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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Species A in the reply filed on 2025 October 31 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that Applicant believes that an examination of all claims/species can be made without imposing a serious burden. This is not found persuasive because, as demonstrated by the prior art provided below, the prior art applicable to one species in not similarly applicable to others. Additionally, the mutually exclusive features of the different species necessitate target searches including thousands of additional documents to consider.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 13-16 and 19-22 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
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 1-2, 6-7, 9-12, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2017/0290198 A1 (herein “Shepard”) in view of US 10,629,514 B2 (herein “Arik”).
Regarding claim 1. Shepard discloses an immersion cooling system (Figs. 1 and 2) comprising:
a cooling tank (102) having a receiving portion;
an immersion unit (at 104) in the receiving portion and comprising a boiler plate (112);
a plurality of piezoelectric units (at 106/206); and
a piezoelectric driver (124/inherent) for driving each of the piezoelectric units to generate a deformation.
Shepard does not disclose at least one channel is between the piezoelectric units, and the at least one channel is in communication with the boiler plate.
Arik discloses a cooling system (Figs. 12A, 12B, and 12C) comprising a heat sink heat dissipation structure (600); and a plurality of piezoelectric units (300A), wherein at least one channel is between the piezoelectric units (shown in Figs. 2A and 2B), and the at least one channel is in communication with the heat dissipation structure (shown in Figs. 2A and 2B).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the cooling system of Shepard with the teachings of Arik to provide a compact form factor, weight, and packaging of cooling devices while also providing high heat transfer performance (Arik: col. 1, ll. 30-32).
Regarding claim 2. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, wherein the deformation of each of the piezoelectric units has a deformation direction, and the deformation directions of each two adjacent of the piezoelectric units are in opposite directions (Arik: shown in Figs. 2A and 2B).
Regarding claim 6. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, wherein the piezoelectric units have an overall width, and the overall width is greater than or equal to a plate width of the boiler plate (Arik: Figs. 12A-12C – 300A has a greater width than 600).
Regarding claim 7. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, wherein the piezoelectric units respectively have vertical heights substantially equal to each other (Arik: shown in Fig. 3A), and the vertical heights of the piezoelectric units are not lower than a vertical height of the boiler plate (Shepard: shown in Fig. 1).
Regarding claim 9. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, wherein each of the piezoelectric units comprises a piezoelectric frame and an acting section, the action section is at a location of the piezoelectric frame (Arik: shown in Figs. 5 and 8), and the location is adjacent to the boiler plate (Arik: shown in Fig. 12C).
Regarding claim 10. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, wherein each of the piezoelectric units comprises a piezoelectric frame and two acting sections in pair, the two acting sections in pair are respectively at two opposite sides of the piezoelectric frame and correspond to each other, the two acting sections in pair are respectively at locations of the piezoelectric frame (Arik: shown in Figs. 5 and 8), and the locations are adjacent to the boiler plate (Arik: shown in Fig. 12C).
Regarding claim 11. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, further comprising a heat transfer fluid (Shepard: 114), wherein the heat transfer fluid is received in the receiving portion and at least submerges the boiler plate of each of the immersion units (Shepard: shown in Fig. 1); and each of the immersion unit further comprises: a main body frame (Shepard: 108); and an electronic device (Shepard: 110) in the main body frame, wherein the electronic device comprises a heating element contacting the boiler plate (Shepard: 110 contacting 112).
Regarding claim 12. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 11, further comprising a condensation device (Shepard: 118) above a surface of the heat transfer fluid.
Regarding claim 17. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, further comprising a heat transfer fluid (Shepard: 114), wherein the heat transfer fluid is received in the receiving portion and at least submerges the boiler plate (Shepard: shown in Fig. 1), wherein the boiler plate has a main surface substantially parallel to a vertical line (Shepard: shown in Fig. 1).
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shepard in view of Arik and US 7,090,519 B2 (herein “Muramatsu”).
Regarding claim 18. The combined teachings of Shepard and Arik disclose the immersion cooling system according to claim 1, but they do not explicitly disclose that the immersion unit further comprises a bracket in the receiving portion, and the boiler plate is in the bracket.
Muramatsu discloses a heat dissipation system (Fig. 4) comprising a heat sink (70) and a bracket (50) wherein the heat sink is in the bracket (shown in Figs. 1A-3B). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the cooling system of Shepard with the teachings of Muramatsu to provide a removable heat sink assembly that is simple to attach and remove as needed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5 and 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jon T. Schermerhorn Jr. whose telephone number is (571)270-5283. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am to 5pm.
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/JON T. SCHERMERHORN JR./Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763