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 .
Terminal Disclaimer
The terminal disclaimer filed on September 4, 2026 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of U.S. Pat. No. 12,103,580 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded. This terminal disclaimer replaces the terminal disclaimer filed on August 26, 2026 disclaiming the terminal portion of U.S. Pat. No. 12,060,101. The previously filed terminal disclaimer for U.S. Pat. No. 12,060,101 is thus void.
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 1-10 and 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fan in view of Oakes (10,150,496) and Yang (CN 209096798, see previously provided machine translation).
Regarding claims 1-10, Fan discloses a child stroller comprising a child stroller seat, the child stroller seat adopting a folding device, wherein the folding device comprises:
a folding handle comprising:
a handle body (9, see Figs. 16-19) comprising a pulling part (e.g., the lower portion having the unsupported/grasping end) and a shaft part (see upper portion having the rounded end) located at an end of the pulling part;
a handle connecting member (e.g., the recessed profile that receives and supports the handle) on the child stroller seat (1), the handle body being pivotally connected to the handle connecting member via the shaft part (see Fig. 17 at reference character 10, generally); and
an elastic member (14) configured to force the handle body to pivot to a closed position (e.g., the spring 14 causes the angled end of the slider bar 13 to engage the curved lower end of portion 9a, see Fig. 18, the spring pushes the angled bar end against the curved portion 9a with these angled and curved geometries resulting in the biasing spring to force the handle (9) to pivot toward a closed/downward position);
wherein the handle connecting member comprises a receiving cavity (e.g., see the recessed profile in Fig. 26), the receiving cavity being partially surrounded by two end walls (see Fig. 28 showing one of the side walls) as well as an upper side wall and a lower side wall (see e.g., Fig. 26 showing the cut-away upper and lower walls) of the handle connecting member, the upper side wall and the lower side wall being separated from each other by a channel (e.g., where the handle body 9 extends out of), and the shaft part of the handle body being able to pass through the channel to move a hauling member (3;see upward lifting of handle causing the pull wire 3 to release in Fig. 26) which moves a locking pin (53) located on a moving fixing member (5) proximate to a pivot structure (8) of the folding seat.
Fan does not disclose that the folding device includes a driving member being movably provided on the child stroller seat or that the handle includes a rib and ramp to drive the driving member. Further, while Fan discloses using a linearly operating biasing spring that pushes against the handle connecting member (e.g., portion 9a) to return the handle toward a closed position, it does not disclose the use of a torsion spring to return the handle to a closed position.
Oakes teaches another folding stroller having a handle-mounted release actuator (see Fig 6), wherein the folding handle comprises a driving member (44, 45), the folding handle (30) being able to drive the driving member to move by rotating the handle; a hauling member (55), being connected between the driving member (44, 45) to unlock a folding joint (80), wherein the handle body (30) has a driving rib (32, 33) inclined in respect to an axis of rotation, the driving member (44, 45) has a driving ramp (e.g., cam followers 42, 43), and when the handle body is pivoted toward an opened position, the driving rib and the driving ramp interact with each other to drive the driving member (44, 45) and pull the hauling member (55).
Yang teaches another child stroller having a remote rotatable handle (95, see Fig. 13-14) that sits within a recess formed in a stroller’s handle’s connecting member (92/93). The handle (95) is biased to a closed position by an torsion spring elastic member (96), wherein an upper side wall of the handle connecting member (92/93) is provided with a side wall abutting part at the end wall of the cavity, and one abutting end of the torsion spring abuts against the side wall abutting part while the other end is fixed to a fixing part of the handle body (941; see Fig. 15 showing the legs of the spring 96 engaging the walls of the cavity 92 along with outer side surface of the shaft body 941).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the present application to have modified the handle of Fan to use a camming surface configuration to convert the rotational motion to a linear motion as taught by Oakes and to use a torsional spring to bias the handle to a rest/closed position as taught by Yang to arrive at the claimed device with a reasonable expectation of success. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine them at least because doing so constitutes applying a known technique (e.g., using a camming surface to change a rotatory motion into a linear motion; and using biasing springs to aid in automatically returning a handle to a default position) to known devices (e.g., rotary release handles for a stroller seat) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (e.g., -------a handle that is compact and avoid unintentional operation by returning to a start position).
Regarding claim 13-15, Fan discloses that the handle body (9) rotates relative to the supporting portion of the stroller seat on an elongated pivot pin (10; see Figs. 8 and 16-18) through complementarily shaped openings in the body (9) and supporting structure. Fan does not disclose that two/plural pivot pins are used.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the present application to use two pivot pins rather than a single pivot pin, since separating parts that were once integral involves only routine skill in the art --see MPEP 2144.04 (V) (C). The motivation for doing so would be to use smaller, less expensive hardware to support the pivoting motion.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fan in view of Oakes and Hwang (KR 200171570, see previously provided machine translation).
