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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) form PTO-1149 filed 12/3/2025. This IDS has been considered.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I (claims 1-9 and 13-20) in the reply filed on 12/2/2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 10-12 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yao et al. (CN 202778398; “Yao”, see previously attached machine translation downloaded from Espacenet).
Regarding claim 1, Yao discloses in figure 1 an automatic batching system, wherein the automatic batching system comprises a weighing control unit (6), a weighing unit (no reference numeral, disclosed in ¶ [0021] as “electronic weighing meter” associated with weighing hopper 2), wherein the weighing unit is electrically connected to the weighing control unit (6) (¶ [0021]), and a plurality of material mixing units (5), wherein the plurality of material mixing units (5) are in communication with the weighing unit respectively (¶ [0021]).
Yao does not explicitly disclose the batching system is for floor production. However, a claim containing a recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim. See MPEP § 2114 (II).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-9 and 13-20 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 2, none of the prior art either alone or in combination discloses or renders obvious the automatic batching system as claimed wherein the weighing hopper is connected to the fixed bracket through a first weighing component and the transition hopper is connected to the fixed bracket in combination with the remaining claim limitations.
Yao discloses the claimed plurality of material storage hoppers but fails to disclose the fixed bracket with sensor configuration and the transition hopper.
CN 202778398 teaches arranging a transition hopper beneath a weighing hopper. While transition hoppers are known in the art, there is no motivation to use one in Yao’s system since the weighing hopper feeds directly to the mixer.
Similarly, while using a fixed bracket to attach a weighing hopper to the sensor is known, the modification needed to bring in the bracket and sensor configuration as well as adding a transition hopper in the claimed structural cooperative relationship is not readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art and would have been arrived at only through piecemeal analysis of the elements.
Claims 3-9 and 13-20 would be allowable based on their dependence on claim 2.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and represents the general state of the art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATALIE HULS whose telephone number is (571)270-5914. The examiner can normally be reached T-F 7-4 EST.
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/NATALIE HULS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2863