DETAILED ACTION
The Information Disclosure Statement filed on November 10, 2023 has been reviewed and considered by the Examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kim (KR 101559806 B1).
Kim discloses a current collector for an electric railcar comprised of a current collecting member 60 arranged on a circumference of a wheel 40 for an electric railcar
to collect power from a wireless feeding rail 20 for the electric railcar. A base member 80 is coupled to the electric railcar and a transmission member 70 that transmits the power collected from the current collecting member to the base member. The collecting member 60 makes rolling contact with the rail 10 of the track by way of its connection with the railcar wheel 40. The wireless coil is connected with each rail 10 by way of the ground support as shown in figure 1.
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) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shimada (JP 2003116202 A).
Shimada discloses a power line device for transmitting power to an electric railcar 3 comprised of a power transmission member 7 for transmitting power to a pantograph 6 provided with a movable mechanism mounted on a roof of the electric railcar. The power transmission member receives power from a power line and transmits the received power to the pantograph.
Shimada discloses the transmission device as described above. However, does not specifically show a roller shape device to make contact with the pantograph. It is well known in the art to have utilized rollers for contact between components to reduce friction. It would have been an obvious design choice to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have applied a roller assembly to the transmission device with the expected result of allowing a rolling contact between the pantograph and transmission member with the expected result of reducing friction between the components so as to reduce damage and wear.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 10 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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/Robert J McCarry Jr/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3615
RJM
March 4, 2026
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