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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/10/2024 was considered by the examiner.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Heckeroth US20100132305 in view of Greenstreet US1653847 .
Claim 1. Heckeroth discloses a steep sloped roof (Fig.9), wherein the roof includes a roof deck and a ridge (108); a ridge cap (114) installed on the ridge; a plurality of photovoltaic modules (104, 106) installed on the roof deck, wherein the plurality of photovoltaic modules is arranged in an array, wherein the array includes a first side (side covered by 113); a wireway (at 110) installed proximate to the first side of the array; and a cover (113) installed on the wireway, wherein the cover includes an upper end (shown on opposite side where aa2 is installed, Fig.9) but is silent on the upper end overlays at least a portion of the ridge cap.
Greenstreet before the filing date of the instant invention discloses a ridge cap (11) such that a portion (18) of the cap is overlapped when installed. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the instant invention to have a portion of the cover overlap a portion of the ridge cap to create a flashing as suggested by Greenstreet, as a person with ordinary skill has good reason to pursue known options within his or her technical grasp.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-20 are allowed.
Claims 2-10 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 closest prior art of record fails to teach or adequately suggest the combination of characteristics specified in the independent claim, especially the requirement of a substance concerning the cover includes an elongated body and a tab extending from the body at the upper end and a second cover on a second wireway on a second side of the array, hence there is no cogent reasoning that is unequivocally independent of hindsight that would have led one of ordinary skill in the art at the time.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Refer to attached NOTICE OF REFERENCE CITED.
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BABAJIDE A. DEMUREN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3633
/BABAJIDE A DEMUREN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3633