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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendments filed 08/17/2026 responsive to the Office Action filed 05/22/2026 have been entered. Claims 1-10 have been amended. Claim 10 maintain withdrawn. Claims 1-10 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Claims 2-9 have been amended to address the informalities, thus the objection of claims 2-9 has been withdrawn.
Since claim 1 has been amended, the rejection of claims 2-5 under 112(b) has been moot.
Claim 7 has been amended to address indefiniteness, thus the rejection of claim 7 under 112(b) has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments filed 08/17/2026 in pages 6-9 with respect to the rejection of claim 1 under 103 has been considered. Due to the amendments, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Trondl (US 20150064391A1) in view of Pinto et al. (US 2015/0174798 A1) and Tuczek (DE 102012024167A1_Machine Translation) (All of record).
Applicant argues that “Accordingly DE '167 requires that the panel material be a solid, stiff material in order to prevent slipping off at the edges but also be able to form fold lines 9 and 10. Pinto et al. fails to disclose or suggest this property duality such that there would have been no motivation to have used the edge configuration of DE '167 in the panels of Pinto et al. [0048] of Pinto et al. describes PMI rigid foam material but fails to describe any material bendability or stiffness. [0056] describes a foam density of 25-220 kg/m3 but fail to describe any material bendability or stiffness.” (pages 8-9)
These arguments are found to be unpersuasive because:
Trondl teaches a method of producing an object made of a composite material said object being relatively strong and light weight and having a complex three-dimensional configuration (Pa [0009]) having rigid foam (Pa [0029]), Pinto teaches that a novel process which, for example, is useful for producing composite materials having cores composed of rigid foams (Pa [0001]), and both are used in the same fields of automotive construction, aerospace technology, ship construction, etc., thus one would have found it obvious to use the edge configuration of Tuczek in the method of Trondl in view of Pinto to join the sections.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-3 and 7-9 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 1, Applicant has been advised to replace “a first the planar component segment” in line 5 to – a first planar component segment --;
In claim 2, Applicant has been advised to replace “multidimensionally shaped component segments” in line 8 to – said first and second multidimensionally shaped component segments --;
In claim 3, Applicant has been advised to replace “the first and second component segments” in line 7 to -- the first and second planar component segments --;
In claim 3, Applicant has been advised to replace “multidimensionally shaped component segments” in line 9 to – said first and second multidimensionally shaped component segments --;
In claim 7, Applicant has been advised to replace “a volume of rigid foam parts are” in line 2 to -- a volume of the rigid foam part is --;
In claim 8, Applicant has been advised to replace “rigid foam parts are” in line 2 to -- rigid foam part is --; and
In claim 9, Applicant has been advised to replace “the rigid foam parts are” in line 2 to – the rigid foam part is --.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Trondl (US 20150064391A1) in view of Pinto et al. (US 2015/0174798 A1) and Tuczek (DE 102012024167A1_Machine Translation) (All of record).
With respect to claims 1, 6 and 7, Trondl teaches a process for producing a multidimensional rigid foam (“a method of producing an object made of a composite material said object being relatively strong and light weight and having a complex three-dimensional configuration”, Pa [0009]) comprising:
assembling said first multidimensionally shaped component segment and said second multidimensionally shaped component segment to give a multidimensional rigid foam part (“providing a plurality of appropriately shaped sections bonded together into the three-dimensional configuration”, Pa [0009]; “rigid foam”, Pa [0016]).
Trondl teaches a method of producing an object made of a composite material said object being relatively strong and light weight and having a complex three-dimensional configuration, said method comprising the steps of a) providing a plurality of appropriately shaped sections bonded together into the three-dimensional configuration, each section comprising a suitable core material with a suitable laminated face extending to an edge thereof, said configuration having first and second surfaces incorporating said edges; b) laminating or otherwise sealing said surfaces and edges; c) wherein said laminated faces form a series of structural webs connecting said first and second surfaces; and d) wherein said sections provide rigidity to the nascent configuration when said sections are sequentially assembled (Pa [0009]), and a wide variety of objects are contemplated, such as, but not limited to a pressure or vacuum vessel, a transportable liquid tank such as that on a fuel tanker, a vehicular bridge section or ramp for a truck or utility mount, a man handle ramp or bridge, a RORO ramp for ships, a vacuum pipe, an aircraft wing or other aircraft parts, an aircraft body, an aircraft fuel tank, a space capsule, a watercraft, kayak, canoe, a car body, ski-mobile body, a train carriage, a survival capsule, a wind turbine blade; virtually anything where weight reduction is an advantage (Pa [0011]). Trondl further teaches that the sections are bonded together by any appropriate means (Pa [0019]), the incremental addition of each of the sections during assembly of the object provides for a mould-less method (Pa [0030]), and the shaped sections are produced by a process of cutting, milling, grinding, carving or otherwise shaping the material (Pa [0033]).
Trondl does not explicitly teach that a process for producing a multidimensional rigid foam part based on a polymer having a glass transition temperature Tg of at least 100°C, measured in accordance with DIN EN ISO 11357-2 (issue date: 2020-08) by milling, comprising: thermoforming a first planar component segment, forming a first multidimensionally shaped component segment, milling said first multidimensionally shaped component segment into a first multidimensionally shaped component segment having at least one jigsaw puzzle-piece shape, thermoforming a second planar component segment, forming a second multidimensionally shaped component segment, milling said second multidimensionally shaped component segment into a second multidimensionally shaped component segment having at least one jigsaw puzzle-piece shape, assembling said first multidimensionally shaped component segment having at least one jigsaw puzzle-piece shape and said second multidimensionally shaped component segment having at least one jigsaw puzzle-piece shape to give a multidimensional rigid foam part.
