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.
Claim(s) 1,2,17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Danziger et al (2017/0189096) in view of Craig et al (2015/0088127) and WO2016/187080A1 .
Danziger et al discloses sterilizable powered electronics system for surgical instrument comprising boost regulator circuit configured to electrically connect to one or more batteries and configured to at least one of a predetermined voltage or predetermined current, an ultracapacitor connected to boost regulator circuit wherein at least one of boost regulator or ultracapacitor congaed to be connected to an instrument motor, see paragraph 136 and paragraph 9 . Danziger et la lacks disclosing sealed enclosure congaed to withstand temperature greater than 50 C and pressure greater than 15 psi and enclosing boost regulator circuit and ultracapacitor. Craig et al discloses sealed enclosure see abstract . WO2016/187080 discloses under detailed description paragraph 26 and paragraph 37 temperature greater than 50 C and pressure greater than 15 psi . It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the electronics system for surgical instrument of Danziger et al with salad enclosure of Craig et al and withstand temperature and pressure greater than of WO2016/187080 for improved control.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-16,18-20 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.
Prior art does not disclose specifics such as maximum current of batteries and gamma sterilizing process .
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/KAREN MASIH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2846