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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tsai (2012/0228808).
Tsai discloses a method for manufacturing a housing having a fiber film, comprising the steps of:
(a) providing a forming mold Figs. 1A-1D; Figs. 3A-3B; 20, 21-22 and a preformed substrate 10, the forming mold including a lower mold 22 and a corresponding upper mold 21,
wherein the lower mold 22 having an inner sidewall surface and an inner lower surface connected to the inner sidewall surface at the corner 222, the inner sidewall surface and the inner lower surface cooperatively defining an accommodating space 221 for accommodating the preformed substrate 10,
wherein the upper mold 21 having a sprue 211 spatially communicating with the accommodating space 221, the preformed substrate 10 being a curved sheet Fig. 3A, 10 and having a sidewall portion and a bottom portion at the pressure and weight of the injecting material 40 as the substrate and the material forming into a product 30 – Figs. 1D-1E, the sidewall portion having a height not smaller than a height of the inner sidewall surface and being parallel to the inner sidewall surface, the bottom portion being connected to the sidewall portion and parallel to the inner lower surface of the lower mold – see Figs 1D-1E, 10. 221, 222;
(b) disposing the preformed substrate 10 into the accommodating space 221, and clamping the upper mold against the lower mold such that an abutment surface of the upper mold faces toward but not in contact with an abutment surface of the lower mold – Fig. 3A, thereby forming a gap therebetween, that a mold cavity is formed between the preformed substrate and the upper mold, and that a shaping space is formed between the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate and the shaping portion of the inner sidewall surface of the lower mold – Fig. 3B;
(c) injecting a polymer material 40 into the mold cavity 221 from the sprue 211 under an injecting pressure, while pushing the preformed substrate by the polymer material which is formed by the injecting pressure, so that the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate is pressed into the shaping space, thereby forming a first deformed portion - Fig. 3B, [0024]; and
(d) further clamping the upper mold 21 against the lower mold 22 using a molding pressure such that the abutment surface of the upper mold 21 and the abutment surface of the lower mold 22 are brought into a tight contact with each other – Fig. 3B, while pushing the polymer material and the first deformed portion into the shaping space using the molding pressure to deform the first deformed portion into a second deformation portion, thereby obtaining a semi-finished product having a shaped substrate formed from the preformed substrate and a polymer structure formed from the polymer material and covering a surface of the shaped substrate, Fig. 1D-1E, [0025].
Regarding claims 2 and 4, wherein the inner sidewall surface of the lower mold 22 further comprises an upper sidewall portion, the shaping portion being disposed between the upper sidewall portion and the inner lower surface, while the upper mold 21 includes a cover portion configured to cover the lower mold and an extension portion extending from the cover portion as shown below:
[AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: textbox (A cover portion)]
[AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: textbox (An extension portion)][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: textbox (An upper sidewall portion)][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: textbox (A shaping portion)][AltContent: textbox (An inner lower surface )][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow]
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Regarding claims 3 and 5-6, wherein the method further comprises the step of taking the semi-finished product out of the forming mold and removing an upper portion of the shaped substrate that is in contact with the upper sidewall portion 322 and a protrusion 321– see Figs. 4A-4B, [0026].
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the admitted prior art (The APA - current specification [0003]-[0005]) in view of Tsai (2012/0228808).
Regarding claims 1-5, the APA discloses a method for forming a composite component having a predetermined shape, comprising the steps of:
Providing a forming mold 100 includes a lower mold 100A and an upper mold 100B,
a flat metal sheet 10 is placed upon an opening region of the lower mold 100A, wherein the upper mold 100B and the lower mold 100A are clamped and compressed against each other so that the flat metal sheet 10 is forced into an inner space of the lower mold 100A and formed into a preformed substrate 10A with a side portion having a profile similar to a profile of the inner side surface of the lower mold 100A. Thereafter, the polymer material 102 is injected through the sprue onto a surface of the preformed substrate 10A, which has the side portion located in the inner space of the lower mold 100A, and pressure generated by injection of the polymer material 102 into the forming mold 100 is meanwhile used to push and squeeze the preformed substrate 10A so that the preformed substrate 10A may further be deformed along with a profile of the secondary forming portion 101 and hence formed into a shape corresponding thereto, thereby forming the arc-shaped side portion 111. Thus, a semi-finished metal-polymer composite component 1A is obtained as copied below:
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However, the APA fails to disclose the steps of clamping the upper mold against the lower mold such that an abutment surface of the upper mold faces toward but not in contact with an abutment surface of the lower mold, thereby forming a gap therebetween, that a mold cavity is formed between the preformed substrate and the upper mold, and that a shaping space is formed between the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate and the shaping portion of the inner sidewall surface of the lower mold; (c) injecting a polymer material into the mold cavity while pushing the preformed substrate by the polymer material which is formed by the injecting pressure, so that the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate is pressed into the shaping space, thereby forming a first deformed portion; and (d) further clamping the upper mold against the lower mold using a molding pressure such that the abutment surface of the upper mold and the abutment surface of the lower mold are brought into a tight contact with each other, while pushing the polymer material and the first deformed portion into the shaping space using the molding pressure to deform the first deformed portion into a second deformation portion as below:
