DETAILED 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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 – 5 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.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a) (1) as being anticipated by McCormick et al. US 5,349,337 (hereinafter McCormick).
Regarding claim 1, McCormick teaches: a numerical control device comprising:
a deep-hole drilling execution unit configured to carry out deep hole drilling by repeatedly performing a cutting operation of causing a cutting tool to cut into a workpiece while rotating the cutting tool and a retraction operation of retracting the cutting tool while rotating the cutting tool (C5, L47-66 - - peck cycle);
and a chip removal time calculation unit configured to calculate a chip removal time in accordance with a position of the cutting tool at an end of each cutting in the cutting operation (C5, L47-66 - - full retract cycles, bit is fully retracted from the drill hole to clear chips from the drill hole; thus the retraction distance is known, the retraction time can be calculated based on the retraction distance and retraction speed; C4, L9-11 - - the elapsed drill time which including the time of retract cycles is programmed into control computer, thus the retract time is calculated),
wherein the deep-hole drilling execution unit performs the retraction operation for the chip removal time (C5, L47-66 - - retract cycle to clear chips from the drill hole).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YUHUI R PAN whose telephone number is (571)272-9872. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM EST.
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/YUHUI R PAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2116
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