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 § 102
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(s) 1-4,6, 9-12,14, and 16-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yasuhiro (EP 3766762).
Claim 1: Yasuhiro provides a structural member (1, Fig. 1) for a vehicle framework ([0001]) at least partially configured for supporting compressive loads and having a length between an impact receiving end and an opposite end comprising: a main piece (10) with a substantially U-shaped cross-section (Fig. 1) comprising a bottom (11), a first side wall and a second side wall (15, Fig. 1); and a patch (20) attached to the main piece (welding portion 40, Fig. 3), the patch extending from a patch front end (upper end of patch) to a patch rear end (lower end of patch), wherein the patch front end is arranged closer to the impact receiving end of the structural member than the patch rear end; the patch comprising a bottom patch portion (21) that extends over the bottom of the main piece (11), a first side wall patch portion (25) that extends over the first side wall of the main piece and a second side wall patch portion (25) that extends over the second side wall of the main piece (Fig. 1, [0020]); wherein the main piece (10) is made of a more ductile material than the patch (20; tensile strength of the main piece and the patch in [0024-0025] and [0075], the tensile strength of the first steel sheet 10 “main piece” is lower than the tensile strength of the second steel sheet “patch”)); and wherein the structural member is configured to deform in a crash such that a plurality of folds occurs between the patch front end and the patch rear end (Fig. 5b); and wherein the folds have a generally increasing buckling resistance from the patch front end to the patch rear end (the width of the patch is increasing towards the bottom of the patch, thus buckling is increasing too).
Claim 2: Yasuhiro provides the patch (20) is positioned in an interior of the main piece (10, Fig. 1).
Claim 3: Yasuhiro provides a height of at least one of the first and second side wall patch portions (25, Fig. 8) increases from the impact receiving end of the structural member to the opposite end (Fig. 8).
Claim 4: Yasuhiro provides at least one of the first side wall patch portion (25) and/or the second side wall patch portion comprises one or more ribs (Fig. 8) separated by recesses along a length of the main piece (Fig. 8).
Claim 6: Yasuhiro provides the first side wall patch portion (25, Fig. 8) comprises one or more first ribs, the second side wall patch portion (25, Fig. 8) comprises one or more second ribs, and one or more of the first ribs of the first side wall patch portion face one or more of the second ribs of the second side wall patch portion (Fig. 8).
Claim 9: Yasuhiro provides the patch is made of a press hardened ultra high strength steel ([0072]).
Claim 10: Yasuhiro provides the structural member is or forms part of a front rail, a crash box, or an inner rocker reinforcement (Fig. 10).
Claim 11: Yasuhiro provides a method for manufacturing a structural member (1) at least partially configured for supporting compressive loads comprising a main piece (10, Fig. 1) with a substantially U-shaped cross-section including a bottom (11), a first side wall and a second side wall (15); and a patch (20) attached to the main piece, the patch extending from a patch front end (upper end of patch) to a patch rear end (lower end of patch), wherein the patch front end is arranged closer to an impact receiving end of the structural member than the patch rear end (Fig. 1); the patch comprising a bottom patch portion (21) that extends over the bottom of the main piece, a first side wall patch portion that extends over the first side wall of the main piece and a second side wall patch portion that extends over the second side wall of the main piece (25, Fig. 1); wherein the main piece is made of a more ductile material than the patch (see the tensile strength of the main piece and the patch [0024-0025;0075];the tensile strength of the first steel sheet 10 “main piece” is lower than the tensile strength of the second steel sheet “patch”); and wherein the structural member is configured to deform in a crash such that a plurality of folds occurs between the patch front end and the patch rear end (Fig. 5b); and wherein the folds have a generally increasing buckling resistance from the patch front end to the patch rear end (the width of the patch is increasing towards the bottom of the patch, thus buckling resistance is increasing too), the method comprising: providing a patch blank (20) configured to form the patch; providing a main piece blank (10) configured to form the main piece; attaching the patch blank to the main blank to form a patchwork blank (via welding Fig. 3); and forming the patchwork blank to obtain the structural member (Fig. 1,3).
Claim 12: Yasuhiro provides the patch blank is made of hardenable steel and the main blank is made of a more ductile material steel than the hardenable steel ([0072]).
Claim 14: Yasuhiro provides the patch (20) is attached to the main piece (10) by spot welding (40, Fig. 1,3; [0034]).
Claim 16: Yasuhiro provides the first side wall patch portion (25, Fig. 8) comprises one or more first ribs separated by recesses along a length of the main piece, and wherein the first ribs are arranged parallel to each other (Fig. 8).
Claim 17: Yasuhiro provides forming comprises heating the patchwork blank above an austenization temperature and shaping the patchwork blank ([0072]).
Claim 18: Yasuhiro provides the patch is at least partially attached to the main piece by continuous laser welding ([0034]).
Claim 19: Yasuhiro provides the first side wall patch portion (25, Fig. 8) comprises one or more ribs separated by recesses along a length of the main piece (Fig. 8).
Claim 20: Yasuhiro provides the ribs of the first side wall patch portion are attached to the main piece by continuous laser welding (Fig. 8, [0034]).
Claim 21: Yasuhiro provides positioning the patch blank and main blank such that the patch of the structural member is positioned in an interior of the main piece (Fig.1,8).
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.
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yasuhiro (EP 3766762) in view of Marquez Duran et al. (US 10,793,196).
Claim 13: Yasuhiro discloses the claimed invention except that the forming includes hot stamping instead of cold forming. Marquez Duran et al. shows that the first structure and the second structure may be manufactured by cold stamping and is an equivalent structure known in the art (Fig. 4, Col. 6 lines 57-65). Therefore, because these two structural members were art-recognized equivalents, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to substitute cold forming for hot stamping.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 7-8 are 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.
Conclusion
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/Amanda Kreiling/Examiner, Art Unit 3726 1/8/26
/JASON L VAUGHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3726