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 .
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.
Claims 1-3 and 7-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over German (20230326434).
Regarding claim 1, German discloses the use of a musical instrument configured to receive strings and a bridge (128(, the instrument comprising: a first (body)subassembly comprising the instrument's back (122), top (120), and a second (neck) subassembly comprising the instrument's heel (108), neck (104), tuning pegs (118), and fingerboard (110), wherein the first subassembly further comprises a screw(300. 304. 306, that engages with a nut (308) of the second subassembly to interconnect the first and second subassemblies.
German does not disclose the use of a scroll, rib structure, or a soundpost.
Christy discloses the use of a musical instrument with a sound post (column 1, lines 7 and 8) and a rib structure (column 1, lines 25-28) on a first subassembly (body).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to modify the device as disclosed in German to include the sound post since the use of sounds posts in musical instruments is conventional and well known in the art.
Regarding claim 2, German discloses wherein the screw is rotatable to achieve different string heights in the instrument (paragraph 0032, line 11).
Regarding claim 3, German discloses wherein the screw is rotatable to disassemble the instrument into the first and second subassemblies (paragraph 0059, line 10).
Regarding claim 7, German discloses comprising an inherently straight bass bar (2)(column 1, line 6) mounted onto an inner surface of the top.
Regarding claim 8, German does not disclose wherein the bridge has inherently collinear bottoms.
However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to modify the device as disclosed in German since the use of colinear bottoms on string instrument bridges is conventional and well known in the art.
Regarding claim 9, German further discloses the strings (9).
Regarding claim 10, German does not disclose wherein tension in the strings induces an inward pulling force on the rib structure where the top meets the rib structure.
However, since the use tension in the strings inducing am inward pulling force on the rib is well known on the art.
Regarding claim 11, German further discloses wherein the neck has a nut (112) opening configured to receive any one of a number of different top nuts of different sizes to achieve different string heights for the instrument.
Regarding claim 12, German further discloses wherein the instrument is a cello (column 1, line 2).
Claims 4-6 and 13-16 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KIMBERLY R LOCKETT whose telephone number is (571)272-2067. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30-5:00 pm M-F.
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/KIMBERLY R LOCKETT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2837