Regarding claim 12, (examiner note: the following discussion mirrors the above claim mapping related to claim 1 except for the different type of biasing spring associated with claim 12) Fan discloses a child stroller comprising a child stroller seat, the child stroller seat adopting a folding device, wherein the folding device comprises:
a folding handle comprising:
a handle body (9, see Figs. 16-19) comprising a pulling part (e.g., the lower portion having the unsupported/grasping end) and a shaft part (see upper portion having the rounded end) located at an end of the pulling part;
a handle connecting member (e.g., the recessed profile that receives and supports the handle) on the child stroller seat (1), the handle body being pivotally connected to the handle connecting member via the shaft part (see Fig. 17 at reference character 10, generally); and
an elastic member (14) configured to force the handle body to pivot to a closed position (e.g., the spring 14 causes the angled end of the slider bar 13 to engage the curved lower end of portion 9a, see Fig. 18, the spring pushes the angled bar end against the curved portion 9a with these angled and curved geometries resulting in the biasing spring to force the handle (9) to pivot toward a closed/downward position);
wherein the handle connecting member comprises a receiving cavity (e.g., see the recessed profile in Fig. 26), the receiving cavity being partially surrounded by two end walls (see Fig. 28 showing one of the side walls) as well as an upper side wall and a lower side wall (see e.g., Fig. 26 showing the cut-away upper and lower walls) of the handle connecting member, the upper side wall and the lower side wall being separated from each other by a channel (e.g., where the handle body 9 extends out of), and the shaft part of the handle body being able to pass through the channel to move a hauling member (3;see upward lifting of handle causing the pull wire 3 to release in Fig. 26) which moves a locking pin (53) located on a moving fixing member (5) proximate to a pivot structure (8) of the folding seat.
Fan does not disclose that the folding device includes a driving member being movably provided on the child stroller seat or that the handle includes a rib and ramp to drive the driving member. Further, while Fan discloses using a linearly operating biasing spring that pushes against the handle connecting member (e.g., portion 9a) to return the handle toward a closed position, it does not disclose the use of a torsion spring to return the handle to a closed position.
Oakes teaches another folding stroller having a handle-mounted release actuator (see Fig 6), wherein the folding handle comprises a driving member (44, 45), the folding handle (30) being able to drive the driving member to move by rotating the handle; a hauling member (55), being connected between the driving member (44, 45) to unlock a folding joint (80), wherein the handle body (30) has a driving rib (32, 33) inclined in respect to an axis of rotation, the driving member (44, 45) has a driving ramp (e.g., cam followers 42, 43), and when the handle body is pivoted toward an opened position, the driving rib and the driving ramp interact with each other to drive the driving member (44, 45) and pull the hauling member (55).
Hwang teaches another folding stroller having a handle-mounted release actuator (see Figs. 3c-3d), wherein the releasing latching mechanism (4) uses a linearly operating tensile spring (9) that engages the movable handle (4) and the adjacent supporting/non-movable structure (e.g., the handle connecting member 8) to bias the release latch to a closed/locked position.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the present application to have modified the handle of Fan to use a camming surface configuration to convert the rotational motion to a linear motion as taught by Oakes and to use a linear spring to bias the handle to a rest/closed position as taught by Hwang to arrive at the claimed device with a reasonable expectation of success. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine them at least because doing so constitutes applying a known technique (e.g., using a camming surface to change a rotatory motion into a linear motion; and using biasing springs to aid in automatically returning a handle to a default position) to known devices (e.g., rotary release handles for a stroller seat) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (e.g., -------a handle that is compact and avoid unintentional operation by returning to a start position).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16-20 are allowed.
Claim 11 is 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 prior art does not disclose or otherwise fairly suggest, in combination with the other claimed elements and limitations of claims 11 and 16: a stroller seat having a folding device with a folding handle having an elastic member with a contact bar extending outward from a shaft part of the handle body that is configured to force the handle’s body to pivot to a closed position.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed September 4, 2026, with respect to the §102 rejection of claims 16-20 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of May 27, 2026 has been withdrawn.
Further, the Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-15 under §103 have been fully considered and are also persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of the teachings of Yang and Hwang which provides for the well-known expedient of using a biasing spring to return a folding device’s operational handle back to a default/closed position.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEVE CLEMMONS whose telephone number is (313)446-4842. The examiner can normally be reached on 8-4:30 EST Monday-Friday.
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/STEVE CLEMMONS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3618
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