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
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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(s) 1-3, 5, and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BURNS et al. (2017/0100894) and in further view of HERRERA et al. (10,443,496).
Regarding claim 1, BURNS et al. discloses a method for manufacturing composite
structures or skins for aircrafts [0004], comprising:
laying down a first ply onto the tool ([0049], Fig.2A) wherein the ply is a resin
polymer [0050] and the tool exerts pressure [0054] on the ply to maintain a desired shape [0050] and to heat it while it is being laid [0049], [0052] (laying of a thermoplastic material on a surface of a lay-up tooling via a depositing tool configured to exert a pressure on the thermoplastic material and to heat the latter while it is being laid) wherein the tool comprises a plurality of thermal zones (216) coupled to a controller (210) that controls the heating devices (214) and thereby the thermal zones (216) to locally heat or maintain the temperature of the component according to the control data to advance the composite structure (202) to the defined quality goal [0056] (wherein the lay-up tooling comprises a thermal regulation device configured to locally heat the surface of the lay-up tooling, the thermal regulation device comprising a control unit configured to synchronize the local heating of the surface of the lay-up tooling with the movement of the depositing tool).
BURNS et al. is silent to the composite to be in particular an acoustic panel as claimed. However, BURNS et al. discloses the composite structure can be of a composite skin and core sandwich structures [0042] and HERRERA et al. discloses composite structures for aircrafts include acoustic panels that comprise skin and core sandwich structures (Fig.4). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have manufactured the acoustic panel of HERRERA et al. with the method of BURNS et al. to form the composite structure for aircrafts.
Regarding claims 2-3, BURNS et al. discloses the lay-up tooling (200) comprises a plurality of cells (thermal zones 216) disposed under the surface of said lay-up tooling (204) on which the skin (202) is manufactured, the thermal regulation device (controller 210) being configured to heat each cell individually (Fig.2A).
Regarding claim 5, BURNS et al. discloses the temperature can be altered [0049] and that the temperature is controlled at each thermal zone [0052]-[0053] wherein it is locally heated then cooled [0066] and is controlled by the machine-learning algorithm [0073]. BURNS et al. further discloses local tailoring of the temperature to influence the physical properties of the resin [0075] therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have determined the optimum temperatures based on the desired physical property outcome of the composite/resin.
Regarding claim 10, BURNS et al. discloses a method for manufacturing
composite structures or skins for aircrafts [0004], comprising:
laying down a first ply of plurality of plies onto the tool ([0049], Fig.2A) wherein
the ply is a resin polymer [0050] and the tool exerts pressure [0054] on the ply to maintain a desired shape [0050] and to heat it while it is being laid [0049], [0052] (laying of a thermoplastic material on a surface of a lay-up tooling via a depositing tool configured to exert a pressure on the thermoplastic material and to heat the latter while it is being laid) wherein the tool comprises a plurality of thermal zones (216) coupled to a controller (210) that controls the heating devices (214) and thereby the thermal zones (216) to locally heat or maintain the temperature of the component according to the control data to advance the composite structure (202) to the defined quality goal [0056] (wherein the lay-up tooling comprises a thermal regulation device configured to locally heat the surface of the lay-up tooling, the thermal regulation device comprising a control unit configured to synchronize the local heating of the surface of the lay-up tooling with the movement of the depositing tool).
BURNS et al. is silent to the composite to be in particular an acoustic panel as claimed. However, BURNS et al. discloses the composite structure can be of a composite skin and core sandwich structures [0042] and HERRERA et al. discloses composite structures for aircrafts include acoustic panels that comprise skin and core sandwich structures (Fig.4). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have manufactured the acoustic panel of HERRERA et al. with the method of BURNS et al. to form the composite structure for aircrafts.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BURNS et al. (2017/0100894) in view of HERRERA et al. (10,443,496) as applied to claims 1-3, 5, and 10 above, and in further view of TANAKA et al. (2021/0276276).
The teachings of BURNS et al. and HERERA et al. are applied as described above
for claims 1-3, 5, and 10.
Regarding claim 9, modified BURNS et al. is silent to using a laser to heat the resin. However, TANAKA et al. teach it is common in the art to use laser to locally heat lay-ups to make composite parts [0124]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have substituted laser heating as taught by TANAKA et al. for the predictable results of locally heating the layup to form the composite skin of modified BURNS et al.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6, 7, and 8 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
a) Angelini et al. (4,177,874) discloses active acoustic sound absorber device.
b) Cavaliere et al. (2015/0274912) discloses method for producing parts made of thermosetting composite by laying of fibers of preimpregnated material.
c) Shaw et al. (2020/0139648) discloses bi-directional lamination head and method.
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STELLA YI
Examiner
Art Unit 1742
/STELLA K YI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1742