DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 19/114,966. Claims 1-4 are pending in the application.
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 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Iwata et al (US 2025/0087696) in view of Beilfuss et al (US 2005/0101487).
Iwata et al teaches a carbon nanotube dispersion liquid (par. 143). The dispersion comprises carbon nanotubes, dispersant, preservative and liquid (par. 143, 162). The dispersion is used in slurry for a secondary battery (par. 1).
Iwata et al does not teach the type of preservative.
However, Beilfuss et al teaches a preservative composition including a triazine compound and an isothiazolone compound (par. 34-36). The amount of preservative in the product is 0.1-5 wt % (par. 76). The amount of triazine in the preservative is 1-12 wt % (par. 48). The corresponding amount of triazine in the product is about 0.001-0.6 wt %. The preservative has broad effectiveness (par. 16).
Regarding claim 3, a person of ordinary skill in the art would expect an isothiazolone preservative to exhibit preservative effect against the claimed species since it is a known preservative and it is the claimed preservative.
Iwata et al teaches a preservative but is silent regarding a specific preservative. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the preservatives of Beilfuss et al with the dispersion of Iwata et al in order to include a known effect preservative.
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 June 24, 2026
Prosecution Insights