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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on March 30, 2026 has been entered.
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-14 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishida (US Pub. No. 2012/0273104) in view of Mita (JP 6256658 B1; machine translation relied upon) and Takemoto (US Pub. No. 2014/0305559).
Regarding claims 1 and 18, Ishida teaches a pneumatic tire comprising a circumferential main groove 22 having a zigzag shape and land portions 31 and 33 defined and formed on both sides in a width direction of the circumferential main groove, with the circumferential main groove as a boundary, wherein the land portions include a center land portion 31 defined and formed between the circumferential main groove 22 and another circumferential main groove 21, only one of the edges of the center land portion has a zigzag shape, the center land portion has a sipe 311 extending in the width direction having a width falling within the claimed 30% to 60% of the width of the land portion 31, as well as teaching middle land portion 33 on an outer side of the circumferential main groove in the width direction, a shoulder main groove 24 provided on an outer side of the middle land portion in the width direction, shoulder land portions 34 and 35, shoulder land portion 35 next to the shoulder main groove 24 is provided with non-penetrating lug grooves 351 and sipes 352 (paragraphs [0035]-[0039] and [0066]-[0071]; figures 2 and 4). Ishida does not specifically disclose that a contact patch of each of the land portions 31 and 33 protrudes from a reference profile toward an outer side in the radial direction. Mita teaches land portions 41A and 41B on both width direction sides of circumferential main groove 3A, with the main groove as a boundary (machine translation at page 11; figure 6), and each of the land portions 41A and 41B protrude outward in the radial direction from a reference profile (machine translation at page 9; figure 9). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to protrude the land portions of the tread as taught by Mita in the tire of Ishida in order to increase the ground contact property, the braking performance on a wet road surface, and improved uneven wear resistance (see Mita machine translation at page 18). Ishida does not specifically disclose one end open middle lug grooves having a long and short portion as claimed. Takemoto teaches a middle land portion on a width outer side of a circumferential groove including middle land portion lug grooves 20 each having one end opened to the shoulder main groove an another end terminated in the middle land portion, and the grooves 40 are formed with a long portion 21 mainly extending in the tire width direction and a bent portion 22 at another end to form a short portion mainly in the circumferential direction (paragraphs [0054]-[0058]; figure 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a middle land portion having lug grooves configured as taught by Takemoto in the tire of Ishida (combined) in order to improve the noise performance without deteriorating steering stability (see Takemoto at paragraph [0058]).
Regarding claim 2, Mita teaches a height Ga and Gc (taken to be the claimed Ha and Hb) of from 0.1 to 0.5 mm (machine translation at pages 17-18 ; figure 9), such a range either describing the claimed range with sufficient specificity because the ranges have the same midpoint, and the claimed range is only somewhat narrower than the disclosed range, or else it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use values of 0.2 to 0.4 mm because Mita teaches an overlapping range (see Mita machine translation at pages 17-18).
Regarding claims 3 and 9, Mita teaches the same height range for Ga and Gc for both protruding land portions, thus making either immediately apparent or obvious using the same height for both (machine translation at pages 17-18; figure 9), resulting in Ha/Hb = 1. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the same height Ha and Hb in the tire of Mita because Mita teaches the same range for Ga and Gc (see machine translation at pages 17-18; figure 9).
Regarding claims 4 and 10, Ishida teaches shoulder land portions, and a plurality of lug grooves 341 and 351 side by side in the circumferential direction (paragraphs [0070]-[0071]), the plurality of lug grooves defining a plurality of sections of the shoulder land portions in the circumferential direction, and a number of bent portions is either taught or suggested to be equal to n/2, where n represents the number of sections of the shoulder land portions defined by the lug grooves (figure 2).
Regarding claims 5 and 11, Ishida teaches a specific embodiment where the main groove 22 is disposed within a range of 30% of the ground contact width centered on the equatorial plane (figure 2).
Regarding claims 6 and 12, Ishida teaches that the main groove comprises a plurality of triangular chamfered portions 312 with which the zigzag shape opens to the contact patch in a groove opening end, formed side by side in the circumferential direction (paragraph [0069]; figures 2 and 4).
Regarding claims 7 and 13, Mita teaches that the width direction Wc of the chamfered portion is preferably 4 to 15% of the width W of the center land portion (machine translation at page 14), teaches a specific embodiment having a tire size of 195/65 R15, such a tire having a tread width of approximately 195 mm (machine translation at page 19), teaches that the width of the center land portion is about 10% of the tread width (figure 6), as well as teaching that the main grooves have a depth of 5 to 15 mm (machine translation at page 3) and the chamfer has a depth of 30% to 60% of the groove depth H of the center main groove (machine translation at page 15). Accordingly, Mita teaches or suggests a range Wg of 0.78 mm (0.04 * 195 * 0.10) to 2.93 mm (0.15 * 195 * 0.10), and a range Lg of 1.5 mm (5 * 0.3) to 9 mm (15 * 0.6) overlapping the claimed ranges. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use values of Wg and Lg within the claimed ranges because Mita teaches overlapping ranges for these values.
Regarding clams 8 and 14, Kameda discloses a specific embodiment where the ratio of Wa/Wb falls within the claimed range of 0.8 to 1.5 (figure 2).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 16 is allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: Regarding claim 16, Shibai (JP2017-128253; English equivalent US Pub. No. 2019/0030957 relied upon) is taken to be the closest prior art of record. Claim 16 requires that the inner side middle land potion has second sipes and second lug grooves, and that the ends of the second sipes and the second lug grooves do not overlap in the circumferential direction, however Shibai teaches lug grooves 31B instead of the claimed second sipes, as well as teaching or suggesting that the lug grooves 33A and 31B overlap in the circumferential direction (figure 2), and there is no teaching or suggestion in the prior art of record to modify the inner side middle land portion of Shibai in order to arrive at the invention as claimed.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Claim 17 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The combination set forth above with regards to claim 1 does not disclose a middle land portion sipe extending in the tire circumferential direction provided between the short portions of circumferentially adjacent middle lug grooves, as is required by claim 17, and while such a feature is known from Shibai, it would not have been obvious to further modify Ishida in view of Mita and Takemoto with this feature because such a combination would only be arrived at based on impermissible hindsight reasoning.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the prior art rejection of the claims have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of Takemoto.
Conclusion
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/P.N.S/ Examiner, Art Unit 1749 September 25, 2026
/JUSTIN R FISCHER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1749
