DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-8 of U.S. Patent Application No. 18/717,755, filed 7 June, 2024, were presented for examination and are currently pending in the application.
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 information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7 June, 2024, was filed before the mailing date of this Office Action. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
It is noted that the Examiner considered, as part of the IDS, the International Search Report dated March 1, 2022 (NPL Cite No. A5). This International Search Report (237) lists two references in it (JP 2015139344 A and JP 2009148011 A) that were not provided in the IDS itself. These omitted references are inarguably two of the most relevant items of prior art on record in the application, so the Examiner has cited them in attached PTO Form 892.
Therefore, more action does not appear to be needed for Applicant to get these relevant documents from the ISR/237 on record in the current prosecution. Conversely, the less-relevant references from the ISR/237 were listed in the IDS itself and so have not been cited in attached PTO Form 892.
As mentioned above, the Examiner believes no further action is required of Applicant on this matter.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
It appears that a comma is missing from line 4 between the words “device” and “and” such that, the Examiner believes, the relevant limitation should be changed from “and an external device and a fuse member…” to “and an external device, and a fuse member…” which would have the fuse as a separately claimed part of the electric drive device instead of as part of the external device.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1, lines 5-6, recite “an accommodating portion that accommodates at least a part of the motor and the inverter”.
The Examiner has attempted to locate and precisely pin down the “accommodating portion” in the specification. In ¶ 0018 a “power converting portion accommodating portion” is described as reference numeral 203. Further, ¶ 0021 describes “the fuse is disposed on the accommodating portion 203 side…” The Examiner has further located the power converting portion accommodating portion or accommodating portion [203] in figs. 2 and 3 of the drawings.
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Line 8 of claim 1 recites the “fuse member is accommodated in the accommodating portion…” and ¶ 0021 has the fuse member as “fuse 403”. The Examiner has labeled the accommodating portion and the fuse member in figs. 2 and 3 above. It seems evident that the accommodating portion [203] does not accommodate at least a part of the motor and the inverter. It does not accommodate either in any other way than that it is between them. As the term “accommodate” is used to locate the fuse 403 inside the accommodation portion 203, the use of “accommodate” has a clear scope and definition within the claim that does not apply to the relationship between the accommodation portion and either the motor or the inverter.
It is noted that the specification defines a “motor accommodating portion” [209] but the specification does not describe how this could be part of the other accommodating portion. In short, there is no evidence that the Applicant had in possession, at the time of filing, an embodiment wherein a single accommodation portion accommodates the fuse, as shown in figs. 2-3, and also portions of the inverter and/or the motor. The Examiner has attempted to interpret the term “accommodating portion” to be very broad, but there are no boundaries laid forth in the specification to merge the spaces of the inverter, motor, and fuse that conforms to any usage of “accommodating portion” in the specification as filed. A person of ordinary skill in the art would glean from the specification that the accommodating portion [203] is a space between the inverter and the motor, and that it houses the fuse member [403], but would find no way of making the claimed invention using the contents of the specification and his/her own expertise wherein the accommodating portion [203] accommodated any part of the motor or the inverter. Again, it is possible to be very broad in interpreting “accommodating”, but the interpretation required to also accommodate parts of the inverter and motor becomes infinite, unless it just means “everything inside the device”. For examination on the merits, the Examiner has interpreted the accommodating portion to be the interior of the electric drive device.
Claim 3 recites “the bus bar… is disposed closer to the accommodating portion than to the inverter…” If the accommodating portion accommodates the inverter, then this limitation has no meaning other than a synthetic one. It also has no meaning if, like some of the references cited in PTO Form 892, the bus bar is also inside the accommodating portion. By the definition of claim 1, it seems everything in the electric device is inside the accommodating portion, such that the bus bar would be too, further complicating the “closer to” relationship.
