FIRST NON-FINAL REJECTION
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 § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Muthukumar U.S. Patent Application Publication 2015/0005982.
With respect to claim 26, Muthukumar teaches detecting the presence of an activation condition (trigger signal 230, paragraph 47, figure 2); determining if the vehicle is operating in an energy efficient tire orientation and pressure mode (tire pressure are orientation are measured step 250, paragraphs 28, 47-48, figure 2); and alerting an electric vehicle driver of the activation condition (tire pressure is controlled based on measurements, step 260, paragraph 47, figure 2).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 33 and 34 are allowed.
Claims 27-29 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 an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
With regard to claims 27, 33 and 34, the closest found prior art, Muthukumar, discloses the closest found prior art of record. However, Muthukumar fails to encompass all the limitations of the claimed subject matter. Further, the claimed subject matter is not obvious when looking at the closest found prior art of record separately or in combination with each other.
Muthukumar fails to teach activating the energy efficient tire orientation and pressure mode before alerting the electric vehicle driver of the activation condition
Thereby, the claims are found allowable over the found prior art of record as the examiner can find no teaches of above claimed subject matter, nor reasons within the found prior art of record on its own or in combination with each other to combine the elements of the references to fully encompass the claimed subject matter.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FREDDIE KIRKLAND III whose telephone number is (571)272-2232. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm.
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FREDDIE KIRKLAND III
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2855
/Freddie Kirkland III/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855 6/13/2026
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