DETAILED ACTION
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 1-2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Seiya (JP 6888728 b1 which has been machine translated).
As to claims 1 and 2, Seiya discloses an inkjet ink that suppresses light discoloration of a printed image and has excellent light resistance and a tablet provided with a printing portion printed with the inkjet ink. The ink contains blue no 1 (edible food dye), a fixing agent, and solvent (abs). The ink contains water and ethanol as the solvent(abs) and the ink can further contain polyethylene glycol (adhesive) (paragraph 43).
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Ishikawa (EP 3778800A1).
As to claims 1-4, Ishikawa discloses a blue ink-jet ink that improves light fastness of the same while maintaining its blue print color and a tablet including a printed part with the blue ink. The blue ink is Blue No. 1 (edible ink) (abs). The ink further contains water, ethanol, and polyethylene glycol 300 (adhesive) (paragraph 34). Polyethylene glycol 300 would have an average molecular weight of 300. The ink further comprises propylene glycol (paragraph 34).
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 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 2-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seiya (JP 6888728 b1 which has been machine translated) in view of Ishikawa (EP 3778800A1).
As to claims 2-3, in an alternative view, Seiya discloses an inkjet ink that suppresses light discoloration of a printed image and has excellent light resistance and a tablet provided with a printing portion printed with the inkjet ink. The ink contains blue no 1 (edible food dye), a fixing agent, and solvent (abs). The ink contains water and ethanol as the solvent(abs), however is silent to polyethylene glycol within the medium.
Ishikawa discloses a blue ink-jet ink that improves light fastness of the same while maintaining its blue print color and a tablet including a printed part with the blue ink. The blue ink is Blue No. 1 (edible ink) (abs). The ink further contains water, ethanol, and polyethylene glycol 300 (adhesive) (paragraph 34) within the medium. Polyethylene glycol 300 would have an average molecular weight of 300. The polyethylene glycol is added in an amount of 1 to 30 % by mass to the ink to help the prevent the nozzle from drying (paragraph 34).
Seiya teaches the concept of having the ink jet nozzle drying and clogging (paragraph 41). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Seiya and added polyethylene glycol 300 in an amount of 1 to 14 % by mass of the ink to prevent the ink from drying in the nozzle as taught by Ishikawa (paragraph 34) as Ishikawa shows that this material will help solve the same problem that Seiya wants to prevent and this material would be a suitable alternative.
As to claim 4, Seiya discloses the use of propylene glycol within the ink (abs).
As to claim 5, 7-16, the combination of Seiya and Ishikawa as noted above, would teach propylene glycol (Seiya abs) in an amount of 2 to 40 % by mass (Seiya paragraph 55), polyethylene glycol with an average molecular weight of 300 in an amount of 1 to 14% by mass. Further Seiya discloses that ethanol is present in an amount of 6.5 to 40% by mass (paragraph 40). The dye is blue no. 1 which is a triphenylmethane-based dye (Seiya abs). The colorant Blue No 1 is provided within the ink in a range of 1 to 15% by mass of based on the total mass of the ink (Seiya paragraph 28) and has as the fixing agent reduced isomaltulose in an amount of 1 to 20% by mass based on the total mass of the ink (Seiya paragraphs 33-34). The ink as seen in the examples can be only blue dye no. 1 and therefore would not contain an azo-based dye. However, these references are silent to the specific amounts of each component.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to select any portion of the disclosed ranges including the instantly claimed ranges from the ranges disclosed in the prior art reference in order to have excellent suppressed light discoloration. It has been held that “[i]n the case where the claimed ranges “overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art’ a prima facie case of obviousness exists.” Please see MPEP 2144.05, In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); and /n re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
As to claim 6, Seiya and Ishikawa are silent to the ink only containing the edible dye, the adhesive, water, ethanol, and the wetting agent. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have used only the materials of the edible dye (blue no. 1), the adhesive (polyethylene glycol), water, ethanol, propylene glycol as the materials within the ink as the other materials are optional and may be contained and therefore the ink contains an overlapping scope and would of ordinary skill in the art would use these materials to form the ink as these materials are known to produce an ink with excellent suppressed light discoloration.
It is noted that claims 9 and 10 is met because the triphenylmethane dye is being used. In an alternative view red 102 and red 3 can be added to the ink as additional colorants (paragraph 33 Seiya).
Conclusion
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/CHRISTOPHER M POLLEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1785