DETAILED ACTION
This applicant is a national stage entry of PCT/CN2022/084050 with a foreign priority application CN20212260500.6 filed on 11/02/2021. It meets all of the requirements for claiming priority and therefore, the application has an effective filing date of 11/02/2021. This office action in response to claim amendments submitted by the applicant on 04/25/2024. The claim set includes original claims 1-8 and new claims 9-16. The claims are examined on the merits and this is a non-final office 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 Objections
The claims are objected to because they include reference characters which are not enclosed within parentheses.
Reference characters corresponding to elements recited in the detailed description of the drawings and used in conjunction with the recitation of the same element or group of elements in the claims should be enclosed within parentheses so as to avoid confusion with other numbers or characters which may appear in the claims. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
Claim 1 recites “a housing” which does not include a reference character in parentheses but the rest of the claim body and dependent claims contain other limitations which include reference characters in parentheses. For example, “an inner bottle (3)”, “a spray nozzle (4)”. The claims should all include reference characters for all the limitations or no reference characters all to keep the claims uniform.
As a result, claims 1, 6, 7, 11, and 13-16 are objected for not providing a reference character for the “housing”.
Appropriate corrections are required.
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 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bingchang (CN 111689056) (see attached machine translation) in view of Jie (CN 211214806) (see attached machine translation).
Regarding claim 1, Bingchang teaches a spray bottle (figure 1), comprising a housing (housing 4 made of covers 401 and 402, figure 1), an inner bottle (item 1, figure 1), and a spray nozzle (item 3, figure 1), wherein an opening (item 7, figure 1) is formed in a side face of the housing.
Jie teaches another spray bottle (item 1, figure 1) with a spray nozzle (item 2, figure 1) comprising an opening (shaped like a groove) (item 101, figure 1), a flip cover (item 402, figure 1) is arranged at the opening; an inner box (item 4, figure 1) is arranged inside the opening, and one side of the inner box is provided with a mouth (the inner box 4 has a same opening shape as the opening groove of the bottle (see figure 1 and machine translation).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Bingchang and Jie to form a two-shell housing with a flip cover and an opening that corresponds with an opening on a side of the bottle, wherein the bottle comprising a corresponding box that fits into the opening of the bottle and is closed by the flip cover of the two-shell housing. Doing so involves minor modifications and such configuration is within the range of one of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, the resultant device teaches the invention of claim 1 and is obvious over the prior arts.
Regarding claim 2, Bingchang as modified by Jie teaches that one side, away from the opening, of an outer edge of the inner box is provided with a flange (item 10, figure 1, Jie), and a size of an outer circumference of the flange is greater than a size of an outer circumference of the opening (figure 1, Jie).
Regarding claims 3 and 9, Bingchang as modified by Jie teaches that one side of the inner bottle is provided with a groove (item 101, figure 1, Jie) in fit with a shape of a back of the inner box (item 4, figure 1, Jie), and the back of the inner box is mounted in the groove (see figure 1 and machine translation, Jie).
Regarding claims 4-5, 10, and 12, Bingchang as modified by Jie teaches that an edge of the mouth of the inner box is provided with a first clamping strip (item 10, figure 1, Jie), and an inner side of the flip cover is provided with a second clamping strip (item 11, figure 1, Jie) in snap fit with the first clamping strip (see machine translation).
Claims 6-8, 11, and 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bingchang in view of Jie, as applied to claim 1 above, further in view of Hidding et al. (“Hidding” hereinafter) (US PN 5,050,757).
Regarding claims 6-8, 11, and 13-16, Jie teaches that one of flip cover is arranged on the box end (figure 1, Jie).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Bingchang such that the flip cover is arranged on the housing with a hinged end as taught by Jie since such configruation are old and well-known in the art.
However, the combination of Bingchang and Jie does not teach a buckle groove arranged between other end of the flip cover and the opening. However, such grooves are known as finger recesses to provide a user additional space to grab a recessed object or open a flip cover of a bottle.
Hidding teaches a container within a container system (item 10, figure 1) with a smaller container (item 12, figure 1) nestled into a side of a larger container (item 11, figure 1) that comprises a matching opening (item 14, figure 1) to the smaller container; wherein the outer surface of the larger container comprises buckle grooves (item 34, figure 2) of finger access recesses for a user to reach in and take out the smaller container.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Bingchang and Jie to provide a finger access groove on the other end of the flip cover as taught by Hidding to provide a user with finger access space to open the flip cover with ease. Doing so only involves modifying the outer housing of Bingchang and is within the range of one of ordinary skill in the art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The following documents disclose subject matter related to larger containers having openings in their sidewalls for fitting smaller containers or other components for an integrated dispensing assembly: US PN 180,132, US PN US PN 3,732,999, US PN 4,235,343, US PN 4,662,541, US PN 4,958,740, and US PN 8,033,409.
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/Vishal Pancholi/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3754