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
Claims 7-9 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to nonelected Species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 12/24/2025.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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, and 4-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sundararajan et al. (US 2018/0354444) in view of Szawarski et al. (US 2018/0272977).
With respect to claim 1, Sundararajan et al. disclose the claimed vehicle except that they are silent on the inclusion of a seatbelt device. Sundararajan et al. disclose a vehicle, comprising:
a vehicle body 12 having a cabin in which a passenger rides (as shown in Fig. 3B of Sundararajan et al.), and
a side door opening portion, which is opened and closed by a side door 24, formed at a side in a transverse direction of the vehicle body 12 (as show in Fig. 3B of Sundararajan et al.);
and a
a seat 66, the seat 66 being attached to a floor 34 of the cabin so as to be rotatable about a rotation axis that extends in a vehicle vertical direction (Sundararajan et al., paragraph [0066]), and the seat 66 being disposed at a position at which, in a state in which the seat is oriented toward a vehicle rear side (as shown in Fig. 3B of Sundararajan et al.), a side of the seat at which a seat buckle is attachable, in the transverse direction of the seat 66, is disposed at the side in the transverse direction of the vehicle body.
Szawarski et al. teach a similar vehicle including seat 24 that is rotatable about a rotation axis that extends in a vehicle vertical direction z (Szawarski et al., paragraph [0032]; Fig. 5) at which a seatbelt device 52 a seatbelt 54,56 formed in a belt-shape, a tongue plate 60 through which the seatbelt 54,56 is inserted (as shown in Fig. 5 of Szawarski et al.), and
a buckle 58 with which the tongue plate engages, the buckle 58 being fixed at one side in a transverse direction of the seat 24 (as shown in Fig. 5 of Szawarski et al.),
In the combination of Sundararajan et al. and Szawarski et al., the buckle 58 (taught by Szawarski et al.) and the side door opening portion do not overlap in a vehicle transverse direction as shown in the below image taken from Fig. 3B of Sundarajan et al.:
[AltContent: textbox (buckle location in combination )][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: ][AltContent: textbox (side door opening)][AltContent: connector][AltContent: connector]
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It 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, with a reasonable expectation of success, to combine the teaching of Szawarski et al. with the vehicle disclosed by Sundararajan et al. for the advantage a safety restraint provided on the seat in case of a vehicle collision.
With respect to claim 2, Sundararajan et al. disclose an alternate embodiment in which the base and the seat bottom can be slidably connected, e.g., with slidable rails (not shown–Sundararajan et al., paragraph [0065]). Thus, the original embodiment must, by differentiation, be directed to a seat 66 attached to the floor 34 of the cabin in a state in which movement of the seat in a vehicle front-rear direction with respect to the floor 34 of the cabin is prohibited.
With respect to claim 4, Sundararajan et al. disclose a front-rear slide supporting portion that supports the seat 66 such that the seat is movable in a vehicle front-rear direction(“slidable rails,” not shown, Sundararajan et al., paragraph [0065]).
With respect to claim 5, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the front-rear slide supporting portion disclosed by Sundararajan et al. only allows the seat to slide when it is activated. Thus, in a state in which the seat 66 is oriented toward a vehicle front side, the seat is movable by the front-rear slide supporting portion (for example, when the slide supporting portion is activated), and in a state in which the seat is oriented toward the vehicle rear side, the seat is not movable by the front-rear slide supporting portion (for example, when the slid supporting portion is not activated).
With respect to claim 6, Sundararajan et al. disclose that in a state in which the seat 66 is oriented toward the vehicle rear side (as shown in Fig. 2B of Sundarajan et al.), the seat 66 is disposed at a position at which (in the combination) the buckle 58 and a vehicle body frame portion, which structures a frame at a side in the transverse direction of the vehicle body, overlap in the vehicle transverse direction (shown by dotted lines in Fig. 2B of Sundararajan et al.).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3 is 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:
Claim 3 has been indicated as containing allowable subject matter primarily for the seat control unit configured to control the front-rear sliding actuator, wherein, the seat control unit comprising a memory and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor being configured to, when the processor detects that the seat is oriented toward the vehicle rear side, operate the front-rear sliding actuator such that the seat is moved to a position at which the buckle and the side door opening portion do not overlap in the vehicle transverse direction.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL J COLILLA whose telephone number is (571)272-2157. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30 - 4:00.
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/Daniel J Colilla/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3612