Applicant is requested to amend the claims to establish an “accommodating portion” that is in line with the definition/usage in the specification, or to assert in arguments that it includes the entire interior of the overall electric drive device, there being no extant definition in the specification that establishes a boundary somewhere in between. The use of “accommodating portion”, for examination on the merits (see rejections below), will be interpreted as the general portion(s) of the housing that accommodate(s) the things listed as being accommodated in the claim.
Claims 2 and 4-8 are rejected for depending from rejected claim 1.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1, lines 5-6, recite “an accommodating portion that accommodates at least a part of the motor and the inverter”. As discussed in the rejection of claims 1-12 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a), the Examiner has attempted to locate and precisely pin down the “accommodating portion” in the specification and cannot determine its scope, boundaries, extent, etc. from the drawings and written description. Thus the term is indefinite. As also discussed above, the “accommodating portion” will be interpreted broadly, for examination on the merits, as the general interior of the electric drive device.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "the smoothing capacitor" in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 4 recites the limitation "the same plane" in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 2 and 5-8 are rejected for depending from rejected claim 1.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-2 and 4-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yu (CN 113572314 A, reference provided with machine translation) in view of Shinohara (JP 2013046447 A, reference provided with machine translation).
With respect to claim 1, Yu teaches an electric drive device (see abstract) comprising:
a motor [unshown/unlabeled motor assembly including motor shell 8] (the motor is shown only via its shell 8 in fig. 1 – see ¶ 0089 of the provided translation and the joint annotated excerpts of figs. 1 and 4 attached below);
a controller [including shell 2, IGBT 29, PCB assembly 28, capacitor 76] (see ¶ 0040);
a housing [combined motor shell 8, shell 2, and distribution cavity 39 which is joined to 2 with a passage between them] that accommodates cooling water paths [controller water inlet pipe 3, controller water outlet pipe 4, motor water inlet pipe 6, motor water outlet pipe 5, as well as the cooling circuit inside 2 fluidly between controller water inlet pipe 3 and controller water outlet pipe 4 that includes IGBT water channel plate 18 and MOS tube water channel 24, and also the cooling circuit inside motor shell 8 fluidly between motor water inlet pipe 6 and motor water outlet pipe 5] (see ¶ 0089 and 0092) provided in the motor [8] and the controller [2/29/28/76]; and
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a connecting member [combined elements 12/90/91/92/93/94/95/96] (see joint annotated excerpts of figs. 11-12 attached below) including a connector [air conditioning compressor wire nose 12] (see ¶ 0090) that connects the controller [2/29/28] and an external device [an air-conditioning compressor] (¶ 0103 recites “one end of the PCT/air-conditioning compressor negative electrode copper bar 91 is connected with the direct current bus negative electrode copper bar 84, and the other end is respectively connected with the PTC wire nose 11 and the negative electrode of the air-conditioning compressor wire nose 12…”), and
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a fuse member [fuse/safety 89] (see ¶ 0040 – the translation alternatively calls 89 “fuse” and “safety”) connected to a bus bar [PCT/air-conditioning compressor negative electrode copper bar 91] (see last 6 lines of ¶ 0103),
wherein the housing [2/8/39] includes an accommodating portion [the interiors of 8, 2, and 39] that accommodates at least a part of the motor and the controller,
the connecting member [12/90/91/92/93/94/95/96] is provided on a side wall of the housing [28] (the Examiner has labeled the side wall in the annotated excerpts of figs. 11 and 12 above),
the fuse member [89] is accommodated in the accommodating portion [2/8/39], and
the controller [2/29/28], the fuse member [89], and the connector [12] are electrically connected (via harnesses 69 and 70 – see the last 5 lines of ¶ 0100 and the second half of ¶ 0103, as well as fig. 10, which shows the harnesses 69/70 running from the controller to where they, in fig. 12, connect with the connecting member).
Yu omits explicitly teaching wherein the controller is an inverter, and wherein the bus bar is a bus bar extending from the inverter.
