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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art does not appear to disclose or otherwise fairly suggest the following features when included with the other claimed features and limitations recited in the claims: that a roof opening has jet generators that generate jets of air toward an inner side of the roof opening in a vehicle-width direction and each of the jet generators being disposed along an edge on at least one of two sides of the roof opening in the vehicle-width direction, further that the jet controller being configured to control an intensity of each of the jets.
The indicated allowability of claims 1-2 and 5-9 is withdrawn in view of the newly discovered reference(s) to Japanese patent reference H03248917 to Takahashi. Rejections based on the newly cited reference(s) follow.
Applicant is advised that the Notice of Allowance mailed November 28, 2025 vacated. If the issue fee has already been paid, applicant may request a refund or request that the fee be credited to a deposit account. However, applicant may wait until the application is either found allowable or held abandoned. If allowed, upon receipt of a new Notice of Allowance, applicant may request that the previously submitted issue fee be applied. If abandoned, applicant may request refund or credit to a specified Deposit Account.
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 of this title, 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 1-2 and 5-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ramsay (7,735,910) in view of Takahashi (Japanese Pat. Doc. H03248917, see applicant provided machine translation) and Watanabe et al. (US 2021/0094633).
Regarding claims 1-2, 5-6, and 9, Ramsay discloses a vehicle fluid controller (10) to be applied to a vehicle (34), the vehicle fluid controller comprising:
at least one jet generator (e.g., plasma actuator 12, 18, 20; - e.g., Title; hereinafter “12”) configured to generate a jet of upwardly directed air (40), the at least one jet generator (12) being disposed at an edge (38) of a vehicle-body opening (roof opening 16) through which a vehicle cabin of the vehicle is allowed to be open to an outside of the vehicle;
a wind detector (28; see Col. 4, lines 19-24 describing sensors for detecting wind affecting the vehicle) configured to detect a wind acting on a vehicle body of the vehicle; and
a jet controller/circuitry (24) configured to control an intensity of the jet (see e.g., Col. 4, lines 47-58) from the at least one jet generator (12) in accordance with the detected wind in such a manner as to disturb an airflow passing over the vehicle-body opening along a surface of the vehicle body (see e.g., Figs. 4A-4B and Col. 4, lines 42-46).
Ramsay, while disclosing that jet generators can be used to redirect air along a roof opening, does not specifically recite that the jet is directed toward an inner side of the roof opening in a front-rear direction of the vehicle or that the rear-edge of the opening has upwardly directed air jets. Further, while Ramsay discloses that the fluid controller detects various external/ambient elements, such as air pressure, temperature, vehicle speed, and humidity (see Col. 4, lines 55-58), it does not specifically recite that the direction of the wind is used in the control of the plasma actuators.
Takahashi teaches another vehicle including a fluid controller comprising at least one jet generator (31) disposed at a front edge (21a) of a roof opening (21) and configured to generate a jet of air toward an inner side of the roof opening in a front-rear direction of the vehicle (see Figs. 1-2) and that the rear edge of the roof opening (21b) includes jet generators (33) that direct air upwardly away from the vehicle roof (see Figs. 2-3).
Watanabe teaches another vehicle fluid controller (30; see Figs. 3-4) that uses plasma actuators (100) to disturb airflow/wind acting on a vehicle body. The controller (220) adjusting the intensity of each of the jets of air from the plasma actuators based at least upon the speed and direction of the wind detected by sensors (228; see e.g., Fig. 5 and ¶0049 and ¶0081-0082 describing how the controller adjusts the airflow generator 100 based on the detected air flowing along the vehicle body).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the present application to have modified the vehicle fluid controller of Ramsay to direct the air jets rearwardly from a front edge of the roof opening and upwardly from a rear edge as taught by Takahashi and to detect and use the wind direction information to further control the plasma generators as taught by Watanabe to arrive at the claimed device with a reasonable expectation of success. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine them at least because the modification amounts to combining prior art elements according to known techniques to yield predictable results. Here, (1) the prior art included each element (as detailed above); (2) one of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (e.g., creating air curtains to direct air in a desired direction away from a location; and using additional wind data to provide more precise tuning of the plasma actuators), and in this combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately (e.g., the plasma actuators are used to reduce wind noise); and (3) one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claims 7-8 , Ramsay discloses that the vehicle fluid controller further comprises a traveling-environment recognizer configured to recognize traveling-environment information on a traveling environment outside the vehicle (see e.g., Col. 4, lines 55-58 describing how information related to the immediate traveling-environment, such as air temperature, humidity, and density are used by the controller to adjust the air flow from the plasma generators); and
a noise detector (see Col. 4, lines 19-24 describing the use of audio pickups that are used to provide the controller with information to control the plasma actuators to reduce the noise) configured to detect noise that is to be heard in the vehicle cabin,
wherein the jet controller is configured to correct a control variable for the jet generator in accordance with the traveling-environment information and a level of the noise (see Col. 4, lines 47-57 describing how the information from the sensors causes the controller to change/correct the control signal being sent to the plasma actuators to account for the current conditions affecting the vehicle).
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Conclusion
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/STEVE CLEMMONS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3618