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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 11-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP2014188108 (wherein all textual citations are to the English machine translation provided) in view of Couillard et al. (US 2007/0137011).
Regarding Claim 11, JP2014188108 teaches a disposable wear manufacturing method (See page 1, paragraph [0001]) comprising:
a first conveying step of conveying, in a first direction, an absorbent-body continuous body [103],[203] in which first portions to be made into absorbent bodies are connected in the first direction (See Figs. 1 and 4, page 26-28, paragraphs [0030]-[0031], wherein any conveyance direction of the continuous absorbent body [103] is the first direction);
a second conveying step of conveying, in a second direction, a waist-member continuous body [101],[201] in which second portions to be made into waist members are connected in the second direction (See Figs. 1 and 4, and page 24, paragraph [0024] and page 45, paragraph [0048], wherein any conveyance direction is the second direction);
a first cutting step of forming the absorbent bodies [3] by cutting the absorbent-body continuous body [103],[203] being conveyed in the first direction (See page 28, paragraph [0031]);
a folding step of forming folded absorbent bodies by folding the cut absorbent bodies [3] into two parts so that fold lines are formed in a direction orthogonal to the first direction;
a rotating step of rotating the folded absorbent bodies by 90 degrees while conveying the folded absorbent bodies (See Fig. 4 and pages [0048]-[0049], wherein the cut absorbent [203] is conveyed in the length direction, folded in the length direction, thus forming a fold line orthogonal to conveyance, i.e. the first direction, and the absorbent is then rotated 90 degrees);
a bonding step of forming a wear continuous body by placing more than one of the 90-degree rotated absorbent bodies [3] on the waist-member continuous body [201] being conveyed in the second direction, with a spacing therebetween, and bonding the absorbent bodies to the waist-member continuous body (See page 46, paragraph [0050], wherein successive folded bodies [3] are bonded to web [201]); and
a second cutting step of forming disposable wears [200] in each of which the folded absorbent body [3] is bonded to an intermediate position of the waist member, by cutting the wear continuous body at cutting positions between the adjoining absorbent bodies (See page 48, paragraph [0053]).
JP2014188108 teaches the absorbent body [3] is transported by a “known transport device” for cutting and folding (See page 45, paragraph [0048]), but fails to describe the device, and thus does not teach conveying the cut absorbent bodies along a cylindrical conveyance path. However, any known conveyance methods enabling cutting and folding absorbent material would have predictably been a suitable as a conveyance method for the absorbent in JP2014188108 to perform conveyance during cutting and folding. Couillard et al. teaches such a transport device for continuous conveyance, cutting, and folding of similar absorbent bodies for disposable absorbent garment (See Abstract).
Couillard et al. teaches forming the transport devices conveys a continuous strip [113] of absorbent bodies [114] (See page 6, paragraph [0048]), cuts into individual bodies [20] via cutter [187] (See page 8, paragraph [0058]), and then folds the body [20] while conveying cylindrically on a drum [202] to form a fold line orthogonal to the conveyance direction (See Fig. 6 and page 11, paragraph [0078]-[0079]), and then transferring the folded body to a further conveyer [274] for further processing (See page 12, paragraph [0084]). It would have been obvious to utilize a transport device such as in Couillard et al. as the known transport device in JP2014188108. Doing so would have predictably served as a suitable known transport device for performing continuous body conveyance, cutting, folding, and transfer for further processing (e.g. bonding to a waist member continuous body) as is desired in JP2014188108.
Regarding Claim 12, JP2014188108 teaches temporary fixing as claimed (See page 52, paragraph [0058] and Fig. 4).
Claim(s) 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP2014188108 and Couillard et al. as applied to Claims 11 and 12, and further in view of Inoue et al. (US 2020/0345559).
Regarding Claims 15 and 16, JP2014188108 and Couillard et al. teach the method of Claim 11 and 12, as described above. The references fail to specifically repitiching. However, in forming similar disposable absorbent products, it is known known to use a moving pad [3] after rotating and before bonding the receives the 90-degree rotated absorbent bodies [20] at a reception speed different from the transfer speed for bonding to the waist web so as to control spacing as desired for the absorbents on the waist web for different products and equalize velocity between the absorbent line and web line (See, for example, Inoue et al., page 1, paragraph [0014]-0017] and page 3,page 6, paragraphs [0126]-[0132]). Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to had a moving pad between rotation and bonding in JP2014188108 that receives and transfers at different speeds. Doing so would have predictably helped facilitate transfer by equalizing line speeds and allowing greater spacing control as desired. Any such moving pad and repitching step is a second moving pad and second repatching step as claimed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 13, 14, 17, and 18 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 fails to teach repitching between folding and rotating. Although repitching is known for absorbents as described above, Inoue et al. teaches both the size of the absorbent and the spacing can be adjusted for in the process by repitching immediately prior to bonding and does not teach folding at all. JP2014188108 teaches folding before rotating, but teaches no need for repitching in between. Thus, although repitching is known in the prior art, there is no motivation in the art to repatch between folding and rotating as described in the instantly claimed process.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SCOTT W DODDS whose telephone number is (571)270-7653. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10am-6pm.
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/SCOTT W DODDS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1746
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