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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities: In line 2 of claim 4, “are at least partially overlap” should be changed to --at least partially overlap--. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 6, and 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Pla Rubio et al. (CN110001817A)
With respect to claim 1, Pla Rubio et al. disclose a stair-climbing vehicle (while the attached translation discloses that the vehicle climbs from the ground 15 to a loading platform 14, the vehicle could also perform the climbing between any terrain such as stairs) comprising: a body (2); a plurality of driving wheels (3, 3’, 4, 4’, 5, 5’) arranged in pairs (1st paragraph under “Specific implementation methods” on page 5 of attached translation), rotatably and moveably with respect to the body (arcuate arrows on wheels in Fig 2a), for two paired driving wheels to simultaneously (paragraph 4 on page 3 of attached translation: the supporting piece of the two wheels are allocated may be, for example, fixedly connected to one another and have a common adjusting drive. However, it is also possible to provide that each support member has their own adjusting drive, and by appropriate control of the adjusting drive to realize the synchronous adjustment”) contact a same stair plane along a front-rear direction of the body (stair plane runs horizontally between symmetric wheels where the separation distances from a front-rear center line of the body to rotation axes is the same; Figs 4b-4c; page 4 of attached translation: “auxiliary loading vehicle from the ground to the loading area is performed by executing the same steps in reverse order, wherein the reverse moving direction and corresponding wheel lifting up to the height of the loading area” and 1st paragraph of page 6 of attached translation); a wheel position moving device (6, 6', 7, 7 ', 8, 8') provided to actively move rotation axes of the driving wheels with respect to the body (2nd paragraph under “Specific implementation methods” on page 5 of attached translation); and a driving source installed to supply driving force to the driving wheels (claim 6 of attached translation: at least two wheels are motorized).
With respect to claim 6, wherein the wheel position moving device is provided to move the rotation axes of the driving wheels independently from each other (2nd to last paragraph on page 2 of attached translation: “rotational axis of each wheel can be independently displaced”).
With respect to claim 7, wherein the plurality of driving wheels is provided symmetrically on both sides with respect to a front-rear center line of the body (1st paragraph under “Specific implementation methods” on page 5 of attached translation).
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.
Claim 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pla Rubio in view of Kim (USPub 2019/0367112).
With respect to claim 8, Pla Rubio et al. discloses the claimed invention discussed above but does not disclose wherein the driving source comprises a motor disposed in the plurality of driving wheels. Kim, however, discloses in-wheel motors (32). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to modify the invention of Pla Rubio et al. in view of the teachings of Kim to have the driving source be in-wheel motors in order to conserve space within the body of the vehicle.
Claim 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pla Rubio in view of Park (KR20160083460).
With respect to claim 9, Pla Rubio et al. discloses the claimed invention discussed above but does not disclose wherein the driving source comprises a motor disposed in the body. Park, however, discloses a wheel drive motor (30) disposed on the body (Fig 4). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the invention was filed to modify the invention of Pla Rubio et al. in view of the teachings of Park to have the drive motors arranged on the vehicle body so as to not interfere with in-wheel components while providing a stable mounting location.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5 are 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.
Claims 10-19 are allowed.
Conclusion
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DREW BROWN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3616
/DREW J BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3617
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