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 .
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, 8, 9, & 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over China patent 203053328 in view of Davids 532,770.
China 203053328 shows a toy dart, with a main body 2; a cap connected to the main body, with a side wall 1, a plug received in the main body, and a front wall with openings 1a around the edge (figure 4); a hollow chamber in the cap, which contains powder to be dispensed through the openings. China shows the front wall rounded, but some targets may be better struck with a flat tip. For example, Davids shows that a dart may include a cap a with a chamber to receive chalk, and a substantially flat front wall d with openings to dispense chalk onto a target. This substantially flat front wall would be an obvious variation of the dart of China 203053328.
Claims 3-7, & 10 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.
Claims 12-23 are allowed.
We are not aware of any prior art dart kit, which includes a dart, with a main body; a cap with a side wall and a flat front wall which define a chamber to hold powder; an opening in the front wall; and a bottle for storing powder and placing the powder into the dart, which includes a container, with a lid and a nozzle configured to insert powder through the opening; and a wall surrounds the nozzle, as claimed.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN A RICCI whose telephone number is (571)272-4429. The examiner can normally be reached Mon to Fri.
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/JOHN A RICCI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3711