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 .
DETAIL ACTION
Notice to Applicant(s)
This application has been examined. Claims 1-16 are pending.
The prior art submitted on December 05, 2023 has been considered.
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. § 119, which have been placed of record in the file.
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) A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, nowwitstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed 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 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sekiya et al. (2009/0008193) in view of Thomas (2018/0001878)
As per claim 1, Sekiya et al. disclose a disk brake for a motor vehicle which includes a brake caliper (see at least figure 2, item 5; paragraph 0047), a brake carrier (see at least figure 2) by which the brake caliper is supported, a brake disk which can be coupled for conjoint rotation with a vehicle wheel (see the abstract; paragraph 0021), a first brake pad and a second brake pad between which the brake disk is mounted, wherein the brake pads are each spaced apart from the brake disk by means of a retraction force (see at least figure 2, item 6; paragraph 0056), a brake piston connected to a pressure source, said brake piston being sealingly displaceably guided in the brake caliper of the disk brake in order to effect a relative movement between the respective brake pad and the brake disk by means of an applied force provided by the pressure source, so that the brake pads can be brought into contact with the brake disk (see at least figure 2; paragraphs 0047-0050), an electromagnet is connected to at least one of the brake pads in order to generate the retraction force acting on the at least one brake pad (see at least figures 11-19).
Seikiya et al. do not explicitly disclose that the electromagnet having a coil (50, 60) and a coil core (52, 62) movably arranged in the coil which is connected to the brake carrier. However, such limitation is taught in at least figures 4, 5, 9, paragraphs 0035, 0061, 0067, 0068, 0070, 0073, 0075 of the Thomas reference. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to incorporate the teaching of Thomas into the system of Seikiya et al. with a reasonable expectation of success in order to provide the system with the enhanced capacity of using the electromagnet having coil and coil core in order to generate great retraction force acting on at least one brake pad.
As per claim 5, Thomas disclose that the coil core is integrally connected, preferably adhesively bonded to a backing plate of the at least one brake pad (see at least figure 4, 5 and 9).
Claims 2-4 and 6-16 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
Claims 1 and 5 are rejected. Claims 2-4 and 6-16 are objected.
The following references are cited as being of general interest: Hoffman et al. (3,827,535), Wang (6,250,437), Al-Mahshi et al. (2018/0013332), Gerber et al. (2023/0175564) and Van De Vorst et al. (2023/02283304).
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February 6, 2026
/TAN Q NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3661