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 .
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 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kuwayama et al. (US 2014/0138003) in view of JP’654 (JP 2013-154654), JP’483 (JP 2014-172483) and Boiocchi et al. (US 2002/0005238).
Regarding claim 9, Kuwayama et al. teaches a tire for a passenger car comprising a pair of bead portions, a carcass, a belt layer, and a tread.
TABLE 1 and TABLE 2 of Kuwayama et al. discloses several tire sizes which satisfies the claimed tire outer diameter OD and total tire width SW; see example tires 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, and 25.
Kuwayama 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 Kuwayama et al. with the claimed relationships of : 0.008 ≤ Aa/OD ≤ 0.150 and 0.2 x (OD/300) ≤ Ace/Ash ≤ 0.4 since Kuwayama teaches several tire sizes with 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].
While Kuwayama et al. does not recite “a pair of bead cores”, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide a pair of bead cores in the tire of Kuwayama et al. because a tire having a pair of bead cores is well-known/conventional as evidenced by FIG. 1 of JP’654.
Kuwayama 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 Kuwayama et al. having the tread pattern of JP’654 satisfying 0.4 ≤ Pce/Psh ≤ 0.64 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).
Regarding claim 12, the claimed relationship is expected because Kuwayama teaches several tire sizes having 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.
Regarding claim 23, TABLE 1 and TABLE 2 of Kuwayama et al. discloses example tire sizes (reproduced below) satisfying the claimed tire outer diameter OD and total tire width SW.
Example tire #
Tire size
SW (mm)
OD (mm)
SW/OD
17
145/60R16
145
580.4
0.25
20
155/45R18
155
596.7
0.26
23
115/50R17
115
546.8
0.21
24
105/50R16
105
511.4
0.21
25
135/60R17
135
593.8
0.23
Claims 15-16 and 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kuwayama et al. (US 2014/0138003) 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, Kuwayama et al. is silent to the claimed relationship: 1500 ≤ WLce x PCce x OD ≤ 33000. However, providing this claimed relationship in the tire of Kuwayama 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) Kuwayama et al. teaches a passenger car tire and discloses several tire sizes having the claimed OD, (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, Kuwayama et al. is silent to the claimed relationship: 0.005 ≤ PCce/OD ≤ 0.020. However, providing this claimed relationship in the tire of Kuwayama 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) Kuwayama et al. teaches a passenger car tire and discloses several tire sizes having the claimed OD 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 Kuwayama et al. (US 2014/0138003) 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, Kuwayama et al. is silent to 1.2 ≤ Gce/Gsh ≤ 2.5. However, providing the tire of Kuwayama 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).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered and are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection presented in this office action.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/KENDRA LY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1749