Shinohara discloses a controller for a motor (not shown) comprising a housing [12] which is a flow-path forming body with coolant inlet pipe [13] and coolant outlet pipe [14] (see fig. 3 and ¶ 0036 and ¶ 0046), wherein the controller has IGBT’s 328/330, circuit board 20, and capacitor module [500], wherein the power source includes means for driving an external device such as the compressor of an air conditioner (see ¶ 0019).
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The controller’s internal electrical components are cooled with water passing from inlet pipe [13] to outlet pipe [14]. A fuse member [511] is current-connected via auxiliary busbars [508c/508b] and a harness [508e] to the auxiliary device connector (see ¶ 0053 and annotated excerpt of fig. 6 attached below) to provide current to connectors [508/509] to supply power to the auxiliary machine, and the fuse member [511] is electrically connected via busbars [508c/508b] and the harness [508e] to the auxiliary device connector (see ¶ 0053), wherein the connectors [508/509] are provided on a side wall (at the bottom of fig. 6) of the housing and the fuse member [511] is accommodated in an accommodating portion with the controller.
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Shinohara teaches wherein the controller is an inverter (see ¶ 0021 which recites “the configuration of the electric circuit of the inverter circuit 140 will be described…” and ¶ 0021-0028 introduce the IGBT’s and capacitor).
Yu lays out various power electronics elements (IGBT, capacitor, circuit board) but simply omits calling the overall system of elements 2/29/28/76 an inverter. Shinohara shows that these types of elements, housed in a cooling flow over a motor, as both Yu and Shinohara teach, do constitute an inverter by name and by function, such that it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to make the device of Yu, while using an inverter, as taught by Shinohara, in order to switch the voltages on the stator windings of the motor, as is well known in the art.
Shinohara teaches wherein the bus bar [508b/508c/509a] is a bus bar extending from the inverter (whose location can be ascertained by locating its capacitor module 500 in the enlarged view of fig. 4 below).
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It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to make the device of Yu, while having the bus bar extending from the inverter, as taught by Shinohara, in order that electrical current could flow directly from the inverter to the fuse. It is noted that it would also be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to extend the bus bar from the inverter of Yu, regardless of said person’s awareness of Shinohara, because the Examiner’s inability to directly trace the inverter of Yu to the fuse along a bus bar extending from the inverter is simply due to Yu’s lack of full explanations/depictions on these matters and also the unavailability in Yu of a figure that shows the relevant features in their mutual arrangement. A person of ordinary skill in the art would not have this problem, knowing with their expertise that Yu teaches enough on the matter for him/her to implement the claimed feature.
With respect to claim 2/1, Yu in view of Shinohara teaches the device of claim 1, Yu further teaches wherein the connecting member [12/90/91/92/93/94/95/96] is detachably connected to the inverter [2] (fig. 11 shows everything partially removed, including empty ports in the side wall where element 12 has been removed, and figs. 9-10 show power distribution chamber 39 completely empty).
With respect to claim 4/1, Yu in view of Shinohara teaches the device of claim 1, Yu further teaches wherein the fuse member [89] is disposed in contact with a side wall (its “fuse seat” 88 is what contacts the wall, but 88 is part of the “fuse member” overall) of the housing on the same plane as the cooling water path provided in the inverter (the entire internal space of 2 and 39 will be filled with cooling water according to the description so the water flow will be along the same wall face as that which contacts the fuse member).
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With respect to claim 5/1, Yu in view of Shinohara teaches the device of claim 1, Yu further teaches the connecting member [12] and the side wall (labeled in the joint fig. 11/12 excerpt above) but does not explicitly teach wherein the connecting member closes an opening in the side wall. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to close an opening, which is clearly shown in fig. 11 as open and in fig. 12 as closed, but not described as so, with the connecting member [12], in order to firmly seat the connecting member 12 in a way that allows electricity to be passed through the side wall to the outside, where it is mentioned by the reference that the external consumer is, as is well known in the art.
Claims 1, 3, and 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hatori (JP 2015139344 A, reference provided with machine translation) in view of Oyama (WO 2013080747A1, provided with machine translation).
