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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 4, 5, and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finn et al. (2012/0270674) in view of Stites et al. (2010/0273565). Claim 1, Finn discloses a golf club head comprising a crown, a sole, a heel end, a toe end, a front portion, and a rear that define an internal cavity; and a strike face located at the front portion; wherein the strike face comprises a rear surface facing the internal cavity and a striking surface opposite the rear surface; the sole comprises an internal surface facing the internal cavity and an external surface opposite the internal surface; a resilient member (140) disposed in the internal cavity and comprises: a base and a contact member (150); wherein the base comprises a base end and free end, wherein the base end is coupled to the internal surface of the sole and the free end is proximate the rear surface of the strike face (4A). Finn discloses the contact member (150) is coupled to the base and but does not disclose it configured to continuously engage the rear surface of the strike face at rest (fig 4A). Stites teaches a contact member resting on the rear surface of the face (fig 5A). Stites also teaches the contact material different from the base (fig 2. See hashmarks). One of ordinary skill in the art would have modified the connection to the rear of the face as an obvious design choice. Claim 3, wherein the contact member (150) is a spherical shape (4A). Claim 4, the resilient member (140) comprises a base height measured as the distance from the ground plane to the topmost point of the base in a direction parallel to the y-axis between 0.50 inches and 1.50 inches (fig 4A where the height of (140) on the rear of the face is at the face center). Claim 5, Finn discloses the base (140) may be any size [0068]. Claim 10, the brace including the contact piece may be made from aluminum or titanium [0068]. One of ordinary skill in the art would have modified the connection to the rear of the face as an obvious design choice.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-15, 17-18, and 20 are allowed.
Claims 2, 8, and 9 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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/RAEANN GORDEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3711
February 18, 2026