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DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements filed 05/06/2024 and 07/07/2025 have been fully considered and is attached hereto.
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 of this title, 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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Yamaguchi (JP2002325336) in view of Aisenbrey (US 2004/0174651).
Regarding Claim 1, Yamaguchi (In Figs 1-4) discloses a power-supply box (1/2) for a vehicle (vehicle, ¶ 2, II. 1-2) comprising:
a circuit board (4/13), (¶ 21, II. 1-5) on which a part (12) is mounted, the part (12) producing heat when a power supply output is supplied to the part (12), (¶ 27, II. 1-3); and
a heatsink (11) that is thermally contacted with the part (12) on the circuit board (4) to radiate the heat of the part (12), (¶ 27, II. 1-3), however Yamaguchi does not disclose wherein the heatsink is made of resin and a metal plating layer is formed on a surface of the heatsink.
Instead, Aisenbrey (In Fig 6) teaches wherein the heatsink (64) is made of resin (¶ 35, II. 1-5) and a metal plating layer (72) is formed on a surface of the heatsink (60), (¶ 50, II. 1-19), (Fig 6).
It would have been obvious to an ordinary skilled person in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Yamaguchi with Aisenbrey with the heatsink being made of resin and a metal plating layer being formed on a surface of the heatsink to benefit from efficiently removing the heat from the integrated circuit device to maintain high-performance and prevent device failure (Aisenbrey, ¶ 6, II. 1-6).
Regarding Claim 2, Yamaguchi in view of Aisenbrey discloses the limitations of Claim 1, however Yamaguchi (In Figs 1-4) further discloses wherein the power-supply box (1) further comprising a housing (2/3) that houses the circuit board (4/13), wherein the housing (2/3) includes a first half housing (2) that covers one surface of the circuit board (4/13) and a second half housing (3) that covers another surface of the circuit board (4/13), and wherein an opening (3a) through which the heatsink (64) is exposed is formed in one of the first half housing or the second half housing (3), (Fig 1).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure; Electrical Connection Box US 2006/0030177, Cooling Structure for a Vehicle Control Unit US 2001/0035684, Radiator US 2021/0378144. Other pertinent art made of record are on form PTO-892 notice of reference cited.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AMIR JALALI whose telephone number is (303)297-4308. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 8:30am - 5:00pm, Mountain Time. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jayprakash Gandhi can be reached on 571-272-3740. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/AMIR A JALALI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2835