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 Status
Claims 1-7 are canceled
Pending claims 8-14 are addressed below.
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 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.
Claims 8-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chou (US 20210276034) in view of Florczyk (US20220152272).
Regarding claim 8, Chou discloses an aerosol-generating article (aperture plate in fig. 3, vibrator and solution; see par. 20; see claim 9 of Chou), comprising:
an atomiser (all the components cited below) configured to atomise a liquid aerosol-forming substrate to generate an aerosol, the atomiser comprising:
a piezoelectric component (vibrator and aperture plate) comprising:
an actuator (vibrator); and
a porous element (substrate A, par. 12; see figs. 1-2),
wherein the actuator is arranged to vibrate the porous element to generate an aerosol (see claim 9: “An aerosol generator comprising an aperture plate of claim 1 and a vibrator, wherein the vibrator drives the aperture plate vibrate at a frequency of 103 to 160 kilohertz (kHz) to generate droplets.”), and
Chou is silent regarding the porous element is a freeze-cast porous element.
Florczyk discloses porous thin films having average pore sizes in various range, including 10 μm to 100 μm, from 20 μm to 100 μm, or from 20 μm to 60 μm (par. 5, aperture diameters in the range from 1-20 align with the disclosed size taught by Chou’s par. 15). More specifically, Florczyk discloses the thin film is made by freeze casting (par. 9; see claim 11 of Florczyk; see claim 11 of Florczyk), wherein the thin film is polymer (which aligns with polymer material forming the substrate material taught by Chou’s par. 5; see Florczyk’s par. 84: “freeze cast polymeric thin film”, and par. 86;) that is made can be highly porous and pore structure fairly homogenous. Paragraph 124 of Florczyk indicates “Freeze casting is a commonly used method … It is flexible to aqueous materials and enables control of pore size and stiffness through altering the freezing temperature and solution concentration”. Although Florczyk’s disclosure is for making biomaterial scaffolds, the freeze casting method of thin porous element with similar pore sizes and advantages are directly relevant to the porous element of Chou and the pending application. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have had the technological capabilities to assess the freeze casting method to form the porous element for aerosol generation as the polymer structure and pore size ranges applicable to aerosol generation. No inventive effort would have been required.
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Chou to incorporate the teachings of Florczyk to provide the porous element (substrate A of Chou) that is a freeze-cast porous element. Doing so would yield the predictable result of facilitating control of pore size and stiffness through altering the freezing temperature and solution concentration (See Paragraph 124).
Regarding claim 9, Chou, as modified above, discloses the aerosol-generating article according to claim 8, wherein Chou further discloses the piezoelectric component further comprises a non-porous element (intermediate layer B or protective layer C or portion 11 shown in fig. 3 that does not have the apertures) attached to the porous element (see figs. 1-3 of Chou).
Regarding claim 10, Chou, as modified above, discloses the aerosol-generating article according to claim 8, wherein Chou further discloses the porous element comprises pores that have a diameter of less than or equal to 30 micrometres (par. 15: “a plurality of apertures with diameter ranging from 1 μm to 20 μm”).
Regarding claim 11, Chou, as modified above, discloses the aerosol-generating article according to claim 10, wherein Chou further discloses the porous element comprises pores that have a diameter of at least 10 micrometres (par. 15: “a plurality of apertures with diameter ranging from 1 μm to 20 μm”, 10-20 um values meet the limitations of the claim).
Regarding claim 12, Chou, as modified above, discloses the aerosol-generating article according to claim 8, wherein Chou further discloses the porous element comprises a metal coating (see Chou’s par. 13-14: “The protective layer C, coated on the substrate A, is made by metal, …, palladium nickel alloy”; or “at least one intermediate layer B, which is made by metal or alloy, such as nickel, nickel-palladium, nickel-phosphorus or their combination”).
Regarding claim 13, Chou, as modified above, discloses the aerosol-generating article according to claim 12, wherein the porous element further comprises a nickel coating (see Chou’s par. 13-14: “The protective layer C, coated on the substrate A, is made by metal, …, palladium nickel alloy”; or “at least one intermediate layer B, which is made by metal or alloy, such as nickel, nickel-palladium, nickel-phosphorus or their combination”).
Regarding claim 14, Chou, as modified above, discloses an aerosol-generating system (aerosol generator in claim 9 of Chou and solution being atomized), comprising: an aerosol-generating device; and the aerosol-generating article according to claim 8 (see the rejection of claim 8 shown above).
Conclusion
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/TUONGMINH N PHAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3752
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