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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) form PTO-1149 filed 03/12/2024 & 09/12/2024. These IDS have been considered.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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, 2, and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kishikawa (US 2022/0146301) in view of Nakagawa et al. (USPN 4,683,966; “Nakagawa”).
Regarding claim 1, Kishikawa discloses in figures 1-3 a combination weighing apparatus (1) (¶ [0006]) comprising a conveyance unit (90) that receives articles given from an outside and conveys the articles downstream (¶ [0019]) a plurality of hoppers (5) that include first gates (5a, 5b), temporarily receive the articles conveyed from the conveyance unit (90) by closing the first gates (5a, 5b), and discharge the articles downstream by opening the first gates (5a, 5b) (¶¶ [0027]-[0032]), an acquisition unit (50) that acquires a weight value of the article stored in each of the plurality of hoppers (5) (¶ [0046]), a control unit (30) that performs combination calculation based on a plurality of the weight values acquired by the acquisition unit (50) and discharges a combination of the articles having a preset target weight value from the hoppers (5) (¶ [0049]), a discharge chute (9) that receives the articles discharged from the hoppers (5), has a conveyance surface (91) having a plurality of openings (91A) smaller than the article, and discharges the articles downstream while sliding the articles on the conveyance surface (91) (¶¶ [0053]-[0063]).
Kishikawa explicitly discloses openings in the conveyance surface and while it discusses reducing moisture (¶ [0065]), one having ordinary skill in the art would readily appreciate and infer that any sort of openings in the chute would allow moisture to pass through.
Kishikawa does not explicitly disclose a moisture recovery mechanism.
In the same field of endeavor, Nakagawa teaches in figure 10 a combination weighing apparatus (col. 1, lines 8-23) comprising a moisture recovery mechanism (112, 113) that is disposed below the openings in the discharge chute (net chute111) and recovers moisture passing through the openings in the discharge chute (111) from an inside to an outside of the conveyance surface and falling from the discharge chute (col. 12, lines 3-10, col. 13, lines 38-45).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the invention to include Nakagawa’s barrier and drain in Kishikawa’s weighing apparatus for the purpose of preventing unwanted liquid for getting into the packaging materials.
Regarding claim 2, Kishikawa and Nakagawa disclose all the limitations of claim 1 on which this claim depends.
Nakagawa does not explicitly disclose the moisture recovery mechanism extends more outward than an outer edge portion of an upper end of the discharge chute.
However, when modifying Kishikawa with Nakagawa’s barrier, one having ordinary skill in the art could easily determine that the barrier should extend horizontally to produce coverage for where the liquid is coming.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the invention to engineer Nakagawa’s barrier in order to extend more outward that an outer edge portion of an upper end of the discharge chute as claimed for the purpose of preventing the liquid from the top of the chute from escaping from Kishikawa’s openings for the benefit of keeping the production floor dry.
Regarding claim 5, Kishikawa discloses in figure 3 the conveyance surface (91) has a protrusion (92) protruding from an outside toward an inside of the discharge chute (9), and the opening (91a) is formed at a lower end of the protrusion (92) in a conveyance direction of the articles (¶¶ [0053]-[0065]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 4 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:
Regarding claim 3, none of the prior art either alone or in combination discloses or renders obvious a combination weighing apparatus as claimed comprising a timing hopper that includes a second gate, temporarily receives the articles discharged from the discharge chute by closing the second gate, and discharges the articles downstream by opening the second gate, wherein the moisture recovery mechanism is configured using a cover that protects a drive unit that drives the second gate in combination with the remaining claim limitations.
Examiner notes that JP 2014244654 generally teaches covering a hopper gate drive unit (in this case a weighing hopper gate) with a housing to protect it from water and dust.
However, Kishikawa fails to teach a timing hopper that receives articles from the chute and thus is also silent to such a gate. Modifying Kishikawa’s weighing apparatus to include a timing hopper and a gate and then modifying the gate to have a cover in order to protect the driving unit from liquid especially when the combination of Kishikawa and Nakagawa already solves this problem would be the result of hindsight reasoning.
Claim 4 would be allowable based on its dependence on claim 3.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
USPN 6,753,484 discloses in figures 1 and 2 a shield that wraps around a base of a combination weigher in order to catch liquid coming from the distribution table and dispersion feeders.
US 2016/0370222 discloses hoses and drains for recovering moisture from the articles as their travel through a combination weighing apparatus.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATALIE HULS whose telephone number is (571)270-5914. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 EST.
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/NATALIE HULS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855