising:
a pigment (see Abstract; [0044]-[0057]);
a lactam having a 6- to 8-membered lactam ring (acetamide, ε-caprolactam, δ-valerolactam, γ-butyrolactam, pyrrolidone, 2,5-piperazine dione, laurolactam; [0083]);
a solvent component ([0111]-[0115]); and
a water-soluble urethane resin ([0092]-[0096]) dissolved in the solvent component ([0111]-[0115]),
wherein the pigment contains a self-dispersing pigment ([0049]-[0057]);
the content of the water-soluble urethane resin is 0.3% by mass or more relative to the total amount of the ink jet ink composition (1 to 20%; [0097]);
the solvent component contains water ([0109]-[0110]); and the ink jet ink composition is an aqueous ink (see Abstract).
2. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, wherein the content of the water-soluble urethane resin is 0.3% to 3.0% by mass relative to the total amount of the ink jet ink composition (1 to 20%; [0097]).
3. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, wherein the content of the lactam is 0.5% to 5.08 by mass relative to the total amount of the ink jet ink composition (see Examples).
4. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, further comprising an acetylene glycol-based surfactant ([0126]; [0147]).
5. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 4, wherein the HLB value of the acetylene glycol-based surfactant is 6 or less (6 or more; [0102]).
6. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 4, wherein the content of the acetylene glycol-based surfactant is 0.2% to 2.0% by mass relative to the total amount of the ink jet ink composition (0.1 to 1.5%; [0147]).
7. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, wherein the content of the self-dispersing pigment having a carboxyl group introduced therein is 3% to 12% by mass relative to the total amount of the ink jet ink composition (5% to 13%; [0056]).
9. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, further comprising betaine ([0115]).
10. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, wherein the ink jet ink composition is used for recording on an absorptive recording medium (textile; [0157]).
11. An ink jet recording method comprising: ejecting and adhering the ink jet ink composition according to claim 1 from an ink jet head to a recording medium ([0157]).
12. The ink jet recording method according to claim 11, wherein the ink jet head is a line head ([0026]; [0031]-[0033]).
Chidate et al. explicitly did not discloses:
1. A self-dispersing pigment having a carboxyl group introduced therein.
8. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, wherein the acid value of the water-soluble urethane resin is 40 to 80 mgKOH/g.
Butler et al. teaches that to have high quality printed image,
1. A self-dispersing pigment having a carboxyl group introduced therein ([0016]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to modify the ink composition of Chidate et al. by the aforementioned teaching of Butler et al. in order to have high performance, and high reliability the ink composition, which gives the high quality printed image.
Koganehira teaches that to have an ink composition with excellent storage stability,
8. The ink jet ink composition according to claim 1, wherein the acid value of the water-soluble urethane resin is 40 to 80 mgKOH/g (20 to 100; [0071]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to modify the ink composition of Chidate et al. by the aforementioned teaching of Koganehira in order to have the ink composition with excellent storage stability.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
(1) Yatake et al. (# US 2007/0263054) discloses a radiation-sensitive composition and negative-working imageable element includes a free radically polymerizable component, an initiator composition capable of generating radicals sufficient to initiate polymerization of the free radically polymerizable component upon exposure to imaging radiation, a radiation absorbing compound, and particles of a poly(urethane-acrylic) hybrid that are distributed throughout the composition forming an imageable layer in the element. Imaging can be accomplished at a wide range of wavelengths from about 150 to about 1500 nm, and development can be accomplished using an organic solvent-based developer, warm water, plate cleaner, or on-press using a combination of a lithographic printing ink and a fountain solution (see Abstract).
(2) Waki et al. (# US 2008/0108746) discloses an aqueous pigment dispersion for ink jet having a pigment dispersed, characterized by containing a water-soluble resin and a resin having a urethane bond and/or an amide bond (see Abstract).
(3) Koganehira et al. (# US 2009/0176071) discloses an ink composition with which images with high quality without white streaks or roughness can be provided even when the images are printed at a low resolution on coated printing paper such as art paper. The ink composition for ink jet recording at least includes a colorant, water, an alcohol solvent, and a surfactant, wherein the alcohol solvent contains a slightly water-soluble alkanediol, a water-soluble 1,2-alkanediol, and a dialkylene glycol (see Abstract).
(4) Fukui et al. (# US 2017/0158893) discloses an aqueous pigment composition contains a pigment, water, and an acrylic resin obtained by copolymerizing a silane coupling agent having an ethylenically unsaturated group and a polymerizable monomer having an amide group. Relative to a total amount of monomers used in copolymerization, the acrylic resin uses 0.05% by mass or more and not more than 2% by mass of the silane coupling agent having an ethylenically unsaturated group, and 0.5% by mass or more and not more than 5% by mass of the polymerizable monomer having an amide group (see Abstract).
(5) Sato et al. (# US 2020/0392359) discloses an ink jet ink composition including water and particles including a polymer having an anionic group, a photo-acid generator, and a sensitizer, wherein a value obtained by subtracting a photo-acid generator amount G being a number of millimoles of the photo-acid generator per 1 g of the particles from an anionic group value A being a number of millimoles of the anionic group per 1 g of the particles is −0.20 or more and 0.20 or less (see Abstract).
(6) Ohta et al. (# US 2019/0291471) discloses an ink jet recording method includes attaching ink by ejecting an ink composition from a head to attach to a recording region of a recording medium, and drying by heating the recording medium to which the ink composition is attached, in which the ink composition is a water-based ink composition including a resin and an amide compound represented by General Formula (1) as an organic solvent, and the drying dries the organic solvent in the recording region of the recording medium to be 2.0 mg/inch.sup.2 or less (see Abstract).
(7) Seguchi et al. (# US 2019/0292391) discloses an ink set includes a first ink and a second ink which are water-based ink compositions, in which each of the first ink and the second ink includes a pigment and resin including resin particles, the first ink includes a first pigment and the second ink includes a second pigment different from the first pigment, the first ink and the second ink are mixed with a 5% by mass water-based solution of magnesium sulfate heptahydrate to increase a volume average particle diameter of the ink and a difference in the volume average particle diameter for the inks in the inks after mixing is 40% or less, and the ink set is used for recording together with a treatment liquid including an aggregating agent for aggregating the components of the water-based ink compositions (see Abstract).
(8) Yatake et al. (# US 2021/0198503) discloses an ink jet ink composition containing polymer particles, a polymer constituting the polymer particles includes a polymer having a urethane group derived from one or more isocyanates selected from dicyclohexylmethane diisocyanate, isophorone diisocyanate, 1,3-bis(isocyanatemethyl)cyclohexane, m-bis(isocyanatepropyl)benzene, and m-bis(isocyanatemethyl)benzene and a structure derived from polytetramethylene glycol and having an acid value of 50 to 100 mgKOH/g (see Abstract).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MANISH S SHAH whose telephone number is (571)272-2152. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00am-4:00pm.
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MANISH S. SHAH
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2853
/Manish S Shah/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853
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