With respect to claim 1, Hatori teaches an electric drive device [combined electric power converter 1 and rotary electric machine 4] comprising:
a motor [rotary electric machine 4] (see abstract and fig. 1);
an inverter [main unit 2] (see abstract which recites “a main unit 2 which has a main circuit constituting a power inverter circuit…”);
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a housing [combined main case 20, connection case 30, and motor housing 42] that accommodates the motor [4] and cooling water paths [cooler 23 including refrigerant introduction pipe 231, refrigerant discharge pipe 233, and cooling pipes 231] (see ¶ 0018) and provided in the inverter [2] (see fig. 8 above); and
a connecting member [combined branch terminal 334, fuse 335, and branch connector 34] (see fig. 23 excerpt below) including a connector [branch connector 34] that connects the inverter [2] and an external device [air conditioning compressor] {see ¶ 0046 which recites: “the DC connecting member 33 has a branch terminal 334. The branch terminal 334 is connected with a parallel load (not illustrated) connected to the power supply 5… the parallel load can be, for example, an electric compressor, a heater, or the like for vehicular air conditioning…” – see also the circuit of fig. 19 and ¶ 0047 which recites “the branch terminals 334 branch one by one from the pair of DC connection members 33…” and as shown in fig. 19, DC connection members 33 connect to 21 which is the “main circuit unit” of the inverter 2}, and
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a fuse member [fuse 335] connected to a bus bar [branch terminal 334] extending from the inverter [2] (it extends from 33 which extends from 2 – still referring to the citation of ¶ 0047 above wherein the bus bar 334 branches from DC connection member 33 which is shown in fig. 19 as connected to main circuit 21 of inverter 2 – actually, the inverter 2 is shown separated from the branch module 3 which contains everything in fig. 23),
wherein the housing [20/30/42] includes an accommodating portion [inside 20/30/42] (labeled by the Examiner in the fig. 17 excerpt below) that accommodates at least a part of the motor (42 is the motor housing) and the inverter (2 is the main unit that is contains the inverter circuit 21),
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the connecting member [334/335/34] is provided on a side wall [of 30] of the housing [20/30/42] (see fig. 23 above),
the fuse member [335] is accommodated in the accommodating portion [20/30/42] (referring jointly to figs. 23 and 17 – the latter of which locates the fuse element in the internal space of 3 and the former locates the internal space of 3 directly within the accommodation portion 20/30/42), and
the inverter [2/21], the fuse member [335], and the connector [34] are electrically connected (as established in figs. 23 and 19 in conjunction with ¶ 0047 wherein the bus bar 334 branches from DC connection member 33 which is shown in fig. 19 as connected to main circuit 21 of inverter 2 – actually, the inverter 2 is shown separated from the branch module 3 which contains everything in fig. 23 – specifically, ¶ 0047 recites “the branch terminals 334 branch one by one from the pair of DC connection members 33…” and as shown in fig. 19, DC connection members 33 connect to 21 which is the “main circuit unit” of the inverter 2).
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Hatori omits teaching the housing accommodating cooling water paths provided in the motor. It is noted that Hatori’s housing does accommodate the motor.
Oyama discloses an electric drive comprising a motor [900] a power converter [200] containing an inverter circuit [140] (see abstract – the power converter 200 will be generically designated the inverter), wherein ¶ 0013 recites that an auxiliary machine motor could drive a compressor of an air conditioner (Oyama omits the circuitry and port for this as well as the fuse), wherein the motor and power converter are housed in a housing [12/912] that creates an accommodating space for the motor and the cooling water paths (see ¶ 0032).
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Oyama teaches the housing accommodating cooling water paths [919b] provided in the motor (see fig. 8 excerpt above and also ¶ 0037 which recites “a flow path 919b, 919c is formed by the by the groove of the center bracket 909…. the center bracket 909 and the housing 912 form a motor housing including the flow path 919…”).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to make the device of Hatori, while incorporating cooling water paths in the motor, as taught by Oyama, in order to cool the stator of the motor (Oyama ¶ 0037).
