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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Claims
Claims 11-20 are pending and the subject of this NON-FINAL Office Action. This is the first action on the merits.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112- Indefiniteness
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(B) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
In claim 19, “said piezoelectric actuator” and “the movable cutter” lack antecedent basis causing confusion as to the meaning and scope of claim 19.
In claim 20, “robotic arm with more degrees of freedom” is confusing because there is no comparison in the claim. In other words, more degrees of freed that what?
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. § 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
(A) A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(1)the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or
(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 11, 15-17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by CN106313496A.
As to claim 11, CN106313496A teaches a three-dimensional (“3D”) printer (Abstract), comprising:
an extrusion device (Abstract- “continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic resin-based composite material 3D printing method and a printing head”) including:
first means 3 for feeding reinforcing filaments (Fig. 1);
second means (fiber tow 13 feeding pipes) for feeding an at least partially molten thermoplastic material (Fig. 1);
at least one impregnation chamber 1/20 for impregnating reinforcing filaments with said thermoplastic material so as to provide an impregnated multifilament, said impregnation chamber extending around an axis (Fig. 1);
at least one device body 1 that defines: (a) first openings for transit of the reinforcing filaments from the first feeding means to the impregnation chamber (opening at top of Fig. 1 where fiber 13 enters body 1); and (b) at least one second opening for transit of the thermoplastic material from the second feeding means to the impregnation chamber (openings 4 at side of body 1 where thermoplastic 15 enters body 1);
at least one dispensing nozzle 24 for dispensing the impregnated multifilament (fig. 1); and
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at least one twisting member 20 arranged fluidically upstream of and rotatably with respect to the dispensing nozzle so as to produce a vortex movement of the thermoplastic material inside said impregnation chamber and, therefore, said vortex cause twisting of the reinforcing filaments (Fig. 1; ; Abstract, “the method can rotate and extrude fiber bundles and molten thermoplastic resin after rotational blending, and the extruded wires are in a spiral shape; the printing head can combine fiber bundles with The thermoplastic resin flows into the melting cavity together, and there are spiral tooth rings inside the melting cavity and the extrusion head, and the two rotate in opposite directions. After the heated and melted resin is blended with the fiber, it is stirred by the two-way rotating helical gear ring, so that the fiber is densely wound into a helical column from a flattened shape, and the resin is evenly distributed along the orientation of each fiber, and then the blend is extruded”; Spec., “The print head is divided into three parts, namely the three-way feeding chamber fixed on the print head bracket, the melting chamber that can rotate around the central axis, and the same that can rotate around the central axis. Rotating extrusion head; where the melting chamber and the extrusion head rotate in opposite directions; if the fibers in the print head are only in contact with the molten resin for infiltration, due to the high viscosity and poor fluidity of the molten resin, it is difficult for the dry fiber bundles to contact with the resin Fully infiltrated, which will lead to poor interfacial bonding of the components; therefore, both the melting chamber and the extrusion head are provided with helical gear rings, and the fiber bundles and molten thermoplastic resin are stirred by the two-stage counter-rotating helical gear rings, and the fiber bundles along the Every place in the radial direction is in contact with the resin, and it is evenly mixed after stirring; the flattened fibers begin to be tightly entangled along the central axis after the first stage of stirring, which inhibits bifurcation and breakage, and after the second stage of reverse rotation , the fiber entanglement is intensified, forming a helical tight cylindrical bundle, and the resin is extruded to a certain extent, and is evenly distributed along the orientation of each fiber; at this time, the fiber content of the blend is high, and the fiber bifurcation and fracture are suppressed. And the resin is fully infiltrated; the driving force generated by the molten resin driven downward by the spiral tooth ring and the drag force after the extruded resin is cured, the blend is dragged out of the extrusion head to the molding area, and a few Under the action of a high-speed cooling air flow, it solidifies into a fiber-reinforced composite material entity”).
As to claim 13, CN106313496A teaches the extrusion device further includes:
drive means 16/18 including a driving shaft connected to the twisting member via transmission means, said driving shaft being capable of being rotationally operated with an adjustable angular speed so as to produce a desired twist in the reinforcing elements of said impregnated multifilament (Fig. 1; “the inner wall of the melting chamber 20 is provided with a helical first Ring gear 19, the top of the outer wall is provided with a first toothed disc 6, the first toothed disc 6 meshes with the first pinion 18 driven by the first motor 16 to drive the melting chamber 20 to rotate around the central axis of the print head. The shaft rotates, and the rotation direction of the extrusion head 24 is opposite to the rotation direction of the melting chamber 20”).
As to claim 15, CN106313496A teaches extrusion device further includes:
a flow separator of said thermoplastic material, said flow separator 19 being at least partially housed inside a body compartment of the device body and including one or more separating walls which extend from a central core in a radial direction with respect to the axis (Fig. 1).
As to claim 16, CN106313496A teaches a thickness of each of the one or more separating walls is crossed by at least one radial duct that receives at least partly a reinforcing filament and that extends from the first transit openings to a recess delimited by the central core (Fig. 1).
As to claim 17, CN106313496A teaches said radial ducts converge inside said recess fluidically upstream of the impregnation chamber so that the reinforcing filaments are arranged alongside each other before reaching the impregnation chamber (Fig. 1).
