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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 6/10/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: on page 31, ln. 18 “bride portions” should read –bridge portions--.
Appropriate correction is required.
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) 1-2, 9, and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kawakita et al. (JP 2019041483; IDS).
In claim 1, Kawakita discloses (Fig. 1-8) a rotor comprising: a rotor core (300) including a plurality of core sheets (310) that are laminated together and having magnet-receiving holes (304) formed in a folded shape that is convex radially inward (Fig. 5); and permanent magnets (30) embedded respectively in the magnet-receiving holes (304) of the rotor core (300), wherein: the rotor includes a plurality of magnetic poles ([0038]); each of the magnetic poles includes one of the permanent magnets (30) which is located on a radially inner side in the rotor core (300) and one of outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) which is located radially outside the permanent magnet (30); each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) is constituted of outer core portions of the core sheets (310) which are laminated together; each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) is supported with respect to a peripheral portion of the rotor core (300) by a plurality of bridge portions (6) which include a bridge portion (6L, 6R) located at one of a pair of radially outer ends of a corresponding one of the magnet-receiving holes (304) formed in the folded shape; and the support of each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) by the plurality of bridge portions (6) is established by laminating the core sheets (310) so that each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) includes, at least, those outer core portions (302) of the core sheets (310) each of which is supported by a single bridge piece (6L, 6R) of the core sheet (310), the single bridge piece (6L, 6R) constituting a piece of the bridge portion (6) located at one of the pair of radially outer ends of the corresponding magnet-receiving hole (304).
In claim 2, Kawakita discloses wherein: each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) is supported with respect to the peripheral portion of the rotor core (300) by at least three bridge portions (6L, 6R, 6M) which include first and second bridge portions (6L, 6R) formed respectively at the pair of radially outer ends of the corresponding magnet-receiving hole (304) formed in the folded shape, and a third bridge portion (6M) formed to extend across the corresponding magnet-receiving hole (304) at an intermediate position of the corresponding magnet-receiving hole (304); and the support of each of the outer core portions of the rotor core (300) by the at least three bridge portions (6L, 6R, 6M) is established by laminating the core sheets (310) so that each of the outer core portions of the rotor core (300) includes those outer core portions of the core sheets (310) each of which is supported by one or two of first (6L), second (6R) and third (6M) bridge pieces of the core sheet (310), the first (6L), second (6R) and third (6M) bridge pieces respectively constituting pieces of the first (6L), second (6R) and third (6M) bridge portions.
In claim 9, Kawakita discloses wherein the permanent magnets (30) have tapered portions (outer radial side portions of 30) formed at corners at ends thereof on an outer peripheral side of the rotor core (300).
In claim 11, Kawakita discloses wherein for each adjacent pair of the magnetic poles, fundamental shapes of the permanent magnets (30) of the pair of the magnetic poles are set to be asymmetrical with respect to a magnetic-pole boundary line between the pair of the magnetic poles (eg. poles corresponding to 304a vs 304b).
In claim 12, Kawakita discloses a rotating electric machine ([0020]) comprising: (Fig. 1-8) a rotor hat comprises a rotor core (300) including a plurality of core sheets (310) that are laminated together and having magnet-receiving holes (304) formed in a folded shape that is convex radially inward (Fig. 5); and permanent magnets (30) embedded respectively in the magnet-receiving holes (304) of the rotor core (300), wherein: the rotor includes a plurality of magnetic poles ([0038]); each of the magnetic poles includes one of the permanent magnets (30) which is located on a radially inner side in the rotor core (300) and one of outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) which is located radially outside the permanent magnet (30); each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) is constituted of outer core portions of the core sheets (310) which are laminated together; each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) is supported with respect to a peripheral portion of the rotor core (300) by a plurality of bridge portions (6) which include a bridge portion (6L, 6R) located at one of a pair of radially outer ends of a corresponding one of the magnet-receiving holes (304) formed in the folded shape; and the support of each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) by the plurality of bridge portions (6) is established by laminating the core sheets (310) so that each of the outer core portions (302) of the rotor core (300) includes, at least, those outer core portions (302) of the core sheets (310) each of which is supported by a single bridge piece (6L, 6R) of the core sheet (310), the single bridge piece (6L, 6R) constituting a piece of the bridge portion (6) located at one of the pair of radially outer ends of the corresponding magnet-receiving hole (304)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-8 and 10 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 a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The cited prior art taken singularly or in combination fails to anticipate or fairly suggest the limitation of the (in)dependent claim(s), in such a manner that a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102 or 103 would be proper. The prior art fails to teach a combination of all the features as presented in the (in)dependent claim(s) with the allowable feature being:
Claim 3: “each of the first through-holes having two of the first, second and third bridge pieces formed immediately adjacent to it, each of the second through-holes having the remaining one of the first, second and third bridge pieces formed immediately adjacent to it; and the rotor core is formed by rotating and laminating the core sheets, all of which are identical in configuration to each other, in units of predetermined numbers of the core sheets so that the first through-holes and the second through-holes coexist in each of the magnet-receiving holes”
Claim 10: “wherein: each of the permanent magnets is formed in a folded shape with a pair of ends on the outer peripheral side of the rotor core, and has a pair of tapered portions formed respectively at corners at the pair of ends thereof; and sizes of the pair of tapered portions are set to be different from each other.”
The examiner found no prior art satisfies all above conditions by itself or as combined during the examination period.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Yoshida et al. (US 2017/0117781) teaches a method of manufacturing a laminated core including a plurality of poles arranged side by side in a circumferential direction, each pole having three or more magnet housing holes and magnets housed in the magnet housing holes.
Fiseni et al. (US 2014/039945) teaches a set of magnet elements adjoined to each other for defining an arced segmented magnet section.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RASHAD H JOHNSON whose telephone number is (571)272-1231. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30am-5pm.
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RASHAD H. JOHNSON
Examiner
Art Unit 2834
/RASHAD H JOHNSON/Examiner, Art Unit 2834