DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Priority
As required by M.P.E.P. 201.14(c), acknowledgement is made of applicant’s claim for priority based on the application filed on January 3rd, 2023 (TW112100132). Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
As required by M.P.E.P. 609, the applicant’s submissions of the Information Disclosure Statement dated August 27th, 2024 is acknowledged by the examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending.
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.
Claim(s) 1-13, 15, and 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai (TW 444211 B) in view of Zhou (CN 104527191 A) (Note a translated copy of both of these documents has been provided and is being cited below).
Regarding claim 1, Tsai teaches a reflective wire, comprising:
at least one reflective strip, comprising a film layer (See, e.g., aluminum layer 22 in strip 20 in Figs. 1 and 3 and the final four paragraphs of page 2 which indicate the aluminum layer is reflective and note even if the prior art did not expressly teach this the limitation would be met because in order to see the strip light is necessarily reflected into a user’s eyes); and
a transparent protective film provided on the at least one reflective strip (See, e.g., which explains the layers of strip 20 and note here the protective film corresponds to clear coat 24 in Fig. 3).
Tsai lacks an explicit disclosure wherein the reflective strip comprises a plurality of reflective balls, wherein one side of the film layer is fixedly coated with the reflective balls; and wherein gaps allowing passage of air are formed between the reflective balls.
However, in an analogous field of endeavor Zhou teaches a reflective strip comprising a plurality of reflective balls (See, e.g., reflective layer 2 and beads 7 in Fig. 1) wherein a film layer is fixedly coated with the reflective balls (See, e.g., protective layer 4 in Fig. 1); and wherein gaps allowing passage of air are formed between the reflective balls (See, e.g., the gaps between beads 7 in Fig. 1 and paragraph [0023] which indicates the passage of air happens across the base layer, note that the claim does not require the passage of air to be between the reflective balls themselves and so the passage of air in the base layer overlapping the gaps in the beads meets this limitation).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the reflective strip of Tsai to include a stack of layers (i.e. layers 1-4 of Zhou) on the outer side of layer 20, as taught by Zhou, for the purpose of having a more reflective strip and having a flame-retardant property for the reflective strip.
Regarding claim 2, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches a supporting wire element, wherein the at least one reflective strip is provided on the supporting wire element, and the other side of the film layer abuts the supporting wire element (See, e.g., wire 11 in Fig. 1 which is on the reflective strip via cable 10, and note that as modified above strip 20 includes the reflective balls on the outer side of strip 20 and the wire 11 is on the other side).
Regarding claim 3, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches a transparent plasticized coating layer provided on an outer surface of the transparent protective film (See, e.g., paragraph [0008] which explains a second transparent layer 24 may be used and insofar as the layers are a stack they are all “on” each other).
Regarding claim 4, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein the supporting wire element is made of at least one of a metal material and a plasticized material (See, e.g., the 4th to last paragraph of page 2 which explains wire 11 can be metal).
Regarding claim 5, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein each of the reflective balls is a light-permeable bead (See, e.g., paragraph [0025] of Zhou which indicates the beads 7 are glass beads), and half of a spherical surface of the light-permeable bead has a mirror coating layer as a reflective layer for retroreflection (See, e.g., Fig. 1 of Zhou which shows this).
Regarding claim 6, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein the at least one reflective strip is windingly or weavingly wrapped around a surface of the supporting wire element, and corresponding edges of each two adjacent turns of the at least one reflective strip abut or substantially abut each other (See, e.g., Figs. 1-3 which show this).
Regarding claim 7, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein the at least one reflective strip is windingly or weavingly wrapped around a surface of the supporting wire element, and corresponding edges of each two adjacent turns of the at least one reflective strip overlap (See, e.g., Figs. 1-3 which shows this insofar as the “corresponding edges” can mean the abutting edges or, for instance, the left edge of each turn).
Regarding claim 8, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein a width of an overlapping portion between each two adjacent turns of the at least one reflective strip is 10% to 50% of a width of the film layer (See, e.g., Figs. 2-3 which show this, note that drawings are not always to scale but here the drawings are very clearly in this range).
Regarding claim 9, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein the at least one reflective strip is windingly or weavingly wrapped around a surface of the supporting wire element, and corresponding edges of each two adjacent turns of the at least one reflective strip are spaced apart by a distance (See, e.g., Figs. 1-3 which shows this insofar as the “corresponding edges” can mean the abutting edges or, for instance, the left edge of each turn).
Regarding claim 10, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above but lacks an explicit disclosure wherein transparent protective film has a width ranging from 1.0 mm to 4.0 mm and a thickness ranging from 0.01 mm to 0.05 mm, and the plasticized coating layer has a thickness ranging from 0.50 mm to 3.00 mm.
However, the width and thickness of the film/layer correspond to a result-effective variable, i.e., a variable which achieves a recognized result, in the instant case these dimensions directly affect the compactness of the device as well as the flexibility of the reflective strip (as thickness increases flexibility decreases). Further, as a result-effective variable, it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges of such things involves only routine skill in the art, In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233 (C.C.P.A. 1955). In the instant case, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify these dimensions to be within the claimed ranges for the purpose of optimizing compactness & flexibility of the device.
Regarding claim 11, Tsai teaches a method for making a reflective wire, comprising:
at least one reflective strip (See, e.g., aluminum layer 22 in layer 20 in Fig. 3); and
providing a transparent protective film on a surface of the at least one reflective strip to form the reflective wire (See, e.g., clear coat 24 in Fig. 3 and note insofar as this is a stack of layers they are all “on” each other).
