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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 23 July 2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 23 July 2025, with respect to the claim rejections under 35 USC 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The claim rejections under 35 USC 112 have been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration new issues under 35 USC 112 are raised due to the claim amendments, see below.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 23 July 2025, with respect to the claim rejections under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that Hsieh et al merely discloses that the protruding portion 142 of the circuit board is positioned to correspond to the stator blades (e.g., located above it), but nowhere teaches that any stator blade forms a passage that allows the circuit board’s protruding portion 142 (or an arm of a circuit board) to pass through the stator blade or to be disposed within such passage. Resulting in the proposed combination not teaching the claimed limitations. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Starting from Huang, it is clear that there is a communicating passage, where the communicating passage is configured as a groove with the groove’s opening being flush with the back surface of the fan frame and also flush with the stator blades, see below.
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Similarly, Hsieh discloses a communicating passage, where the communicating passage is configured as a groove with the groove’s opening being flush with the back surface of the fan frame and also flush with the stator blades, see Fig.1E, and Annotated Fig.1A below.
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Therefore, when Hsieh discloses “The protruding portion 142 is corresponding to the static blade 113 which the connector 114 is extended along” (¶51), a person of ordinary skills in the art would determine that in order to maintain flush surfaces between the communicating passage, the fan frame back surface and the stator blades, said communicating passage must be located within said corresponding stator blade. Otherwise, if the communicating passage is located above the stator blade, as argued by applicant, the whole circuit board and arm would have to be located extending further back from the fan frame back surface and stator blades, that is clearly not how Hsieh has disclosed the fan frame, stator blade and communicating passage configuration. Therefore, for maintaining the disclosed flush profile of the back side of the fan of Hsieh, the proper interpretation of “the protruding portion 142 is corresponding to the static blade 113 which the connector 114 is extended along” is that the communicating passage is located within said corresponding stator blade and not above the corresponding stator blade as argued.
For these reasons, the arguments are not found persuasive and the claim rejections are maintained.
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 1-2 and 4-8 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.
Claim 1 recites “one of the stator blades is formed with a communicating passage” and also recites “the arm of the circuit board passes through the stator blade disposed within the communicating passage” (emphasis added). It is not clear how the stator blade is formed, i.e., contains, with a communicating passage but also the stator blade is disposed within the communicating passage. These limitations are contradictory and render the claim indefinite.
For purposes of prior art examination, the claim is being interpreted as reciting “the arm of the circuit board passes through the communicating passage disposed within the stator blade” (emphasis added).
Claims 2 and 4-8 depend from claim 1 and fail to remedy its deficiencies.
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) 1-2 and 4-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang (US 20240015924 A1) in view of Hsieh et al – hereafter Hsieh – (US 20210018009 A1; also US 11,761,449 B2).
Regarding claim 1, Huang teaches an axial fan frame with electrical connection structure (Fig.1-7), comprising:
a circuit board (2/20) having an arm (Fig.2, extending from 20 towards 21) outward extended from a periphery thereof and a free end provided with metal contacts (Fig.2, 21) to serve as a metal contact end and
a frame (1) defining two open ends along an axial direction thereof (Fig.1, bottom and top ends of 1), which are an air inlet and an air outlet (Fig.1, bottom and top ends of 1, respectively); the frame including a groove (12) provided on an outer surface thereof for receiving an external cord assembly (3/32) therein; a shaft holder (Fig.2, opposite to where numeral 10 points to) provided at the air outlet and defining a receiving recess (10) for receiving the circuit board therein; a plurality of stator blades (Fig.1, where numeral 1 points to; also partially seen in Fig.4) connecting the shaft holder to an inner side of the frame (Fig.1/4); and a communicating passage (11) located between an outer side of the shaft holder and the inner side of the frame to communicate the shaft holder and the frame (Fig.2); and
wherein an end of the groove located at the air outlet is shaped to receive an electrical connector (3/30) provided at an end of the external cord assembly (Fig.1/2), the communicating passage having two ends that communicate with the receiving recess and the groove (Fig.2), respectively, and wherein the arm of the circuit board passes through the communicating passage and with the metal contact end extended into the groove to connect to the electrical connector of the external cord assembly (Fig.1/2).
Huang does not explicitly teach one of the stator blades is formed with the communicating passage.
Hsieh teaches an axial fan frame with electrical connection structure (Fig.1A/B/E) including a circuit board (Fig.1E, 14’) having an arm outward extended from a periphery (Fig.1E, 142). Hsieh further teaches a fan frame (11) having a communicating passage (Fig.1E, where 142 seats) between a shaft holder (not numbered) and the frame (11), the shaft holder and the frame connected via stator blades (113) and one of the stator blades is formed with the communicating passage (Fig.1E; ¶51, note “The protruding portion 142 is corresponding to the static blade 113”; note based on the disclosed configuration, the communicating passage must be within the stator blade in order to maintain the flush relationship between the fan frame back surface, the stator blades and the communicating passage).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the axial fan frame of Huang by having one of the stator blades being formed with the communicating passage based on the teachings of Hsieh because this would allow routing the arm via a portion of the frame that would have a lesser effect on the airflow efficiency; this would result in the arm of the circuit board passing though the communicating passage disposed within the stator blade.
