DETAILED ACTION
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 - and 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 7-10, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Benn, Jr., US 6613976 (“Benn”). Regarding claim 1, Benn discloses an elastic electric contact terminal (see figures 11, 1213, and 14) that is interposed to be pressed between opposing objects so as to electrically connect the objects to each other, the electric contact terminal comprising:
first and second cores (88, 62) arranged horizontally to be coupled to each other and
having elasticity; and
an electrically conductive film (90, 92 in figures 11, 12; 68 in figure 13, 14) comprising an upper contact portion 92 (labeled UCP in annotated figure 11A below, see col. 6, line 35 through col. 7, line 25) inherently or at least implicitly adhered to at least one of top surfaces of the first and second cores, a lower contact portion (92 labeled LCP below) adhered to at least one of bottom surfaces of the first and second cores, and
a connection portion (labeled CP below) integrated with the upper and lower contact portions and adhered to outer surfaces of the first and second cores between the first and
second cores, wherein each of the contact portion and the connection portion has electrical
conductivity.
Note that conductive portion (90, 92) is a film as “film” is defined as “a thin covering or coating.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/film.
To the extent that Benn does not explicitly state that the conductive portion 90 is adhered to the cores, the adhesion would be an inherent consequence of the manufacturing processes as set out in col. 3, line 3 to col. 6, line15. If not an inherent consequence, the adhesion would have at least been an obvious engineering choice to have the device operate as intended without immediately separating into disparate pieces.
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Per claim 7, the cross-sectional shapes of the first and second cores are symmetrical to each other (figures 11A-12C).
Per claim 8, heights of the first and second cores are different from each other (figures 13, 14).
Per claim 9, the upper contact portion extends downward along the outer surface of the core (Figure 14).
Per claim 10. The elastic electric contact terminal of claim 1, wherein the first core has
a tube shape (labeled TS below), and the second core has a sheet shape (labeled SS below) that is narrower (in the vertical direction labeled VD below) than the first core. See figure 12 annotated below.
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Regarding claim 13, each of the first and second cores has a through-hole (95, figure 12A-C) defined along a longitudinal direction,
the electrically conductive film is provided as a single body, the upper
contact portion is adhered to (as set out regarding claim 1) the top surface of the first core by an adhesive, the lower contact portion is adhered to the bottom surface of the second core by the adhesive, and each of both sides of the connection portion is adhered to each of
the outer surfaces of adjacent sidewalls of the first and second cores by the
adhesive.
Per claim 14, inherently, when the electric contact terminal is pressed from top to bottom, the connection portion of the electrically conductive film is bent.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6, 11, and 12 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 ROSS GUSHI whose telephone number is (571)272-2005. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday, 8:30 - 5:00.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Christopher Koehler can be reached on 571-272-3560. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ROSS N GUSHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2834