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 § 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 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hangesbach (US 5,419,664) in view of Weber (5,314,278). Hangesbach discloses an expansion anchor comprising: an anchor bolt (1); an expansion sleeve (5) surrounding the anchor bolt; a wedge body (4) located at the front of the bolt for expanding the expansion sleeve; a slit (6) formed withing the expansion sleeve; the slit having a mouth at a front face leading to a stem; the stem is delimited by first and second flanks (15) which are non-parallel to from widening and narrowing areas along the stem.
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Hangesbach does not disclose the slit having an enlarged head. Weber discloses an expansion anchor similar to Hangesbach but in Weber a slit (6) in an expansion sleeve (5) includes an enlarged head (11) where the head is wider than a stem (WO > SW). Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the slit in Hangesbach with an enlarged head as disclosed in Weber to facilitate the expansion of the expansion sleeve (column 2, lines 8-14).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Yekutiely (US 2002/0194718) and Huang (US 6,309,155) teach another examples of a slit with non-parallel flanks. The other references cited are of general interest.
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/FLEMMING SAETHER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3675
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