Regarding claim 2, Huang and Hsieh further teach the groove is provided with a notch (Huang Fig.2, where 21 and 3 connect), and the communicating passage communicates with the groove via the notch (Fig.2).
Regarding claim 4, Huang and Hsieh teach all the limitations of claim 1, and further teach the arm has an end connected to the circuit board (Huang Fig.2, end opposite to 21) and another end being the free end (Huang Fig.2, end where 21 is located) that serves as the metal contact end; the metal contact end having an upper surface and a lower surface (Fig.4, left end upper and lower surfaces of 2) and at least one metal contact being selectively provided on one or both of the upper and the lower surface of the metal contact end (Huang, note terminal [contact] 302 has upper and lower contact portions that cooperate with one or both of the upper and lower surfaces of the metal contact end 21, via recess 3013; see Fig.10, 3013; Fig.5, terminal 302; unnumbered connection in Fig.4; and ¶36, “gold finger block 21 is connected to the terminal 302 by means of the fifth recess 3013, and stability of the connection is effectively guaranteed through the structural arrangement”).
Regarding claim 5, Huang and Hsieh further teach the external cord assembly includes a cord (Huang Fig.2, 32); the electrical connector being connected to an end (Huang Fig.2, via 3) of the cord, and the cord being fitted in and extended along the groove (Huang Fig.1/2, cord shown extending along the groove in Fig.1).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang (US 20240015924 A1) in view of Hsieh et al – hereafter Hsieh – (US 20210018009 A1; also US 11,761,449 B2) as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Huang – hereafter Huang CN – (CN 114992153 A).
Regarding claim 6, Huang and Hsieh teach all the limitations of claim 2, see above, however, do not explicitly teach the electrical connector includes at least one protruded portion and an end of the groove located near the air outlet is provided with at least one cavity; and the at least one protruded portion and the at least one cavity being correspondingly engaged with one another to form a mortise-tenon joint structure.
Huang CN teaches an axial fan frame with electrical connection structure (Fig.1), comprising: a circuit board (4) having an arm (2) outward extended from a periphery thereof and a free end provided with metal contacts (Fig.3, 21) to serve as a metal contact end; and a frame (1) defining two open ends (Fig.1, bottom and top ends of 1); the frame including a groove (Annotated Fig.1) provided on an outer surface thereof for receiving an external cord assembly (3) therein; a shaft holder (Annotated Fig.1) provided at the air outlet and internally defining a receiving recess (Annotated Fig.1) for receiving the circuit board therein; a plurality of stator blades (Annotated Fig.1) connected to between the shaft holder and the frame (Annotated Fig.1); and a communicating passage (Fig.1) to communicate the shaft holder and the frame; and wherein an end of the groove located at the air outlet is shaped to fitly receive an electrical connector (Fig.5, 32) provided at an end of the external cord assembly (Fig.2/5), the communicating passage has two ends communicating with the receiving recess and the groove (Fig.2), respectively, and the arm of the circuit board is set in the communicating passage with the metal contact end of the arm extended into the groove to connect to the electrical connector of the external cord assembly (Fig.2). Huang CN further teaches the electrical connector includes at least one protruded portion (Fig.5, 322) and an end of the groove located near the air outlet is provided with at least one cavity (Fig.2, 11); and the at least one protruded portion and the at least one cavity being correspondingly engaged with one another to form a mortise-tenon joint structure (Fig.2).
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It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the axial fan frame of Huang and Hsieh by having the electrical connector includes at least one protruded portion and an end of the groove located near the air outlet is provided with at least one cavity; and the at least one protruded portion and the at least one cavity being correspondingly engaged with one another to form a mortise-tenon joint structure based on the Huang CN teachings because this would allow clamping the electrical connector to the frame, thereby, preventing undesired disconnection between the power supply and circuit board.
Claim(s) 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang (US 20240015924 A1) in view of Hsieh et al – hereafter Hsieh – (US 20210018009 A1; also US 11,761,449 B2) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Vettori (US 4,160,576).
Regarding claim 7, Huang and Hsieh teach all the limitations of claim 1, however, do not explicitly teach the receiving recess of the shaft holder and the communicating passage are covered and closed by a cover to protect the circuit board and the arm from being damaged.
Vettori teaches an axial fan frame with electrical connection structure (Fig.1/2) with a shaft holder (where electric motor 5 seats) including a receiving recess (11b) and a communicating passage (11). Vettori further teaches the receiving recess of the shaft holder and the communicating passage are covered and closed by a cover (34) to protect electrical components of the axial fan frame); this would prevent electrical components from being reached from any place other than a connecting portion/cavity (column 7 line 32-44).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the axial fan frame of Huang and Hsieh by having the receiving recess of the shaft holder and the communicating passage are covered and closed by a cover to protect the circuit board and the arm from being damaged based on the teachings of Vettori because this would prevent electrical components from being reached from any place other than a connecting portion/cavity.
Regarding claim 8, Huang, Hsieh and Vettori further teach the cover includes a main portion for correspondingly covering and closing the receiving recess (Vettori Fig.2, portion around 34A), and a projected portion (Vettori Fig.2, portion over 11) for correspondingly covering and closing the communicating passage.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUAN G FLORES whose telephone number is (571)272-3486. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 5:30pm Pacific Time.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nathan E Wiehe can be reached at (571) 272-8648. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JUAN G FLORES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3745