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 .
Election/Restriction
Applicant’s election of Invention I is acknowledged. Election of Invention I was made without traverse in the reply filed on 02/26/2026. Due to the incomplete response to the 01/27/2026 Election of Species Requirement, an election was made via telephone on 04/22/2026 by Applicant’s representative Seok Won Lee (Reg. No. 61,124) to prosecute the invention of Species I, Subspecies Alpha A, Subspecies Beta i, and Subspecies Gamma a without traverse. Affirmation of this election must be made by Applicant in replying to this Office action.
Claims 1-21 are pending. Claims 4-7 and 9-21 are withdrawn from further consideration under 37 C.F.R. § 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 C.F.R. § 1.55.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because Figs. 1-20 are low resolution, dithered, and in grayscale/halftones, rendering them visually unclear. In accordance with 37 C.F.R. § 1.84(a)(1), black and white drawings are normally required; India ink, or its equivalent that secures solid black lines, must be used for drawings. Every line, number, and letter must be durable, clean, black, sufficiently dense and dark, and uniformly thick and well-defined, and the weight of all lines and letters must be heavy enough to permit adequate reproduction. 37 C.F.R. § 1.84(l). Moreover, the clarity of the drawings must be sufficient for clear reproduction to two-thirds size. 37 C.F.R. § 1.84(k).
For examples of acceptable drawing clarity and quality, see US 20220362902 A1, US 20230076152 A1, US 20230286103 A1, and US 20240009795 A1. Examiner suggests outputting and resubmitting the drawings as vector graphics instead of raster images (bitmap) and uploading them to USPTO Patent Center as “Drawings-other than black and white line drawings”, which should cause the filed image file to be stored in the SCORE database without any image conversion.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 C.F.R. § 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” in compliance with 37 C.F.R. § 1.121(d). No new matter should be entered. If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, Applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it uses the phrase “Disclosed are”. Examiner suggests deleting the first sentence because the remainder of the abstract pertains only to the grinding wheel. Correction is required. MPEP § 608.01(b). No new matter should be entered.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
McCormick
Claims 1-3 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20210299816 A1 (“McCormick”).
Regarding claim 1, McCormick discloses a grinding wheel (Figs. 1, 3-4, grinding wheel 1) comprising:
a wheel body (Figs. 1, 3-4; ¶ 0023, circular wheel body (base) 12);
and an abrasive article on one surface of the wheel body (Figs. 1, 3-4, abrasive articles 10 on one surface of wheel body 12),
wherein the abrasive article comprises:
an abrasive body comprising a first groove hole that is recessed on a lateral surface of the abrasive article in a first direction (Figs. 1, 3-4, abrasive body 10 with first hole 18 (at reference 18 in Fig. 1) recessed in a first direction (i.e., the central axis of first hole 18, which runs radially from the vertical axis of the cylindrical abrasive body 10) on lateral surface 14);
and a plurality of grinding particles in the abrasive body (Figs. 1, 3-4; ¶¶ 0024, 0043, abrasive body 10 may be made of various materials such as the base material, which may include grinding particles such as “a composite of a polymeric material with other materials, ceramic, glass, metal, stone or wood”),
and wherein a length of the first groove hole in the first direction is less than a width of the abrasive body in the first direction (Figs. 1, 3-4, length of first hole 18 is less than the width of the abrasive body 10 in the first direction (e.g., less than the diameter of the abrasive body 10)).
Regarding claim 2, McCormick discloses the grinding wheel of claim 1 as applied above and further discloses:
a second groove hole that is recessed in the lateral surface of the abrasive article in the first direction (Figs. 1, 3-4, second hole 18 (adjacent to upper reference 18 in Fig. 1) on the opposite side of the lateral surface from first hole 18 (lower reference 18 in Fig. 1), both holes are aligned in the first direction),
wherein the lateral surface of the abrasive article comprises:
a first surface (Figs. 1, 3-4, portion of circumferential surface near the first hole 18);
and a second surface spaced apart in the first direction from the first surface (Figs. 1, 3-4, portion of circumferential surface near the second hole 18, which is spaced apart from the first surface),
wherein the first groove hole is formed from the first surface toward the second surface (Figs. 1, 3-4, first hole 18 is formed/shaped as recited),
wherein the second groove hole is formed from the second surface toward the first surface (Figs. 1, 3-4, second hole 18 is formed/shaped as recited),
and wherein the first groove hole and the second groove hole are located at a same level of the abrasive body (Figs. 1, 3-4, both first hole 18 and second hole 18 are at the same vertical level of the abrasive body 10).
Regarding claim 3, McCormick discloses the grinding wheel of claim 2 as applied above and further discloses wherein a sum of the length of the first groove hole and a length of the second groove hole is less than the width of the abrasive article, and wherein the length of the first groove hole is the same as the length of the second groove hole (Figs. 1, 3-4, the sum of the length of the first groove hole 18 and length of the second groove hole 18 is less than the width of the abrasive article 10 (e.g., less than the diameter of the abrasive body 10), and their lengths are the same).
Regarding claim 8, McCormick discloses the grinding wheel of claim 1 as applied above and further discloses:
wherein the first groove hole comprises:
a groove body connected to the lateral surface of the abrasive article (Figs. 1, 3-4, first groove hole 18 has a “groove body” connected to lateral surface 14, the “groove body” is a portion of groove hole 18 that is connected to the lateral surface 14);
and a groove head connected to an end of the groove body (Figs. 1, 3-4, first groove hole 18 has a “groove head” connected to the end of the “groove body”, the “groove head” is a portion of groove hole 18 that is towards the inner surface 16),
and wherein the groove body has one of a conical shape, a cylindrical shape, and a square pillar shape (Figs. 1, 3-4, “groove body” of groove hole 18 has a “square pillar” shape).
Status of Claims
Claims 1-21 are pending. Claims 4-7 and 9-21 have been withdrawn from further consideration under 37 C.F.R. § 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention.
Claims 1-3 and 8 are rejected.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure:
US 20070128991 A1 (“Yoon”) discloses a polishing pad with abrasive particles having apertures (Abstr.; Figs. 1-8);
US 2476334 A (“Titcomb”) discloses an abrasive wheel with abrasive inserts (Figs. 11-17).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENT N SHUM whose telephone number is (703)756-1435. The examiner can normally be reached 1230-2230 EASTERN TIME M-TH.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, MONICA S CARTER can be reached at (571)272-4475. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571)273-8300.
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/KENT N SHUM/Examiner, Art Unit 3723
/MONICA S CARTER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3723
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