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 .
The Applicant’s amendment filed on April 3, 2026 was received. Claims 1 and 5-8 were amended, claims 2, 4 and 9 were cancelled and claims 21-22 were newly added.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S.C. code not included in this action can be found in the prior Office action issued September 10, 2025.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on April 21, 2026 has been entered.
Claim Objections
New claims 23-26 are incorrectly marked as “New” when they depend from withdrawn claims, and as such should also be marked as “withdrawn” in addition to “new”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The claim rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103 as unpatentable over Hochstoger et al. (US 2019/0131037) in view of Yoshida et al. (WO 2024/038680, US 2025/0118460 used for citation purposes) and Ernst et al. (DE 10-2017201645, translation filed 9/10/25 used for citation purposes) on claims 1, 3 and 5-8 are maintained. The rejections are restated below.
Claims 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hochstoger et al. in view of Yoshida et al. and Ernst et al. as applied to claims 1, 3 and 5-8 above.
Regarding claim 1: Hochstoger et al. discloses a coating system including a coil outlet (7) which is a feed mechanism configured to supply a copper wire (1) having a rectangular cross section (fig. 2) through a working zone by using rollers, an extrusion unit (11) which coats the wire (1) within a working zone with an insulating layer (3), and a plasma treatment unit (9) which exposes the wire (1) to a plasma upstream of the extrusion unit (11) in order to activate the surface of the wire (1) to promote increased adhesion of the insulating layer (3) to the wire (1) (pars. 66, 82-84, 87, 94, figure 1). Hochstoger et al. fails to explicitly disclose a laser processing sub-system rather than a plasma unit, or that one or more laser parameters including intensity, spectra and feed rate are selected to activate the surface, or that two or more laser beams are provided.
However, Yoshida et al. discloses a similar wire coating system which uses either a plasma treatment or a pulsed laser treatment to roughen the surface to increase its surface energy to above 70mN/m or more thus activating the surface (pars. 41-45, 89-90, table 1), where treatment power, frequency, and time are all result effective variables which can be modified to suit a particular process to achieve the intended surface modification (par. 64), and where the roughness should not be excessively increased such that a particular tolerance of suitable roughness is required (par. 45). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a laser treatment as taught by Yoshida et al. rather than a plasma treatment of Hochstoger et al. because Yoshida et al. teaches that they are functionally equivalent means for roughening the surface to prepare it for coating (see table 1, paragraph 100) and simple substitution of functional equivalents is not considered to be a patentable advance (MPEP 2143, 2144.06). It further would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to select particular parameters including treatment power, frequency and time for the system of Hochstoger et al. because Yoshida et al. teaches that these parameters are known result effective variables for this type of surface treatment (par. 64) and routine optimization of result effective variables is not considered to be a patentable advance (Discovery of optimum value of result effective variable in known process is ordinarily within skill of art. In re Boesch, CCPA 1980, 617 F.2d 272, 205 USPQ215.)
Hochstoger et al. and Yoshida et al. still fail to explicitly disclose that the laser treatment system illuminates the surface of the wire with two or more laser beams. However, Ernst et al. discloses a similar wire treatment system which uses laser device (30) for activating the surface of a coated wire (2), the laser device (30) having at least three lasers (16) emitting beams in order to fully surround the wire (2) (pars. 53-55, figure 4). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use multiple laser beams from different angles as taught by Ernst et al. for the laser treatment of Hochstoger et al. and Yoshida et al. because Ernst et al. teaches that this helps ensure full coverage around the wire (par. 53) and also teaches that it is functionally equivalent to using one laser beam and rotating it around the wire (par. 55), and simple substitution of functional equivalents is not considered to be a patentable advance (MPEP 2143, 2144.06). In the combination, when using a wire with a rectangular cross-section, the laser sources would be arranged on opposing corners of the wire (see figure 4 of Ernst et al.)
Regarding claim 3: Hochstoger et al. discloses that the pre-treatment also removes an oxide layer, which is a contaminant, and this helps improve adhesion too (pars. 84-85).
Regarding claim 5: Hochstoger et al., Yoshida et al. and Ernst et al. teach that the three laser beams are arranged to illuminate the entire circumference of the wire as it passes through the working zone (Ernst et al. par. 53, figure 4).
Regarding claim 6: Hochstoger et al., Yoshida et al. and Ernst et al. show that the three laser beams do not overlap in the cross-sectional view (figure. 4).
Regarding claim 7: Hochstoger et al. and Yoshida et al. teach that the laser treatment uses a pulsed laser (Yoshida et al., par. 89).
Regarding claim 8: Hochstoger et al. teaches that the wire (1) is a copper wire and the insulating coating is PEEK (par. 85-86).
Regarding claims 21-22: Hochstoger et al. and Yoshida et al. teach that the amount of roughening of the wire should not be excessive, giving a particular range for overall roughness (i.e. 3 microns or less), though fail to explicitly disclose the percent change of roughness compared to the original roughness of the wire (Yoshida et al. par. 45). However, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to experiment and optimize the percent change of roughness to be below 10% or 1% because Yoshida et al. does explicitly teach that the amount of roughness increase should not be excessive (par. 45) such that both the amount of roughening done and the final roughness values are both result effective variables, and routine experimentation and optimization of result effective variables is not considered to be a patentable advance (Discovery of optimum value of result effective variable in known process is ordinarily within skill of art. In re Boesch, CCPA 1980, 617 F.2d 272, 205 USPQ215).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed April 3, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant primarily argues that the prior art does not teach “maintaining a surface roughness of the wire conductor within a selected tolerance” because Yoshida et al. explicitly teaches roughening the surface to activate it.
In response:
Applicant’s arguments are not commensurate in scope with the claims. The claim requires the surface roughness to be maintained “within a selected tolerance” which is also an explicit requirement of Yoshida et al.. Yoshida et al. states that the adhesion can be improved “without excessively increasing the surface roughness” (par. 45). Therefore, while the overall surface roughness in the examples listed may be higher for the laser treated wire, Yoshida et al. nonetheless makes it clear that the amount of roughness added should not be excessive, and therefore be within a selected tolerance which is all that the claim requires.
Conclusion
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/S.A.K/
Stephen KittExaminer, Art Unit 1717
5/27/2026
/Binu Thomas/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1717
Prosecution Insights