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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The listing of references in the specification is not a proper information disclosure statement. 37 CFR 1.98(b) requires a list of all patents, publications, or other information submitted for consideration by the Office, and MPEP § 609.04(a) states, "the list may not be incorporated into the specification but must be submitted in a separate paper." Therefore, unless the references have been (a) cited by the examiner on form PTO-892, or (b) listed by Applicant on form PTO-1449, they have not been considered.
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.
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.
CLAIMS 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Radtke (US 2016/0212932 A1) in view of Dille et al. (US 2020/0367425 A1).
CLAIM 1 Radtke ‘932 (“Radtke”) discloses a seeding system (Figs. 7, 10) comprising:
a seed meter comprising a seed disc (320’);
a pair of acceleration wheels (410, 420) disposed proximate to the seed disc and positioned to receive seed released from the seed disc and configured to accelerate the seed; and
a conduit (240) for receiving seeds accelerated from the pair of acceleration wheels at a first end of the conduit, and the conduit having a second end opposite the first end.
Radtke fails to teach a coil assembly.
Dille et al. ‘425 (“Dille”) discloses a seeding system comprising a seed orientation coil assembly (40) connected to the end of a combined seed boot and conduit (32, 36) for receiving and transferring seed. It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have configured the second end of the prior art conduit (Radtke, 240) with the addition of a seed orientation coil assembly (Dille, 40). The motivation for making the modification would have been to provide greater control over seed delivery (Dille, [0004]), and to have done so with a reasonable expectation of success.
CLAIM 2 In the combination of Radtke and Dille, the conduit is curved (Radtke, Fig. 5).
CLAIM 3 In the combination of Radtke and Dille, the seed disc (Radtke, 302’) has a seed path having a first side and a second side, and the pair of acceleration wheels (Radtke, 410, 420) comprises a first acceleration wheel disposed adjacent to the first side of the seed path and a second acceleration wheel disposed adjacent to the second side of the seed path (Radtke, Figs. 7, 10).
CLAIM 4 In the combination of Radtke and Dille, the acceleration wheel (Radtke, 410) and the second acceleration wheel (Radtke, 420) are each a finger wheel (Radtke, Figs. 7, 10).
CLAIM 5 In the combination of Radtke and Dille, the finger wheel (Radtke, 410) has a sinusoidal shape (Radtke, Figs. 7, 10).
Conclusion
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/TARA MAYO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3671
/tm/
07 June 2026
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