DETAILED ACTION
Final
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 .
EXAMINER’S AMENDMENT
An examiner’s amendment to the record appears below. Should the changes and/or additions be unacceptable to applicant, an amendment may be filed as provided by 37 CFR 1.312. To ensure consideration of such an amendment, it MUST be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee.
Authorization for this examiner’s amendment was given in an interview with Michael Krawzenek (attorney for Applicant) on 4/7/2026.
The application has been amended as follows:
In claim 3, strike the number “2” and replace with –1--;
Comment, during a review of the claims, it was noted that the dependency of claim 3 was not corrected to be drawn to independently amended claim 1 which had incorporated the limitations of dependent claim 2. Applicant approved of the correction of the arguable clerical error.
Response to Amendment/Arguments
Claims 1 and 3-20 are pending. Claims 1, 4, 9 are currently amended. Claim 2 is canceled. The amendments to the specification and the claims have overcome the drawing objections, the claim objections and the rejections under 35 USC 112 second paragraph. The substitute specification is accepted as there appears to be no new matter entered. The withdrawn claims now depend from an allowable parent generic claim and accordingly the restriction is withdrawn to those claims that are still current and withdrawn. The amendment to the claim 1 has overcome the rejections to the dependent claims there from under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1)/(a)(2) as being anticipated by and/or unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. 103 over Lin (US 12416367), the rejections made moot by the amendments to the claim 1. The rejection to claims 10 and 11 remains as they were originally presented.
Election/Restrictions
The restriction requirement as set forth in the Office action mailed on 9/5/2025, has been reconsidered in view of the allowability of the claims to the elected invention pursuant to MPEP § 821.04(a). The restriction requirement is hereby withdrawn as to any claim that requires all the limitations of an allowable claim. Specifically, the restriction requirement to Claims 12-20 is withdrawn. In view of the above noted withdrawal of the restriction requirement, applicant is advised that if any claim presented in a divisional application is anticipated by, or includes all the limitations of, a claim that is allowable in the present application, such claim may be subject to provisional statutory and/or nonstatutory double patenting rejections over the claims of the instant application. Once a restriction requirement is withdrawn, the provisions of 35 U.S.C. 121 are no longer applicable. See In re Ziegler, 443 F.2d 1211, 1215, 170 USPQ 129, 131-32 (CCPA 1971). See also MPEP § 804.01.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 10 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1)/(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lin (US 12416367) with an earliest date of filing of its parent continuation application PCT/CN2021/076473 being 2/10/2021 (more than one year than the earliest date of applicant filing);
Lin discloses in claim 10: (see at least annotated figures 4 and 5 below)
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A fluid control valve assembly (see abstract and figures 1-8) comprising: a housing (at 120); an actuator (at 140) which is coupled to one side (one axial end as seen in figure 1) of the housing and provides power (Col 6 ln 16-25, power from the motor to transmission to rotary shaft 132); a rotor (130) which is rotatably installed in the housing and receives the power from the actuator; and a port unit (110) coupled to one side of the housing and connected to a fluid hose (pipelines not shown are connected to the separate ports Col 3 ln 50-53), wherein the rotor is formed to be divided to control two or more multi-way valves including different numbers (n) of n-way valves (figure 4 includes 3 multi-way valves as shown in exemplary figure 3, figure 5 includes three multiway valves, as seen in figure 3, there are two (n) 4-way valves; and one (n) 3-way valve.)
comment: (n) of n-way valves itself considered to not provide any meaningful limitation to the claimed apparatus as the minimum value for the variable can be zero which would make the claimed limitation nothing.
Lin discloses in claim 11: The fluid control valve assembly of claim 10, wherein: the rotor is divided into a plurality of compartments in an axial direction (3 axial compartments) and a rotation direction (4 sectors of 90.deg. with 4 compartments of about 15.deg. per sector) to form unit compartments (at least 48 unit compartments so divided, some open some blocked); and at least some of the unit compartments are formed to communicate with each other (for example 131a-c figure 4 to 5.)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 3-9, 12-20 are allowable. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art fails to disclose or render obvious “…the rotor is divided into a plurality of compartments in an axial direction and a rotation direction to form unit compartments, wherein at least some of the unit compartments are formed to communicate with each other, wherein some of the unit compartments are open and others are closed, and the open unit compartments communicate with a plurality of ports formed in the port unit; and wherein an opening is formed in the housing to cover the entirety of the plurality of ports, and the port unit is coupled in close contact with the housing such that the opening and the plurality of ports directly communicate with each other” in combination with the other limitations set forth in the independent claim, and in consideration of the remarks in the response filed on 3/11/2026, pages 13-14.
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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW W JELLETT, whose telephone number is 571-270-7497. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday (9:30AM-6:00PM EST).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisors can be reached by phone. Ken Rinehart can be reached at (571)-272-4881, or Craig Schneider can be reached at (571) 272-3607. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Matthew W Jellett/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3753
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