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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information disclosure statements (IDS) filed on 10/19/2023 has been acknowledged.
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.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 line 8 recites the limitation “the free length of the respective elongated body”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for “the free length of the respective elongated body” in the claim; for example there is support for the unextended free length and it is not sufficiently clear if this free length is meant to be the unextended free length or another length, thereby rendering the claim indefinite as the metes and bounds of the claim are not sufficiently clear. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets this limitation to read as “the unextended free length of the respective elongated body ”.
Claim 1 line 14-17 recites the limitation “wherein the conductive wires of each elongated body are extendable when the respective elongated body is extended, such that at least one elongated body when extended remains useable for said data communication between the electronic devices”. However as recited in claim 1 line 12-13, it is the at least one conductive wire not the at least one elongated body that is configured for communicating data between electronic devices, thereby rendering the claim indefinite because it is not sufficiently clear which of the at least one conductive wire and/or the elongated body are meant to be capable of communicating data between electronic devices. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets this limitation to mean that the at least one conductive wire is configured for communicating data between electronic devices.
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 of this title, 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 1-7 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2006/0122528 to Gal in view of US 4,956,524 to Karkow and US 6,705,355 to Wiesenfeld.
As per claim 1, as best understood, Gal discloses a method of making a cable, the method comprising:
forming a plurality of elongated bodies (see woven elastic bodies containing elastic fibers and the sinusoid conductors in Fig 3-4 and 6-7, wherein each of the elastic fibers is considered to be an elongated body) from an elastic material (Spandex or Lycra, Para 0105; see Para 0016, 0064 and 0105-0107), each elongated body having an unextended free length (see unextended length in the top of Fig 3 and Fig 4A);
forming conductive wires (see wires 37 and 39 in Fig 3, wires 61, 63, 65, and 67 in Fig 4, 103, 105, 125, and 127 in Fig 6, etc.) having substantially identical lengths (see Fig 4-5 and 6 in which pairs of conductors have the same wavelength and amplitude of the same waveforms, and therefore have the same length; Para 0110);
disposing, for each elongated body, a set of the conductive wires along the respective elongated body, such that each conductive wire is extendable to more than the free length of the respective elongated body (see Fig 3-4 and 6-7; Para 0064, 0108; see degrees of stretch illustrated in Fig 3-4 wherein the lengths of the conductors are longer than the unextended free length of the elongated bodies to reduce or eliminate tension applied to the conductors when the elongated bodies are stretched, Para 0083); and
joining the elongated bodies adjacently together along their respective longitudinal edges such that the elongated bodies are foldable along the longitudinal edges (see Fig 6B-6C in which adjacent elongated bodies are joined along their longitudinal edges by crocheting/knitting/weaving so that the elongated bodies are foldable so that the elongated bodies can be formed into a loop to minimize external contacts of the conductors, Para 0076 and 0117),
wherein the conductive wires of each elongated body are extendable when the respective elongated body is extended (see Fig 3-4), such that at least one elongated body when extended remains useable for said data communication between the electronic devices (see Fig 1 and 3-4; Para 0083 and 0085).
As per claim 1, as best understood, Gal discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Gal further discloses that the at least one conductive wire are used as sensor wires which communicate with a measuring circuit (see measuring circuit 14 in Fig 1) which is an electronic device, but does not explicitly disclose that the at least one conductive wire is configured for communicating data between electronic devices.
Karkow discloses a similar method of making a data communication cable (see electrical transmission cable in Fig 1), wherein a plurality of undulating conductive wires (see conductor wires 2a-2f and ground wires 4a-4n in Fig 1) extending in the same direction with the same length, amplitude, and frequency (see Abstract and Col 2 line 57 – Col 3 line 2) are woven through insulating elongated bodies (see warp strands 6 and weft strands 8 in Fig 1) for creating flexible data transmission cables configured to communicate data between electronic devices in which the wires experience equal stress, do not protrude from the cable when bent and have a controlled impedance (Col 3 line 1-13 and line 32-43).
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to change the intended use of the at least one conductive wires of Gal to be for communicating data between electronic devices as taught by Karkow. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the use of conductive wires for communicating data between electronic devices is very well-known in the art, changing the intended use of a wire would have been a routine matter for one of ordinary skill in the art, and that Gal and Karkow are both directed towards method of making extendable and/or flexible cables and therefore it would be a routine matter to for one of ordinary skill in the art to look to Karkow for improvements to Gal; the obvious advantages of the conductive wires being capable of data communication between electronic devices would increase the utility of the manufactured cable as would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art and would allow for a the creation of a flexible data transmission cable in which the wires experience equal stress, do not protrude from the cable when bent, and have a controlled impedance as taught by Karkow (Karkow: Col 3 line 1-13 and line 32-43).
As per claim 1, as best understood, Gal and Karkow discloses the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1, but neither Gal or Karkow explicitly disclose the use of an electronic positive feeding mechanism for forming the conductive wires with substantially identical lengths. However it is very well-known in the art to use apparatus such as electronic positive feeding mechanisms to create identical length wires, and therefore it would have been an obvious choice to one of ordinary skill in the art to use an electronic positive feeding mechanism to make the wires of Gal and/or Karkow identical in length.
Weisenfeld discloses an electronic positive feeding mechanism for producing wires of identical length (see wires 3 in Fig 1 that are fed through a wire straightener and feeder unit 4 to a cut off system including cut off knife 19) wherein a length measuring device is used to control the length of the wires produced by the electronic positive feeding mechanism (see Col line 9-33).
