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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1 and 2 are currently pending.
Claim 2 is withdrawn from consideration.
Election/Restriction
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claim 1, in the reply filed on 06/01/2026 is acknowledged.
Claim 2 is withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 06/01/2026.
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 Takahashi et al. (US 2020/0362431 A1).
Regarding claim 1,
Takahashi teaches a grain-oriented electrical sheet comprising: a base material steel sheet having a plurality of grooves on a surface of the steel sheet and a glass coating on the surface of the base material steel sheet, in which grain oriented electrical steel sheet, has an angle θ formed by a direction perpendicular to a rolling direction and a sheet thickness direction of the base material steel sheet and a longitudinal direction of the grooves is 0 to 40°, a width W of the grooves is 20 to 300 µm, a depth D of the grooves is 10 to 40 µm, and a pitch P of the grooves in the rolling direction is 2.0 to 30.0 mm, which are all within the claimed ranges (Takahashi: abstract; par. 0019). The thickness of the glass coating is described to have a thickness difference throughout the channel of the peaks and valleys from the steel sheet which would include the flat part, side part, and the recess parts of said channels and have a thickness difference of 0.1 µm to 5 µm which means they may have a point in each of the 3 parts in which the thickness are the same which would meet the claimed formula (1) as the average of t2 and t3 may be equal to t1 (Takahashi: par. 0019).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Travis M Figg whose telephone number is (571)272-9849. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-5pm.
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/TRAVIS M FIGG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1783
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