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 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 4-9 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.
Claims 4 and 5 each recite “the bending the first sheet a plurality of times”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim, noting this step was omitted from claim 1 in the amendment.
Claims 6-9 are rejected by virtue of their dependency on claims 4-5
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 4-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shao et al. (CN108307134, cited in IDS, with reference to translation) in view of Meusburger et al. (U.S. PGPub 2020/0337457, cited in IDS).
Claim 1: Shao et al. discloses a method for processing backplane (back panel – e.g. paragraph 2), comprising: providing a sheet material including a first sheet (generally 4 as shown in Fig. 5), a second sheet and a connecting sheet (e.g. various shaped portions of 4 as shown in Fig. 10, formed by stamping sheet 4 – paragraph 63 - noting that what applicant defines as a “first sheet”, “second sheet”, and “connecting sheet” appear to be arbitrary sections of a common sheet), wherein the connecting sheet is connected between the first sheet and the second sheet (any intermediate portion between the first sheet portion 4 in Fig. 5 and some distant “second sheet” portion as discussed above can be the “connecting sheet”); conducting a first bending (90 degree bend between 4 and 1 in Fig. 5 – paragraphs 70 and 81) to the first sheet in a first direction (clockwise upward from the horizontal in Fig. 5) to define a folding wall (which would comprise segments 1 and 2) with an angle to the first sheet (90 degrees); and conducting a second bending to the folding wall by 90 degrees (at least an intermediate part of the 180 degree bending in Fig. 5 and paragraphs 71 and 82) in the first direction (also clockwise, from 1), wherein the folding wall is bent to define a first folding edge parallel to the first sheet (up to this step, the segment containing portion 2 would be parallel to 4).
Shao does not disclose that a first groove and a second groove are provided on the first sheet, and thus also wherein the first groove and the second groove are disposed on the folding wall, wherein the folding wall is bent at the first groove, and the second bending is conducted toward a same side of the sheet that an opening of the first groove is on. However, Meusburger teaches a method of bending a sheet (20) wherein grooves (21a, 21, 21b) are generally formed at the locations of various bends, and the sheet is generally bent toward a same side of the sheet that an opening of the first groove is on (evident in Fig. 4b). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have provided grooves and formed the bends at the grooves as claimed since they help prevent compressive stresses and allow for a greater extent of bending (Meusburger, paragraph 6). In doing so, at least a first groove and a second groove would logically be provided on the first sheet, specifically on the folding wall, at the locations of the second/third and fourth bends.
Claim 4: After conducting the second bending to the folding wall, the bending the first sheet a plurality of times further comprises: conducting a third bending to the first folding edge (a continuation of the second bending to the full 180 degrees as cited above), wherein the first folding edge is bent at the first groove (discussed above) to define a second folding edge against the folding wall (the short vertical portion between 1 and 2 in Fig. 5), the second groove is disposed on the second folding edge (as noted above), and the third bending is conducted toward a same direction as the second bending (as taught by Meusburger above).
Claim 5: The first groove and the second groove would be disposed on different surfaces of the folding wall and would be staggered (in the sense that the associated bends of Shao are staggered and in opposing directions, and as shown in Fig. 4a of Meusburger for similar bends), after conducting the third bending to the first folding edge, the bending the first sheet for a plurality of times further comprises: conducting a fourth bending to the second folding edge, wherein the second folding edge is bent at the second groove to define a third folding edge (2) parallel to the first sheet (Fig. 5 and paragraphs 72 and 83), the fourth bending direction is conducted toward an opposite direction of the third bending (anti-clockwise upward from the vertical, evident in Fig. 5), and the fourth bending would be conducted toward a same side of an opening of the second groove (as taught by Meusburger above).
Claim 6: The second folding edge is bent 90 degrees at the fourth bending (Fig. 5 and paragraphs 72 and 83).
Claim 7: There is a substantial distance between the second folding edge and the first sheet. It is unclear whether the distance is greater than or equal to 1 mm. However, this would be dependent upon the scale of the part and the thickness of the sheet, for example. To the extent that the distance appears to be several times the thickness of the sheet material, then it would have been obvious that it would be greater than 1mm if the sheet material were within typical sheet material thickness ranges, for example.
Claim 8: Further referring to Meusburger, the first groove and the second groove are V-shaped (evident in Fig. 4a); and/or an angle between two walls of the first groove is greater than 90 degrees, and an angle between two walls of the second groove is greater than 90 degrees (the v-shaped grooves appear to be obtuse angles in Fig. 4a).
Claim 9: Further referring to Meusburger, a depth of the first groove ranges from ⅓ to ½ of a thickness of the first sheet, and a depth of the second groove ranges from ⅓ to ½ of the thickness of the first sheet (M2 less than M1 by smaller than 1/2 - 3/4, see paragraph 28).
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An annotated Fig. 5 of Shao is provided below for reference:
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/6/2025 have been fully considered.
The amendments to the claims are sufficient to overcome rejections based upon Meusburger as a primary reference. The examiner agrees that agrees that the first and second bends of Meusburger are in opposite directions (first bend is anti-clockwise, second bend is clockwise) rather than in the same “first direction” as now claimed.
However, Applicant’s arguments against Shao appear to focus on Shao’s lack of a first and second groove, and ignore the teachings of Meusburger as a secondary reference as applied in the previous rejection. The rejection over Shao in view of Meusburger has been substantially maintained, updated in view of Applicant’s amendments. It is noted that the final structure of the folded sheet of Shao (Fig. 5) is substantially identical (though shown upside-down) to the final structure of Applicant’s invention in Fig. 6. The order of folds is further suggested from the cited paragraphs.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW P TRAVERS whose telephone number is (571)272-3218. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00AM-6:30PM.
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/Matthew P Travers/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3726