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to use an electronic positive feeding mechanism as disclosed in Weisenfeld to form the conductive wires of Gal and/or Karkow with identical lengths. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that electronic positive feeding mechanisms for creating conductive wires of identical length is very well-known in the art and changing the manner in which lengths of wire would have been well within the skill of one of ordinary skill in the art and therefore it would be a routine matter to for one of ordinary skill in the art to look to the electronic positive feeding mechanism of Weisenfeld for improvements to Gal and/or Karkow; the obvious advantages of the conductive wires being capable provided using an electronic positive feeding mechanism such as taught in Weisenfeld being that this would allow for increased speed and length accuracy (Weisenfeld: Col 3 line 9-15) as would be generally understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As per claim 2, as best understood, Gal, Karkow, and Weisenfeld disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Gal further discloses that the pairs of conductive wires have the same wavelength, amplitude, and waveforms and therefore would have the same length (Para 0110), and Karkow further discloses that the conductive wires are all equal length (Col 2 line 57 – Col 3 line 2), and Weisenfeld discloses that conductor wires can be cut to the same length with great accuracy using a length measuring device (see Col line 9-33). In light of the disclosures of Gal, Krakow, and Weisenfeld it would be obvious and/or inherent that the inter-wire length tolerance would be small including the claimed range of 1-2 mm. Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to choose the tolerance of inter-wire length between the conductor wires to be 1-2 mm with the reasonable expectation that the wires having the same length as discussed in Gal, Krakow, and Weisenfeld would provide advantages such as consistent waveforms and therefore consistent shape as disclosed in Gal and Krakow as would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As per claim 3, as best understood, Gal, Krakow, and Weisenfeld disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Gal further discloses that the conductive wires are disposed along the respective elongated body during the forming of the elongated body (Para 0064 and 0108).
As per claim 4, as best understood, Gal, Krakow, and Weisenfeld disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Gal further discloses that the conductive wires are disposed sinusoidally along the respective elongated body (see Fig 3-4 and 6-8).
As per claim 5, as best understood, Gal, Krakow, and Weisenfeld disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 4. Gal further discloses that the conductor wires are stitched by many yarn loops including plural yarn loops for each cycle of the sinusoidal arrangement of the conductor wires (see woven elastic bodies containing elastic fibers and the sinusoid conductors in Fig 3-4 and 6-7 wherein each sinusoid is crocheted/knitted/woven into the elastic bodies by a plurality of yarn loops), and therefore each sinusoidal arrangement is stitched with two, four, or more yarn loops.
As per claim 6, as best understood, Gal, Krakow, and Weisenfeld disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Gal further discloses that the conductive wires are wound around yarns of the respective elongated body (see Fig 4 and 7).
As per claim 7, as best understood, Gal, Krakow, and Weisenfeld disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Gal further discloses that the elastic material is an elastic fabric material (Spandex or Lycra, Para 0105; see Para 0016, 0064 and 0105-0107).
Claim 8 is rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2006/0122528 to Gal, US 4,956,524 to Karkow, and US 6,705,355 to Wiesenfeld in further view of US 2010/0084179 to Harris.
As per claim 8, as best understood, Gal, Karkow, and Weisenfeld disclose the elements of the current invention as detailed above with respect to claim 1. Gal and Karkow disclose including conductive wires other than the signal conductor wires (see accessory conductors 65 and 67 in Fig 4A of Gal; see ground wires 4a-n in Fig 1 of Karkow), but neither Gal nor Karkow disclose forming an exterior shield layer from an elastic material comprising conductive yarns for each elongated body with the conductive wires interposed between the respective elongated body and the exterior shielding layer.
Harris discloses a protective sleeve (see sleeve 10 in Fig 1-8) comprising elastic material (see hybrid yarns 12 including nonconductive members 14 in Fig 1-8; Para 0035) with conductive yarns (see conductive wire filaments 14 in Fig 5-8), the protective sleeve being used as an exterior shielding layer to be placed over conductive wires (see wires 13 in Fig 1) to protect against electromagnetic interference (EMI) radio frequency interference (RFI) and electrostatic discharge (ESD) (see Abstract and Para 0032).
At the time the application was filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill it the art to modify the above combination of Gal Karkow and Weisenfeld to include forming an exterior shielding layer from an elastic material comprising conductive yarns for each elongated body as taught by Harris such that the conductive wires are interposed between the elongated body and the exterior shielding layer. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that shielding signal wires is very common in the art for protecting the signal against outside interference and that exterior elastic shielding layers such as taught by Harris are known in the art, and therefore it would be a routine matter to for one of ordinary skill in the art to look to the teachings of Harris to include an exterior shielding layer comprising elastic material with conductive yarns provided over the conductive wires and elongated body; the obvious advantages of the exterior shielding layer being provided such that the conductive wires are interposed between the elongated bodies and the exterior shielding layer being that this would allow for the conductive wires to be shielded against electromagnetic interference (EMI) radio frequency interference (RFI) and electrostatic discharge (ESD) (Harris: Abstract and Para 0032).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joshua D. Anderson, whose telephone number is (571) 270-0157. The examiner can normally be reached from Monday to Thursday between 6 AM and 10 PM Arizona time.
If any attempt to reach the examiner by telephone is unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Hong, can be reached at (571) 272-0993.
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Applicants are invited to contact the Office to schedule an in-person interview to discuss and resolve the issues set forth in this Office Action. Although an interview is not required, the Office believes that an interview can be of use to resolve any issues related to a patent application in an efficient and prompt manner.
/JOSHUA D ANDERSON/
Examiner, Art Unit 3729
/THOMAS J HONG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3729
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