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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 06/24/2026 has been entered.
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.
Claims 9, 12-13, 19, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miyazaki et al. (US 2001/0018942) in view of JP’654 (JP 2013-154654), JP’483 (JP 2014-172483), and Boiocchi et al. (US 2002/0005238).
Regarding claims 9 and 27, FIG. 1A of Miyazaki et al. teaches a pneumatic tire for passenger cars comprising a pair of bead cores, a carcass, a belt layer, and a tread portion. Miyazaki et al. teaches a tire size of 175/70R13 [0065] having a tire outer diameter of 574 mm and a tire width of 175 mm.
Miyazaki et al. is silent to the claimed groove area ratio. However, JP’654 teaches a tire comprising a tread having excellent traction and rolling resistance performance and teaches a groove area ratio of the tread is 0.23 ≤ S_a ≤ 0.38 and 1.50 ≤ S_sh/S_ce ≤ 3.00 wherein S_sh = groove area ratio of a shoulder region and S_ce = groove area ratio of a center region and (abstract). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the tire of Miyazaki et al. with the claimed relationships of: 0.008 ≤ Aa/OD ≤ 0.150 and 0.2 x (OD/300) ≤ Ace/Ash ≤ 0.4 since Miyazaki et al. teaches a tire size having a OD that is within the claimed range and JP’654 teaches a tire comprising a tread having the claimed groove area ratio of the tread between 23% and 38% and the claimed ratio of Ace/Ash between 0.33 and 0.66 to obtain the known and predicable benefits of traction and rolling resistance performance, [1/1.50 ≈ 0.66 and 1/3.0 ≈ 0.33].
Miyazaki et al. is silent to a pitch number Pce in a center region of the tread portion and a pitch number Psh in a shoulder region of the tread portion. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the tire of Miyazaki et al. having the tread pattern of JP’654 satisfying 0.4 ≤ Pce/Psh ≤ 0.64 (claim 9) and 0.4 ≤ Pce/Psh ≤ 0.49 (claim 27) because JP’654 teaches a tire comprising a tread including blocks and lateral grooves, JP’483 also teaches a tire comprising a tread including blocks and lateral grooves wherein the pitch number increases from the center region to the shoulder region and satisfies the claimed ratio relationship (Pce/Psh is 0.5 in FIG. 2), and Boiocchi et al. teaches tire comprising a tread including blocks 7 distributed in circumferential rows 3, 4, 5, 6 disposed in parallel wherein the number of blocks gradually increase from the equatorial plane (i.e. center region) to the axial outer sides (i.e. shoulder regions) for lower rolling noise (abstract). Particularly, Boiocchi et al. teaches towards a ratio Pce/Psh of claim 27 for lower rolling noise and a prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art do not overlap but are close enough that one in ordinary skill in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. Titanium Metals Corp. of America v. Banner, 778 f.2d 775, 227 USPQ 773 (Fed. Cir. 1985). See MPEP 2144.05.
Regarding claim 12, the claimed relationship is expected because Miyazaki et al. teaches a tire size having an OD within the claimed range and JP’654 teaches a groove depth of a circumferential groove is 20.0 mm (page 7 of the machine translation).
Regarding claims 13 and 19, the claimed relationship is expected because JP’654 discloses the groove depth of the circumferential main grooves in the center region and the groove depth of the outermost circumferential main groove in the shoulder region are 20.0 mm (page 7 of the machine translation), teaching Gce/Gsh = 1.0.
Claims 15-16 and 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miyazaki et al. (US 2001/0018942) in view of JP’654 (JP 2013-154654), JP’483 (JP 2014-172483), and Boiocchi et al. (US 2002/0005238), as applied to claim 9, and further in view of Hasegawa et al. (US 5,435,364).
Regarding claims 15 and 21, Miyazaki et al. is silent to the claimed relationship: 1500 ≤ WLce x PCce x OD ≤ 33000. However, providing this claimed relationship in the tire of Miyazaki et al. would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention since (1) Miyazaki et al. teaches a passenger car tire size having a OD within the claimed range, (2) JP’654 teaches the groove width of lug grooves 41 is 2.0 mm (page 7 of the machine translation), and (3) Hasegawa et al. teaches a footprint of a passenger car tire having a pitch number of 4 in the tire ground contact length in a center region (FIG.1) and providing a typical pitch number of the same class of tire yields predictable results.
Regarding claims 16 and 22, Miyazaki et al. is silent to the claimed relationship: 0.005 ≤ PCce/OD ≤ 0.020. However, providing this claimed relationship in the tire of Miyazaki et al. would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention since (1) Miyazaki et al. teaches a passenger car tire size having a OD within the claimed range and (2) Hasegawa et al. teaches a footprint of a passenger car tire having a pitch number of 4 in the tire ground contact length in a center region (FIG.1) and providing a typical pitch number of the same class of tire yields predictable results.
Claim 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miyazaki et al. (US 2001/0018942) in view of JP’654 (JP 2013-154654), JP’483 (JP 2014-172483), and Boiocchi et al. (US 2002/0005238), as applied to claim 1, and further in view of CN’138 (CN 204915138).
Regarding claim 24, Miyazaki et al. is silent to 1.2 ≤ Gce/Gsh ≤ 2.5. However, providing the tire of Miyazaki et al. with a tread pattern of JP’654 including the claimed Gce/Gsh relationship would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention because CN’138 teaches a pneumatic tire tread circumferential grooves wherein a depth of the crown groove of the circumferential main groove at the crown portion is h1, a depth of the shoulder groove of the circumferential main groove at the shoulder portion is h2 wherein h1/h2 is 1.33 and 1.78 for a balanced performance of drainage and wear resistance (page 2 of the machine translation).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 25-26 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:
For claim 25, it would not be obvious to modify the cited prior art to further include “the tread portion comprises a rib that intersects the equatorial plane of the tire and extends continuously in the circumferential direction of the tire”.
For claim 26, the prior art fails to render obvious a tire comprising 1.8 ≤ Gce/Gsh ≤ 2.5 in combination with all the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENDRA LY whose telephone number is (571)270-7060. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:00-5:00PM.
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/KENDRA LY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1749
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