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 § 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 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zou (CN 201425994).
Regarding claim 1, Zou discloses a portable leakage protection plug, comprising a housing (1), an output electric wire (not shown) and plug pins (2, 4), wherein a control circuit board (5), a tripping assembly (7), an inductor (62), a wiring base (not shown) and a switch (12) are provided inside the housing; the switch is mounted at an upper side of the control circuit board and is located outside the housing; the control circuit board is located at an upper side inside the housing; a static contact (723) and a movable contact (742) are fixedly connected on the control circuit board, the movable contact is an elastic structure, the static contact is in communication with the plug pin by a conductor wire (not shown), the movable contact is in communication with the wiring base by an induction wire (not shown) in a way of bypassing the inductor, and the tripping assembly is used for connecting and disconnecting the static contact and the movable contact.
Zou substantially disclosed the claimed invention except the arrangement of the tripping assembly and the inductor are located at left and right sides of the middle part of the housing; and the plug pin and the wiring base are located at left and right sides of a bottom end inside the housing.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to rearrange the parts to a desired locations for saving space, since it has been held that rearranging parts of an invention involves only routine skill in the art. In re Japikse, 86 USPQ 70.
Although Zou does not specifically show the “output electric wire”, “wire base”, “conductor wire” and “induction wire” in the plug assembly. However, these features are seen to be an inherent teaching since other related components were disclosed. Therefore, the claimed feature must be presented in the assembly to be functioned as intended.
Regarding claim 2, in the modified leakage protection, Zou discloses the housing (1) comprises an upper cover (13), a lower cover (14) and a movable cover (103); and the lower cover and the movable cover are both fixedly connected to the upper cover by screws.
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Regarding claim 3, in the modified portable leakage protection plug, Zou does not specifically show the first and second coils in the inductor assembly. However, these features are seen to be an inherent teaching since the inductor was disclosed. Therefore, the first and second coils must be presented in the inductor assembly to be functioned as intended.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 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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/TRUC T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2834