As to claim 20, CN106313496A teaches a support surface for a 3D article, said 3D article being made by means of superimposition and side-by-side arrangement of impregnated multifilaments exiting the extrusion device according to claim 11;
wherein said extrusion device and said support surface are movable relative to each other in space by means of a Cartesian system 12 (Fig. 1).
Claim Rejection - 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.
Claims 12 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over CN106313496A, in view of CN114714620A.
It would have been prima facie obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing to apply familiar nozzle dimensions to the nozzle of CN106313496A to achieve familiar extrusion properties with a reasonable expectation of success.
CHAMPION does not explicitly teach nozzle, which is rotationally fixed with respect to the twisting member, has a throughflow cross-section and a nozzle length which are calibrated so as to reduce at least partly the vortical flow of thermoplastic material in the impregnated multifilament, wherein a transverse throughflow diameter of the dispensing nozzle is from 0.2 mm to 3.0 mm and said nozzle length is from 5.0 mm to 50 mm; or twisting member delimits a bottom wall of said impregnation chamber, said twisting member being formed by a cup-shaped body.
However, CN114714620A teaches a familiar dimension of nozzles.
As an alternative embodiment, the extrusion opening of the brass nozzle 4 may be circular, square, hexagonal, etc., and the diameter of the extrusion opening may be larger than the conventional 0.4mm diameter, such as 1mm or 1.5mm, etc., due to the addition of the continuous fiber bundle, and the extrusion opening of the brass nozzle should be ground to smooth round corners to reduce the abrasion of the fiber bundle
(pg. 2). The dimensions of a nozzle are routinely adjusted for optimized applications to achieve familiar extrusion effects.
CN114714620A also demonstrates that the shape of the chamber was routinely adjusted based on the application. For example, CN114714620A shows a cup-shaped chamber at bottom of twisting member 7/8:
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Thus, a skilled artisan would have been motivated to apply familiar nozzle dimensions to the nozzle of CN106313496A to achieve familiar extrusion effects with a reasonable expectation of success; along with familiar chamber shapes to achieve familiar mixing results.
Claims 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over CN106313496A, in view of TYLER (US20180207868).
It would have been prima facie obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing to apply familiar reinforced fiber cutting mechanisms to cut the reinforced fibers CN106313496A of with a reasonable expectation of success.
CHAMPION does not explicitly teach a device for cutting the impregnated multifilament, wherein said cutting device comprises at least one movable cutter operated by at least one piezoelectric actuator, the at least one movable cutter including a pair of movable cutters that operate along opposite cutting directions, wherein said piezoelectric actuator is connected at a first end to a support bracket attached to the extrusion device and at a second end, opposite to said first end, to a displaceable rocker member moved by the piezoelectric actuator and connected to the movable cutter by means of a compliant mechanism including an articulated pentalateral.
However, TYLER teaches a familiar resin-embedded fiber cutting technique that uses a movable cutter with pair of cutters operated by piezoelectric actuator, with displaceable rocker member moved by the piezoelectric actuator and connected to the movable cutter by means of a compliant mechanism including an articulated pentalateral. This is shown in Figure 6:
FIG. 6 illustrates a final embodiment of head 18 that is similar to the embodiment of FIG. 4. Like the embodiment of FIG. 4, head 18 of FIG. 6 may include one or more arms 48 that are selectively moved by one or more linear actuators 52 to grasp and/or sever the material discharging from nozzle 44. In the example of FIG. 6, two sets of opposing arms 48 are shown, including a grasping or inner set 48 G, and a severing or outer set 48 S. In contrast to the embodiment of FIG. 4, arms 48 G and 48 S may not pivot about associated pins 50. Instead, arms 48 G and 48 S may be flexible and curved, and actuators 52 may be configured to engage and exert pressure on bowed midpoints of the arms, thereby causing the arms to deflect (e.g., deform, bend, elongate, stretch, etc.) radially inward toward the reinforcements. In one application, arms 48 G may have blunted, abrasive, and/or resilient (e.g., rubber) tips that engage and grasp the reinforcements; while arms 48 S may have hardened and/or sharpened tips that pierce and/or sever the reinforcements. It is contemplated that different actuators 52 may be independently energized by controller 24 to selectively implement grasping only, severing only, or both grasping and severing. It is also contemplated that a single actuator 52 could be used to simultaneously move both grasping and severing arms 48 G, 48 S, if desired. In this configuration, a movement amount and/or force could be varied to implement grasping, severing, or both grasping and severing.
(para. 0028).
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Thus, a skilled artisan would have been motivated to apply familiar fiber-cutting technique such as TYLER to achieve multiple modes of use such as movement amount and/or force could be varied to implement grasping, severing, or both grasping and severing with a reasonable expectation of success.
Prior Art
The following prior art also teaches “twisting members” for fiber-reinforced extrusion: US20200130276, Fig. 3; CN114714620A, Fig. 1; CN 106863774A, Fig. 1.
Conclusion
No claims are allowed.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELODY TSUI whose telephone number is (571)272-1846. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9am - 5pm.
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/YUNG-SHENG M TSUI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1743