Tsai lacks an explicit disclosure the step of: fixing a plurality of reflective balls to a side of a film layer; and wherein the reflective balls are disposed between the transparent protective film and the film layer, and gaps allowing the passage of air are formed between the reflective balls.
However, in an analogous field of endeavor Zhou teaches a reflective strip comprising a plurality of reflective balls (See, e.g., reflective layer 2 and beads 7 in Fig. 1), with a step of fixing a plurality of the reflective balls to a side of a film layer (See, e.g., beads 7 and protective layer 4 in Fig. 1); and wherein gaps allowing passage of air are formed between the reflective balls (See, e.g., the gaps between beads 7 in Fig. 1 and paragraph [0023] which indicates the passage of air happens across the base layer, note that the claim does not require the passage of air to be between the reflective balls themselves and so the passage of air in the base layer overlapping the gaps in the beads meets this limitation).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the reflective strip of Tsai to include a stack of layers (i.e. layers 1-4 of Zhou) on the outer side of layer 20, as taught by Zhou, for the purpose of having a more reflective strip and having a flame-retardant property for the reflective strip (note that as modified the reflective balls would be between layer 4 of Zhou and layer 24 of Tsai).
Regarding claim 12, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches providing the at least one reflective strip on a supporting wire element with the other side of the film layer abutting the supporting wire element, before providing the transparent protective film on the at least one reflective strip (See, e.g., the combination of cable 10 and wire 11 in Fig. 1 which is on the reflective strip via cable 10, and note that as modified above strip 20 includes layer 4 on the outside and the wire 11 is on the other side).
Regarding claim 13, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein the supporting wire element is a wire made of a malleable material by extrusion molding, and the malleable material is made of at least one of a metal material and a plasticized material (See, e.g., the 4th to last paragraph of page 2 which explains cable 10 is formed via extrusion molding, thus being malleable, and is made of plastic).
Regarding claim 15, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches wherein the supporting wire element is embedded therein with at least one wire core made of an electrically conductive metal or a fibrous material (See, e.g., wire 11 made out of metal in Fig. 1 and the 4th to last paragraph on page 2 which explains the wire is conductive).
Regarding claim 17, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches windingly or weavingly wrapping the at least one reflective strip around a surface of the supporting wire element with corresponding edges of each two adjacent turns of the at least one reflective strip abutting or substantially abutting each other (See, e.g., Figs. 1-3 which show this).
Regarding claim 18, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches windingly or weavingly wrapping the at least one reflective strip around a surface of the supporting wire element with corresponding edges of each two adjacent turns of the at least one reflective strip overlapping (See, e.g., Figs. 1-3 which shows this insofar as the “corresponding edges” can mean the abutting edges or, for instance, the left edge of each turn).
Regarding claim 19, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the device set forth above and further teaches windingly or weavingly wrapping the at least one reflective strip around a surface of the supporting wire element with corresponding edges of each two adjacent turns of the at least one reflective strip being spaced apart by a distance (See, e.g., Figs. 1-3 which shows this insofar as the “corresponding edges” can mean the abutting edges or, for instance, the left edge of each turn).
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai (TW 444211 B) in view of Zhou (CN 104527191 A) and further in view of Fu (WO 2011/013797 A1) (Note a translated copy of these documents has been provided and is being cited below).
Regarding claim 14, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the method set forth above and further teaches coating aluminum on half of a spherical surface of each of the light-permeable beads to form a mirror coating layer on the half of the spherical surface as a reflective layer for retroreflection, and to form the reflective balls capable of retroreflection (See, e.g., paragraph [0024] of Zhou which explains the reflective layer is aluminum & Fig. 1 which shows the structure).
Tsai and Zhou lack an explicit disclosure wherein each of the light-permeable beads is ground smooth by a grinding machine.
However, in an analogous field of endeavor Fu teaches a step of manufacturing glass spheres, i.e. light-permeable beads, to a smooth surface via a grinding machine (See, e.g., the second paragraph under “Description” which explains a sphere can be created via a drum/powder machine where the powder grinds down the surface of the sphere).
It would have been obvious for someone having ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step of grinding the glass beads smooth in the method of Tsai and Zhou, as taught by Fu, for the purpose of optimizing the reflective properties and the direction light is reflected off the beads.
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai (TW 444211 B) in view of Zhou (CN 104527191 A) (Note a translated copy of both of these documents has been provided and is being cited below) and further in view of Ryan et al. (US 4,123,140).
Regarding claim 16, Tsai in view of Zhou teaches the method set forth above and further teaches wherein the step of forming the at least one reflective strip comprises applying an adhesive to the side of the film layer (Note these layers are all bonded and thus there is an adhesive present between each layer even if unnumbered); attaching the reflective balls to, and positioned the reflective balls on, the side of the film layer via the adhesive (See, e.g., Fig. 1 and note that the balls sit in their grooves and are adhered therein, meeting this limitation).
Tsai and Zhou lack an explicit disclosure of drying the film layer to cure the adhesive and fix the reflective balls on the side of the film layer.
However, in an analogous field of endeavor Ryan teaches the step of drying an adhesive to complete a stack of optical layers including reflective balls (See, e.g., column 7 lines 14-19 which explain this).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step of drying the adhesive in the method of Tsai and Zhou, as taught by Ryan, for the purpose of decreasing the time of manufacturing (See, e.g., column 7 lines 14-19 which explain the adhesive can dry quickly to facilitate this).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mitchell Oestreich whose telephone number is (571)270-7559. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00-11:00 MT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bumsuk Won can be reached at 571-272-2713. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MITCHELL T OESTREICH/Examiner, Art Unit 2872
/BUMSUK WON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2872