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 .
This office action is in response to applicant’s claims filed December 12, 2022. Claims 1-15 are pending.
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 1,3,10-13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Van Allen (US 2,134,898) in view of and Votteler (DE4206021A1).
Van Allen teaches bleaching wood veneers in patterns by selectively applying a masking agent as a stencil to parts of the veneer to be bleached in any design, contour, shape, shading or pattern and applying bleach such that the masked or stenciled regions are selectively bleached to a desired degree (page 1, left column, lines 1-45; page 1, right column, lines 40-50).
Van Allen does not teach the veneer is joined to a substrate on a rear side with the bleached surface being visible.
Votteler teaches that wood veneers are known to be joined to substrates by gluing the rear surface to the substrate and with the bleach surface being the visible surface (paragraph 0001).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the methods of Van Allen by bleaching the visible surface of a veneer and attaching the bleached veneer by a rear surface to a substrate or bleaching the veneer first and then attaching it by the rear surface to show a pattern on the visible surface as Votteler teaches bleaching is effectively accomplished on wood veneers to produce a bleached veneer and attached to a substrate such that the bleached veneer surface is visible. The bleaching order before attaching the veneer or after attaching the veneer to a substrate such as a wood panel or furniture is simply and order of steps as in both cases the same effect is achieved of a bleached veneer attached to a substrate with the visible bleach pattern showing. "As a general rule, no invention is involved in the broad concept of performing simultaneously operations which have been previously been performed in sequence ." In re Tatincloux and Guy, 108 USPQ 125(CCPA 1955). In general, the transposition of process steps or the splitting of one step into two, where the processes are substantially identical or equivalent in terms of function, manner and result, was held to not patentably distinguish the processes, see Ex parte Rubin, 128 USPQ 159 (PO BdPatApp 1959).
Regarding the different bleaching intensities, bleaching pattern of graduated strips or continuous transition, it would have been obvious to achieve these intensities and patterns as Van Allen teaches producing any bleached design, contour, shape, shading or pattern and applying bleach such that the masked or stenciled regions are selectively bleached to a desired degree. The selection of the bleaching intensities, graduated strip or continuous transition patterns is simply a design choice.
Claims 2,4-9 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Van Allen (US 2,134,898) on view of and Votteler (DE4206021A1) and further in view of Kritchevsky (US 2,096,400).
Van Allen and Votteler are relied upon as set forth above.
Van Allen and Votteler do not teach immersion in a bleaching medium.
Kritchevsky teaches effectively bleaching wood veneers and wood panels by immersing the veneer in the bleach (page 2, lines 34-40) wherein the time of immersion, temperature of immersion can be controlled to obtain the desired bleaching effects or by spraying or brushing the bleach on the wood veneer (page 2, lines 25-54).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the methods of Van Allen and Votteler by immersing the veneers alone or the veneers attached to the substrate into a bleach solution and bleaching for different lengths of time, bleaching continuously or stepwise and changing the position and alignment of each immersion as Kritchevsky teaches the immersion including time of immersion controls the degree of bleaching. Nothing unobvious is seen is selecting different parts of the veneer and immersing in bleach several times in different alignments to control the bleaching pattern or shading to arrive at a custom bleaching pattern. Performing a continuous immersion by gradually lowering the veneer into the bleach to get a gradient effect of stepwise immersion to get different regions of different bleach patterns is obvious as Van Allen clearly teaches different patterns and shadings can be produced. The bleach contact with the wood is responsible for the coloring pattern and the immersion trajectory, the contact surface of the veneer with the bleach and stencil and the bleach exposure time would directly impact the bleaching pattern and can be determined through routine experimentation based on the desired bleach design.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AMINA S KHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5573. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9am-5:30pm EST.
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/AMINA S KHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1761