DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-43 are pending as amended on 06/29/26,
claims 11-43 being withdrawn.
Response to Election/Amendment
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group 1, Species A (Claims 1-10) in the reply filed on June 29, 2026 is acknowledged. Claims 42-43 have been added; however, these new claims correspond to the subject matter of non-elected Group 5 (i.e. withdrawn claim 32), rather than the elected Group 1, and are thus withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Green, WO 90/08027.
With regard to claim 1, the prior art teaches a known method of adhering two composite tapes, wherein a first tape (10) may comprise one or more layers of unidirectional fibers (12) impregnated with polymer, as well as one or more outer layers of randomly dispersed fibers (13/14) impregnated with a polymer, and said tape is adhered via this ‘dispersed’ face onto a second tape (11), and fused via heating with an AC induction coil (16) to melt & join the tapes via the ‘dispersed’ layer which heats more efficiently via its network of fiber crossings (throughout, e.g. abstract, [Pg. 4, Pg. 9, 25-31 & FIGS. 1-5]).
With regard to claims 2-5, the second, duplicate tape also comprises dispersed fiber faces which contact those of the first tape [FIG. 1] and they are efficiently heated via induction as stated above.
With regard to claim 6, said tapes are bonded across an overlap [FIGS. 1, 5].
With regard to claim 7, the layer with random/multidirectional fibers may be either dispersed & discontinuous, or continuous woven/nonwoven mats [Pg. 4, 17-33].
With regard to claim 8, unidirectional fibers may be carbon [Pg. 4]/glass [Pg. 8].
With regard to claim 9, identical tapes are used & use same polymer [Pgs. 4-5].
With regard to claim 10, platens or the like press the tapes together [Pg. 6, 1-7].
Claims 1-2 & 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gallo et al., US 2022/0064134.
With regard to claim 1, the prior art teaches a known method of adhering two composite tapes, wherein a first tape (L) may comprise one or more layers of unidirectional fibers (2/4) impregnated with polymer (3), as well as a layer of randomly dispersed fibers (7) impregnated with a polymer (8), and said tape is adhered via this ‘dispersed’ face onto a second tape (L), and fused via heating with an AC induction coil (11) to melt & join the tapes via the ‘dispersed’ layer which heats more efficiently via its network of fiber crossings (throughout, e.g. abstract, [0049, 0055, 0072 & FIGS. 4-6]).
With regard to claim 2, the second tape also comprises dispersed fiber [FIG. 5].
With regard to claim 6, said tapes are bonded across an overlap [FIGS. 4-5].
With regard to claim 7, the layer with random/multidirectional fibers may be either dispersed & discontinuous, e.g. ~ 1 mm, or continuous [0058-0064 & 0111-0113].
With regard to claim 8, unidirectional fibers may be carbon or glass [0049-0052].
With regard to claim 9, identical tapes are used & may use same polymer [0058].
With regard to claim 10, a roller (13) presses tapes together [FIG. 4].
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 of this title, 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 3-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gallo et al., US 2022/0064134.
The teachings of Gallo have been detailed above, and while the exemplary embodiment shown in Figure 5 layers identical tapes with each first layer bonding against each second layer, to enable seemingly limitless stacking by bonding each tape of the stack together via these randomly oriented second ‘bonding’ layers, it would have been prima facie obvious to try also bonding two randomly oriented bonding layers to one another (as this is the only other possibility for layering such tapes) with predictable success (this is also believed to be the configuration implicit in Figure 6).
Conclusion
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/JOHN BLADES/
Examiner
Art Unit 1746
/PHILIP C TUCKER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1745
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