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.
Claims 1-4 and 10-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ogawa (US PG Pub 2022/0060594) in view of Hasegawa et al. (US PG Pub 2019/0092078).
For claims 1 and 11: Ogawa teaches an attachment structure comprising: a conveyance device 29, 29, 29 provided at a support portion 20 disposed on an upper portion of a recording unit 2, 4 that records an image, the conveyance device 29, 29, 29 conveying an object P to be conveyed and reading information; a support portion cover (see Fig. 2, lower surface of the portion 20 which covers portion 10) that is provided at an outer surface of the support portion 20 (see Fig. 2, being the outer surface of the portion 20); an upper cover (see Fig. 2, upper framing elements of 20) that is provided at an outer surface of the conveyance device 20, 29 and is disposed alongside an upper side of the support portion cover 10 (see Fig. 2, being the upper surface of element 20 which is on the upper side of the lower portion of the element 20); an attachment member 50, 51, 52, 53 that is attached to a to-be-attached portion disposed inside the support portion 20, and that positions the support portion cover (see Fig. 6, moving the lower surface of the element 20). Ogawa dies bit teach an adjustment portion that adjusts an attachment position of the attachment member to the to-be-attached portion by performing fixing using any one of a plurality of fixing portions that are disposed so as to be staggered in a device width direction. However, Hasegawa et al. teaches a hinge element which adjusts an attachment portion of a hinge 70 to the to-be-attached portion by performing fixing using one of a plurality of fixing portions (see Fig. 8A, holes on element 72) that disposed so as to be staggered in a device width direction (see Fig. 8A, the holes as staggered in the left-right direction of Figs. 8A and 8B, which is a device width direction from the hinge). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention Ogawa to provide an adjustable hinge attachment portion as taught by the Hasegawa et al. to adjust the spacing of the top cover above the remaining portions of the image forming and scanner device.
For claim 2: The combination of Ogawa and Hasegawa et al. teaches the attachment structure according to claim 1 wherein Hasegawa et al. teaches that the plurality of fixing portions have: a plurality of holes (see Fig. 8A, a plurality of holes in the element 72) that are provided at the to-be-attached portion 72 and are arranged at intervals in a device depth direction, the plurality of holes being misaligned, by a distance smaller than a diameter of the holes, in the device width direction (see Fig. 8A, the holes being slightly offset by a distance smaller than the diameters of the holes as seen in Fig. 8A, the spacing being similar to a diameter of the holes in the perspective of Fig. 8B); and an insertion element 75a, 75b that is inserted into one of the plurality of holes to fix the attachment member 73a (see Fig. 8A).
Regarding claim 3, the rejection as applied to claim 2 above is applicable to claim 3, although the reference of the attaching member and the to-be-attached member is reversed. The components can read upon either the attaching member or the to-be-attached member interchangeably. However, where there is any distinction between the prior art of record any obvious combination thereof, it would also have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to provide the holes on the opposite members through a reversal of the taught structures for the purpose of achieving the same goal of adjustability, permitting the element without the plurality of holes to be made smaller in dimension.
For claim 4: The combination of Ogawa and Hasegawa et al. teaches the attachment structure of claim 1 and Ogawa teaches that support portion cover (see Fig. 2, the support portion cover being the shell of the portion 20, particularly the lower portion facing element 10) is divided into an outer cover (see Fig. 2, the sidewalls can be considered part of the support portion cover) that covers a part of a device front surface and an outer side in the device width direction, and an inner cover (see Fig. 2, the cover planar with the top surface of element 10) that is disposed further toward an inner side in the device width direction than the outer cover.
For claim 10: The combination of Ogawa and Hasegawa et al. teaches the attachment structure of claim 1 and Ogawa teaches that the lower side of the support portion cover is positioned at a frame disposed inside the support portion cover (see Fig. 2, the lower side of the support portion cover is the section which is planar with the top of the section 10) and is within the frame being the sidewall of the section 20).
For claims 12 and 13: The combination of Ogawa and Hasegawa et al. teaches an image forming device comprising the attachment structure of claims 1 and 11 respectively and Ogawa teaches a reading unit 11A, 12 that reads information on the object as it is conveyed by the conveyance device provided at the attachment structure and an image forming device 31, 32, 33 including a recording unit 33 that records information on a recording medium (see paragraph 34, reading, generating image data and printing image data).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-9 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: None of the prior art of record or any obvious combination thereof teaches the structure of claim 1 wherein the inner cover is positioned at the attachment member, the outer cover is positioned at the inner cover and the rigidity of the inner cover is higher than the rigidity of the outer cover, where the support portion cover is divided into an outer cover that covers a part of the device front surface and an outer side in the device width direction and the inner cover is disposed further toward the inner side of the device in the device width direction as required by claim 5.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID H BANH whose telephone number is (571)270-3851. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 12-8PM.
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/DAVID H BANH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853