DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is a first Office Action on the merits of the application. Claims 1 - 20 are presented for examination. Claims 4, 16, and 20 are rejected.
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 .
Drawings Objections
The drawings are objected to because FIGS. 7, 10, 21, 24, 29, 30a, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38, and 39 include words that are blurry, small, and difficult to read. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 4, 16 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The term “substantially” in claims 4, 16, and 20 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “substantially” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. It is unclear in the claim how much in terms of a standard or value the 2D plan needs to expand or extend over an area to be considered “substantially maximizing an area of a projection of the first B-Rep on the plane. The term is unclear and renders the claims vague and indefinite.
Suggested language: Amend the claims to remove the term “substantially”.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 103:
The prior art of Rockwood (U.S. Patent 8,836,701 B1) discloses boundary curves, G1 and G2 continuity, and using computer-aided design for piecing patches to satisfy constraints of boundaries between the patches for a designed geometric object, Apanovitch et al (WO 2015061884 A1) discloses a 2D convex hull, concavities on an extension boundary, component boundary, Marini (EP 3690682 A1) discloses a boundary representation (B-Rep), 3D modeled object representing a mechanical part, CAD system, stamped part, a closed curve defining a boundary of a domain, concave and convex edges, basic geometries, and Wang et al. (“BendCad: A Design System for Concurrent Multiple Representations of Parts”) discloses sheet metal part design using a parallel design environment, 2D and 3D sheet metal patterns, and a BendCad program to perform the designs, including bending, punching, and shearing processes of the sheet meal.
However, none of the references cited, including the prior art of Rockwood, Apanovitch, Marini and Wang, taken either alone or in combination with the prior art of record discloses for claim 1: A computer-implemented method, for claim 11: A process, for claim 13: A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, and for claim 17: A system for designing a stamping part with one or more flanges, including the steps of using obtained g1-continuity and g2-continuity extrapolation length requirement values to form an unfolded state using a second B-Rep model, which is obtained using the g2 and g1-continuity values over a length of extrapolation patches, to obtain extrapolation patches to fill gaps in the boundary curve, in combination with the remaining elements and features of the claimed invention, with regards to inclusion of the g2-continuity in the B-Rep model to determine the gaps to fill over the boundary curves. It is for these reasons that the applicants’ invention defines over the prior art of record.
Dependent claims 2 - 10, 12, 14 - 16, and 18 - 20 are allowable under 35 U.S.C. 103 for depending from claims 1, 11, 13, and 17, allowable base claims under 35 U.S.C. 103.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CEDRIC D JOHNSON whose telephone number is (571)270-7089. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 4:30am - 2:00pm, F 4:30am - 11:30am.
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/Cedric Johnson/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2186
November 21, 2025