In the same field of endeavor, process for forming rigid foams, Pinto teaches that the process is particularly useful for forming rigid foams as of polymethacrylimide (PMI) (Pa [0016]), the process comprises the steps of: a) optional composite ply layup with outer materials and a foam core thereinbetween, b) heating the foamed material by irradiation with near infrared radiation (NIR radiation) having a wavelength between 0.78 and 1.40 μm, c) forming with a forming tool, d) cooling and demolding the final workpiece (Pa [0016]-[0020]), and the rigid foam workpieces of the present invention have very many uses in the fields of automotive construction, aerospace technology, ship construction, design of track vehicles, mechanical engineering, medical device engineering, furnituremaking, the building of wind power systems or in elevator construction (Pa [0058]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Trondl with the teachings of Pinto and perform Pinto’s method in order to form a plurality of appropriately shaped sections.
Furthermore, Tuczek relates to a device connecting two edge portions of plates (Abstract) and teaches that two slots (7) are cut into each of the two sides (6) of a plate (1) (Pa [0035]), each slot, by spreading a tab, creates on one side a barb ( 11) that is statically reduced in size like the projecting section of a wall panel and is subjected to shear force internally, and on the other side a recess ( 12 ) (Pa [0037]), for locking, the tab, now located on the concave side with the surface angle of the plate connection – shown separately torn out below for clarification – has been returned to the only slightly angled position from Fig. 2, whereby its barb engages with the barb of the opposite tab (Pa [0040]), and the splayed overlapping slots form an interlock ( 16 ) which absorbs not only pressure but also tension between the plates linearly (Pa [0041]). Figs. 1-3, 5 and 6 show the plates in the jigsaw puzzle-piece shapes.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Trondl in view of Pinto with the teachings of Tuczek to cut the slots into each of the sides of separate pieces of the foamed material and form the joint between the two original foamed materials by interlocking the slots in order to join the appropriately shaped sections to produce the configuration of an integral part by absorbing not only pressure but also tension between the plates linearly.
With respect to claim 2, Pinto as applied in the combination regarding claim 1 above further teaches that said thermoforming of said first and second planar component segments comprises:
inserting said first and second planar component segments into separate shaping moulds; - heating each shaping mould in an air circulation oven to temperatures between 180 and 230° C (“a) optional composite ply layup with outer materials and a foam core thereinbetween, b) heating the foamed material by irradiation with near infrared radiation (NIR radiation) having a wavelength between 0.78 and 1.40 μm, c) forming with a forming tool”, Pa [0017]-[0019]; “there was an initial heating phase with the flash radiators (NIR; 0.78-1.40 μm) to a temperature of 210° C. At the onset of continued plastification, individual pulses of compressed air are fired in the machine space to thereby generate a foam bubble.”, Pa [0129])
removing said first and second multidimensionally shaped component segments from the shaping mould (“demolding the final workpiece”, Pa [0020]).
With respect to claim 3, Pinto as applied in the combination regarding claim 1 above further teaches that said thermoforming of said first and second planar component segments comprises:
heating said first and second planar component segments with infrared radiation to 180 to 230° C. (“heating the foamed material by irradiation with near infrared radiation (NIR radiation)”, Pa [0024]; “the heating to the 210° C”, Pa [0112]),
inserting each heated planar component segment into a shaping mould (“transferring the foamed material into a forming tool”, Pa [0025]),
closing the shaping mould and shaping said first and second planar component segments using pressure or vacuum (“forming with the tool”, Pa [0026]; “an individual workpiece of a rigid foam can be vacuum-formed at reduced pressure in very complex workpieces.”, Pa [0045]; “the closing movement of the temperature-controlled tool”, Pa [0113]),
removing said first and second multidimensional component segments from the shaping mould (“demolding the final workpiece”, Pa [0027]).
With respect to claim 4, Pinto as applied in the combination regarding claim 3 above further teaches that each planar component segment is enveloped with a material selected from the group of nonwovens, fabrics or films prior to thermoforming (“optional composite ply layup with outer materials and a foam core thereinbetween”, Pa [0016]; “the choice of outer material is relatively free. One can opt for example for pure thermoplastics, for wovens or knits or composites thereof, e.g., so-called organopanels or -sheets, or plastic-coated textile backings such as, for example, artificial leather.”, Pa [0043]).
With respect to claim 5, Tuczek as applied in the combination regarding claim 1 above further teaches that mortice and tenon joints of the jigsaw puzzle-pieces are milled into a lollipop shape (“The corners between the straight part lines (18, 19, 20) of the slots may also be rounded or chamfered to facilitate the insertion of the plates and to avoid injuries.”, Pa [0038]).
With respect to claim 8, Trondl as applied to claim 1 above further teaches that 2- or 3-dimensional curved rigid foam part is produced (“having a complex three-dimensional configuration”, Pa [0009]).
With respect to claim 9, Pinto as applied in the combination regarding claim 1 above further teaches that the rigid foam parts are produced for sandwich components (“optional composite ply layup with outer materials and a foam core thereinbetween”, Pa [0016]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YUNJU KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-1146. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-4:00 EST M-Th; Flexing Fri.
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/YUNJU KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1742
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