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Tsai discloses a method for press-injection a fiber film product, comprising the method of:
i)
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clamping the upper mold 21 against the lower mold 22 while forming a gap therebetween, that a mold cavity is formed between the preformed substrate 10 and the upper mold 21to receive injecting material 40, and that a shaping space is formed between the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate 10 and the shaping portion of the inner sidewall surface of the lower mold 22;
ii)
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further clamping the upper mold 21 against the lower mold 22 into a tight contact with each other, while pushing the polymer material 40 and the first deformed portion 10 into the shaping space and into the corner 222 to prevent wrinkles of the fiber film 10 occurring at the curved corner in the molding process [0008].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to improve the APA’s method by providing additional steps of injecting material into the mold cavity formed by the upper mold and the deformed portion/film, while the upper and lower mold are not fully closed, then closing the mold and pressing the molding material into the corners and the side walls as taught by Tsai in order to prevent wrinkles or cracks at the corner as the material being formed.
Regarding claims 3, 5-6, wherein the APA further discloses that the sprue is located in an extension portion for forming a protrusion on the product 1A that is removed from the mold cavity, obtaining a metal-polymer composite component 1 and is further subjected to a surface treatment [0004].
Claims 7-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai or the combination of the APA and Tsai as applied to claims 1-6 above, and further in view of Atake (8033,807).
Regarding claim 7-10, Tsai or the combination of APA and Tsai fails to includes an annular groove surrounding the extension portion and configured to receive the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate during the clamping of the upper mold against the lower mold.
[AltContent: textbox (Annular groove)]Atake discloses a method for foil-decorating injection molding, comprising the steps of providing a male mold 20 and the female mold 2 are disposed opposite each other and a decorative sheet S is transported between them, wherein the male mold has an annular groove surrounding an extension portion and configured to receive the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate during the clamping of the molds against each other, wherein the height of the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate is greater than the height of the inner sidewall surface of the lower mold so as to allow a protruding portion to be protruded from the lower mold as show below:
[AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: textbox (Sidewall portion of the substrate)][AltContent: textbox (Sidewall portion of the lower mold)]
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide Tsai and the APA with a male mold having an annular groove around and having appropriate sidewall height as taught by Atake so that the annular groove help to secure the preform during the molding process, while the appropriate sidewall heights would allow a product being formed having a desired size and/or desired thickness ratio between the preform sheet and the injection material.
Regarding claims 9-10, the APA further discloses that wherein the extension portion includes a parallel section that has an outer surface parallel to the upper sidewall portion of the inner sidewall surface, and a tapered section extending and tapered from the parallel section, during the clamping of the upper mold against the lower mold in step (b), the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate and the parallel section being brought to a close contact with each other, and the sidewall portion of the preformed substrate and the upper sidewall portion being brought to a close contact with each other as shown below:
[AltContent: arrow][AltContent: textbox (Parallel section )]
[AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: textbox (A close contact)][AltContent: textbox (A tapered section)]
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Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of the APA and Tsai as applied to claims 1-6 above, and further in view of Thompson et al. (2022/0305597).
The APA discloses a method for forming a metal-polymer composite component 1 that includes a metal sheet 11 having a predetermined shape and an arc-shaped side portion 111, and a polymer layer 12 covering a surface of the metal sheet 11 and made of a polymer material 102. However, the APA fails to disclose that the preformed substrate has a microstructure on a surface facing toward the upper mold.
Thompson et al. discloses a method for forming a hybrid heat exchanger, comprising the steps of laser-texturing a metal surface to create a plurality of microstructures and subsequently injection overmolding a plastic component directly onto the micro-textured metal surface, such that molten plastic penetrates the undercut grooves and channels and cures under high pressures to conform to the metal surface [0023].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to form micro-textured on the surface of the APA metal sheet 10 prior to injection of plastic material as taught by Thompson et al. so that the molten plastic penetrates the undercut grooves and channels of the micro-textured and cures under high pressures to conform to the metal surface and create a stronger bond between the metal sheet and the plastic material.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Thu-Khanh T. Nguyen whose telephone number is (571)272-1136. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Galen Hauth can be reached at 571-270-5516. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Thu Khanh T. Nguyen/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1743