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 Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities: In line 5, the reference character “(1a)” should be deleted. Appropriate correction is required.
Claims 8-15 are objected to under 37 CFR 1.75(c) as being in improper form because a multiple dependent claim should refer to other claims in the alternative only and cannot depend from any other multiple dependent claim. See MPEP § 608.01(n). Accordingly, claims 8-15 have not been further treated on the merits.
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.
Regarding claims 1 and 3, the phrase "preferably" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation(s) following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). Claims 2 and 4-7 are dependent upon claim 1 and are thus also rejected for the same reasons. Note that claims 8-15, which have not been further treated on the merits, also contain phases such as “preferably,” “in particular,” and “particularly preferably” throughout, which are also unclear.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-7 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 1, the prior art fails to disclose or fairly suggest the combined casting and rolling installation as recited. In particular, the closest prior art, Kircher (DE 19732538A1), wherein an English machine translation is used and cited herein, teaches/renders obvious the instantly claimed features of a combined casting and rolling installation for producing a hot-rolled strip with a final thickness < 1.2 mm, comprising at least a first continuous casting installation and a second continuous casting installation, where each continuous casting installation casts liquid steel into slabs, the rolling installation comprising a rough rolling mill for rough rolling the heated slabs to form a rough-rolled strip, a coil box for winding up the rough-rolled strip to form a coil and for unwinding the rough-rolled strip, a joining device for connecting, without filler material, a foot of a leading rough-rolled strip to a head of a trailing rough-rolled strip to form an endless rough-rolled strip, a multi-stand finishing rolling mill for finish rolling the endless rough-rolled strip to form a finished strip with the final thickness, a cooling section for cooling the finished strip to form the hot-rolled strip, and a plurality of coiling devices for coiling the hot-rolled strip, wherein the roughing rolling mill, the coil box, the joining device, the multi-stand finishing rolling mill, the cooling section, and the coiling devices of the rolling installation are arranged in-line one behind the other, and the first continuous casting installation has a first offset in a first direction with respect to the rolling installation (Abstract, [0001]-[0020], Fig. 1).
However, Kircher does not teach or adequately suggest wherein the combined casting and rolling installation comprises a slab manipulator for conveying the slabs from the continuous casting installations into a walking beam furnace, the walking beam furnace conveying the slabs from the slab manipulator into a rolling installation and heating the slabs to rolling temperature, wherein slabs from the first continuous casting installation and slabs from the second continuous casting installation pass completely through the walking beam furnace and are uniformly heated in the process, and wherein the second continuous casting installation has a second offset in the first direction with respect to the rolling installation, as required by claim 1. Thus, claim 1 is distinct over the teachings of the prior art. Claims 2-7 further limit the subject matter of claim 1 and are thus also distinct over the teachings of the prior art.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANTHONY M LIANG whose telephone number is (571)272-0483. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:00am-5:00pm.
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/ANTHONY M LIANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1734