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 .
Status of Claims
The amendment filed on December 10, 2025 is acknowledged. Claims 1 and 3 – 7 are pending in this application. Claim 2 has been cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 4 – 7, filed December 12, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 and 3 – 7 under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Cloud EP 1659300 and Xia et al. CN 105179229.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, lines 4 – 5, “the bearing unit” should read - - the pinion bearing unit - -.
Appropriate correction is 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.
Claim(s) 1 and 3 – 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. CN 112065956 (incl. machine translation) in view of Cloud EP 1659300, and further in view of Xia et al. CN105179229 (incl. machine translation).
Claim 1, Wang discloses a pinion bearing unit (Fig. 1) comprising: a pinion (idle gear 1, l. 111, is regarded as a pinion since it is the smaller of the two gears, as shown in Fig. 1) including a cylindrical and radially internal seat 1a (see annotated Fig. 1) and a shoulder 1b, the shoulder being axially outer and radially internal relative to the seat, the shoulder axially delimiting the seat and being configured to prevent the pinion from moving axially outwards with respect to the pinion bearing unit; and a bearing unit (bearing 2)(l. 111) housed inside the seat, wherein the pinion is free of a retaining ring located in the seat (as shown in Fig. 1a, the bearing is axially restrained between shoulder 1a of the pinion and shoulder 3a of shaft 3; therefore, no retaining ring is required in the pinion for axial retention).
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Wang does not expressly disclose the bearing unit including a radially outer ring integrally connected to the pinion and a radially inner ring.
Cloud teaches that it was well-known the art to provide a bearing unit 3 that includes a radially outer ring 3b integrally connected to a pinion 7 (Fig. 2) and a radially inner ring 3a. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the bearing unit of Cloud for the desired purpose constraining and guiding the rolling elements, as the use of a bearing unit that includes an outer ring integrally connected to a pinion and an inner ring to constrain and guide the rolling elements, is old and well-known as taught by Cloud.
Wang as modified by Cloud does not expressly disclose an interference between the seat of the pinion and a radially outer cylindrical surface of the radially outer ring is comprised in the tolerance class N7. However, Wang does disclose an interference between the seat of the pinion and a radially outer cylindrical surface of the radially outer ring (l. 73: “the bearing has a small interference fit onto the idler gear”).
Xia teaches that it was known to use a tolerance class of N7 for mounting bearing within a housing ([0061]: “The bearing housing hole tolerance is N7).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the interference between the seat of the pinion and a radially outer cylindrical surface of the radially outer ring of the combined device Wang and Cloud with a tolerance class of N7, since such a modification would have been suitable for sufficiently mounting a bearing within a housing, as taught and suggested by Xia.
Claim 3, Regarding the interference being between 0 mm and 0.25 mm, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combined device of Wang, Cloud and Xia, such that the interference is between 0 mm and 0.25 mm, since it was been held that where the general conditions of a claim (interference fit between the seat of the pinion and the radially outer cylindrical surface of the radially outer ring comprising a tolerance class of N7) are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233,235 (CCPA 1955).
Claims 4 and 6, Wang discloses the bearing unit having a central axis of rotation, and wherein the shoulder of the pinion has an annular abutment surface 1c transverse to the central axis of rotation that defines an axial abutment for the radially outer ring of the bearing unit.
Claims 5 and 7, Wang does not expressly disclose the shoulder of the pinion having an axial width ranging between 2.4 mm and 2.6 mm.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Wang, such that the shoulder of the pinion has an axial width ranging between 2.4 mm and 2.6 mm, since it was been held that where the general conditions of a claim (shoulder for axially delimiting the bearing seat and axially retaining the pinion) are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233,235 (CCPA 1955).
Conclusion
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/PHILLIP A JOHNSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3617