With respect to claim 3/1, Hatori in view of Oyama teaches the device of claim 1, Oyama further teaches wherein a bus bar [508/509] is electrically connected to the smoothing capacitor [500] (see ¶ 0013 and 0022) and included in the inverter [200/140], and is disposed closer to the accommodating portion than to the inverter (the Examiner has labeled the accommodating portion in the joint excerpt of figs. 9 and 21 below, and it is clear that the bus bar 508/509 is closer to it (it is in it) than it is to the inverter, whose probably location has been labeled by the Examiner – see rejection of claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. 112 above).
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With respect to claim 6/1, Hatori in view of Oyama teaches the device of claim 1, Hatori further teaches an output terminal [41] of the motor [4] is connected to the connecting member [334/335/34] {see figs. 18, 23 and 19 (new annotated excerpts attached below) in conjunction with ¶ 0047 wherein the bus bar 334 branches from DC connection member 33 which is shown in fig. 19 as connected to main circuit 21 of inverter 2 – the inverter 2 is shown separated from the branch module 3 which contains everything in fig. 23 – specifically, ¶ 0047 recites “the branch terminals 334 branch one by one from the pair of DC connection members 33…” and as shown in fig. 19, DC connection members 33 connect to 21 which is the “main circuit unit” of the inverter 2, and the inverter 21 is in turn connected to the output terminal 41 as shown in fig. 19}.
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With respect to claim 7/1, Hatori in view of Oyama teaches the device of claim 1, Hatori further teaches wherein the connecting member [334/335/34] includes a female connector [334] and is connected to the inverter [2/21] by way of the female connector [334] {still referring to annotated excerpts of figs. 18, 23 and 19 above in conjunction with ¶ 0047 wherein the bus bar 334 branches from DC connection member 33 which is shown in fig. 19 as connected to main circuit 21 of inverter 2 – the inverter 2 is shown separated from the branch module 3 which contains everything in fig. 23 – specifically, ¶ 0047 recites “the branch terminals 334 branch one by one from the pair of DC connection members 33…” and as shown in fig. 19, DC connection members 33 connect to 21 which is the “main circuit unit” of the inverter 2, and the inverter 21 is in turn connected to the output terminal 41 as shown in fig. 19}.
With respect to claim 8/7/1, Hatori in view of Oyama teaches the device of claim 7, Hatori further teaches wherein the female connector 334 is provided in a cover portion [connection unit 3] (still referring to annotated excerpts of figs. 18 and 23) of the connecting member [334/335/34].
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Figs. 1-2 of JP 2009148011 A (listed in the International Search Report provided in the IDS but not listed on the IDS so it has been cited herein with machine translation provided) are very relevant to claim 1 – ref. #28 is the fuse, ref. #’s 8A and 8B are inverter cooling ducts and ref. #’s 5 and 6 are motor cooling ducts. Ref. #15 is an “inverter device”. The fuse is part of an auxiliary drive for an air conditioner compressor for a vehicle (which is propelled by the motor).
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Figs. 11-13 of CN 112440705 A disclose (fig. 12 has been provided below) another inverter housing with the relevant elements (73 is the fuse, 10 connects to an air conditioning compressor of a vehicle, and 5 and 13 show the coolant inlet and outlet for the inverter housing). Fig. 1 shows the assembly atop a motor but the motor cooling scheme is not shown or discussed. However, it would be obvious to incorporate the features of this reference with the cited references showing a motor cooling scheme or vice versa.
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Figs. 3-12 of US 2016/0126802 A1 appear to teach much of the claimed invention but omit the fuse.
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Figs. 4-5 of US 216/024832 A1 are relevant to the claimed invention.
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL K SCHLAK whose telephone number is (703)756-1685. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 6:00 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Seye Iwarere can be reached at (571) 270 - 5112. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Daniel K Schlak/Examiner, Art Unit 2834
/OLUSEYE IWARERE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2834