DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 6/17/2026 has been entered. Claims 1 and 3-15 remain pending in the application. Claim 2 was cancelled. Claims 13-15 were withdrawn.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 6/17/2026 has been entered.
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 and 3-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maguire (US 20180370701 A1) in view of Conrad (US 20150090083 A1) and Francis (US 7059810 B2).
Regarding claim 1, Maguire teaches Cutting device configured to cut a cap intended to close a container, said cutting device including:
- a support member (75) to support at least one horizontal blade configured to perform at least one circumferential cut on the cap rolling on said cutting device along an advancement direction (see Figure 7); the at least one horizontal blade is a single piece (see Figure 7).
Maguire fails to teach at least one modular insert supported by said support member to perform at least one vertical or oblique cut on the cap; said at least one modular insert including at least one cutting element provided at an end thereof with a cutting edge, the cutting element being couplable with at least two abutting blocks each having abutting faces and varying dimensions to provide a variable dimension of said at least one modular insert, said dimension being a length between said cutting edge and said abutting faces; said support member including a support body which includes, on a peripheral edge thereof and for each modular insert, a housing cavity, said modular insert being insertable in, and removable from, said housing cavity which is shaped for receiving said modular insert so that said cutting edge protrudes from said peripheral edge, said abutting faces being configured to abut a back wall of said housing cavity so that a rear end of said cutting element opposed to said cutting edge is spaced from said back wall.
Conrad teaches a cutting system with replaceable cutting bits (1242, 1232 and 1222, while each bit is difference in shape, see Figure C-6 and C-10).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the device of Maguire to change the cutting portion of the blade with replaceable, as taught by Conrad, in order to cutting different shape as desired by the end user (paragraph 0187 of Conrad).
Francis teaches a cutting with replaceable cutting bits made with a cutting tip (12) and a abutting block (14).
It would also have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the device of Maguire to replaceable bit into the two part system, as taught by Francis, in order to reduce cost, as only the cutting portion need to be replaced first during normal wear (abstract of Francis).
The resulting device of modified Maguire teaches at least one modular insert supported by said support member to perform at least one vertical or oblique cut on the cap (As modified by Conrad and Francis, interchangeable different shape bits); said at least one modular insert including at least one cutting element provided at an end thereof with a cutting edge (as modified by Francis, with different holder shape 14, see Figure 8 of Francis), the cutting element being couplable with at least two abutting blocks each having abutting faces (as modified by Francis, with different holder shape 14, see Figure 8 of Francis), and varying dimensions to provide a variable dimension of said at least one modular insert, said dimension being a length between said cutting edge and said abutting faces (as modified by Francis, with different holder shape 14, see Figure 8 of Francis); said support member including a support body which includes, on a peripheral edge thereof and for each modular insert, a housing cavity, said modular insert being insertable in, and removable from other (as modified by Francis, with different holder shape 14, see Figure 8 of Francis), said housing cavity which is shaped for receiving said modular insert so that said cutting edge protrudes from said peripheral edge, said abutting face being configured to abut a back wall of said housing cavity so that a rear end of said cutting element opposed to said cutting edge is spaced from said back wall other (as modified by Conrad and Francis, with different holder shape 14 fitting into the cavity of Conrad, see Figure 8 of Francis and see Figure 8c of Conrad).
Regarding claim 3, modified Maguire further teaches said cutting element extends along a main direction between said rear end and said cutting edge, said cutting element including a coupling slot transverse to said main direction, said at least one abutting block including a coupling protrusion arranged for being inserted at least partially in said coupling slot to form said modular insert so as to prevent a displacement between said at least one abutting block and said cutting element at least in parallel to said main direction (as modified by Conrad and Francis, see the placement of the Francis, with the desired shaped required by Conrad).
Regarding claim 4, modified Maguire further teaches said at least two abutting blocks have distances between said coupling protrusion and said abutting face different to each other (as modified by Conrad and Francis, see the placement of the Francis, with the desired shaped required by Conrad).
Regarding claim 5, modified Maguire further teaches said at least one abutting block includes a further abutting face opposite to said abutting face and shaped for abutting an abutting wall of said housing cavity, said abutting wall being opposite to said back wall (as modified by Conrad and Francis, see the placement of the Francis, with the desired shaped required by Conrad).
Regarding claim 6, modified Maguire further teaches a layer structure in which said at least one horizontal blade and said support body are stacked along a vertical direction (see layer in Figure 10 of Maguire).
Regarding claim 7, modified Maguire further teaches said at least one horizontal blade includes a first horizontal blade arranged for performing one or more horizontal cuts at a first height and a second horizontal blade arranged for performing one or more horizontal cuts at a second height different to the first height; and wherein said support body is interposed between said first horizontal blade and said second horizontal blade so as to prevent an undesired vertical displacement of said at least one modular insert (see layer in Figure 10 of Maguire and the desired shape changes from Conrad).
Regarding claim 8, modified Maguire further teaches said support body is plate shaped; said at least one modular insert being, in particular, insertable in, removable from, said housing cavity along a direction parallel to a transverse thickness of said plate-shaped support body (see layer in Figure 10 of Maguire).
Regarding claim 9, modified Maguire further teaches said housing cavity has an L-shaped section, said section being taken on a reference plane orthogonal to a transverse thickness of said plate-shaped support body (see layer in Figure 10 of Maguire and the cavity of Francis).
Regarding claim 10, modified Maguire further teaches said housing cavity is pass-through with respect to a transverse thickness of said plate-shaped support body (see layer in Figure 10 of Maguire and the cavity of Francis).
Regarding claim 11, modified Maguire further teaches said housing cavity is blind with respect to a transverse thickness of said plate-shaped support body (see layer in Figure 10 of Maguire and the cavity of Francis).
Regarding claim 12, modified Maguire further teaches at least two cutting elements which are interchangeable having a cutting edge sharpened on a side only and/or on two sides (see layer in Figure 10 of Maguire and the bits of Francis).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 6/17/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to applicant's argument that modified Maguire fails to teach interchangeable blocks. The Examiner disagree and notes the current application requires the use of the same size blade with interchangeable blocks to have different dimension of the cutting portion exposed, while Conrad teaches have “different interchange blades” to have different dimension of the cutting portion exposed, Francis teaches the use of the same size blade with different side with interchangeable blocks to have different dimension of the cutting portion exposed (10A and 10B have different cutting dimension exposed), Examiner notes that Francis is only rely upon for using a interchangeable block system to create different cutting portion exposure. Since the claim does not require the interchangeable block to be any specific shape, thus any interchangeable block with different dimension that change the cutting potion exposure can meet the limitation.
In response to applicant's argument that modified Maguire fails to teach abutting face to the rear wall. The Examiner disagrees and notes that Conrad teach the cavity for the blade fitting, thus after modification, modified Maguire teaches with different holder shape 14 of Francis fitting into the cavity of Conrad, see Figure 8 of Francis and see Figure 8c of Conrad).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LIANG DONG whose telephone number is (571)270-0479. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 8 AM-6 PM.
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/LIANG DONG/Examiner, Art Unit 3724 7/21/2026
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