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 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(s) 1, 8 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20941962 to Teufl.
Regarding claims 1 and 18Teufl discloses (in the embodiment of Figs. 9 and 10):
A heat pump (embodiment of Figs. 9 and 10) comprising: a blade-heating heat pump cover (Fig. 9) comprising a first surface in contact with a liquid (annotated Fig. 10), and a second surface opposed to the first surface (annotated fig. 10), wherein the cover body is provided with a mounting slot (slot in which 920 is placed) protruding from the second surface to the first surface (bridges the gap between the surfaces as shown), and the mounting slot is provided in a shape of a ring (figs. 9 and 10); a heating element (920) embeddedly provided on the mounting slot (see cutaway in Fig. 10), the heating element comprising a first end located in the mounting slot (generally flat portion embedded in slot) and a second end protruding from the mounting slot (annotated fig. 10), wherein a heating wire is provided in the heating element (Fig. 10, see wire running throughout), wherein the heating wire is bent and provided in the first end (it is both curved in the first end along the ring section and bent from the protrusion as shown in Figs. 9 and 10), and wherein the heating wire is protruding from the second end (annotated Fig. 10).
In as much as it is not inherent Teufl does not state that the heating wire protruding from the second end is connected to an external circuit in the embodiment of Figs. 9 and 10.
However, in the description of the embodiment of Fig. 1 it is described that the wires protruding from the second end (120a) may be used to connect heating unit 120 to a power source.
As such it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to connect the heating wire protruding from the second end of the embodiment of Figs. 9 and 10 of Teufl to an external power circuit as taught in other embodiments of Teufl for the purpose of providing the electrical heating element with power so that it can perform its resistive heating function.
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Regarding claim 8
Teufl as modified teaches all of the limitations as discussed above and further teaches wherein the heating section is set to have a predetermined distance with an inner side wall and an outer side wall of the mounting slot. This is considered inherently met as any inner side wall (e.g. inner side wall portion of 910) and outer side wall (e.g. outer bell mouth side wall) will have a distance to the heating section.
Teufl does not teach wherein the predetermined distance is 1mm to 100mm.
It is firstly noted that this range is particularly large encompassing a mere mm all the way up to 100mm which is around 4 inches. It is next noted that the purpose of this particular arrangement is merely to concentrate heat in desired areas by placing the heating element closer to those areas desired. It follows from the basic and inherent laws of heat transfer that the closer an object is to a heat source the more heat it will receive from that source (all else held constant) as such the distance of the element to the desired heating areas would be recognized as a result effective variable controlling the amount of heat a desired area such as a side wall will receive. It therefore would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to further modify Teufl such that the distances between the side walls and mounting slot are as claimed as this is nothing more than a routine optimization of a result effective variable.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7, 9-17 and 19 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.
Regarding claims 2-7 and 19, the prior art has not recognized the first end comprising a heating and non-heating section in the arrangement claimed.
Regarding claims 9-16 the prior art has recognized temperature controlling assemblies, of course, but not the specific physical mounting arrangement with the second end and the electrically connected circuit as claimed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WOODY A LEE JR whose telephone number is (571)272-1051. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 0800-1630.
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/WOODY A LEE JR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3761