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 .
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.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 5 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, “two inclined wall surface portions that approach the rotation axis as it moves from the center of one of the plurality of permanent magnets” should be changed to “two inclined wall surface portions that approach the rotation axis as [[it]] the two inclined wall surface portions move from the center of one of the plurality of permanent magnets”
Claim 1, “the lightening hole has the center line extending radially outward” should be changed to “one of the plurality of lightening holes has the center line extending radially outward”
Claim 5, “an axis between magnetic poles connecting the magnetic poles at each of the two ends of the permanent magnet” should be changed to “an axis between the magnetic poles connecting the magnetic poles at each of the two ends of one of the plurality of permanent magnets”
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 5, 6, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recitation, “the lightening hole has the center line extending radially outward from the rotation axis of the rotor and overlapping with a q-axis of the permanent magnet, is present in position avoiding on the d-axis, and is formed with curved corners” is unclear what is meant by the underlined portion.
For examining purposes the Examiner is interpreting the above recited portion as the lightening hole has a center line and the lightening hole is formed with curved corners.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the q-axis" in line 25 and “the d-axis” in line 29. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Dependent claims 5, 6, and 8 are rejected, as they inherit the deficiency of the independent claim.
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.
Claims 1, 5, 6, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamagishi (US 2005/0140235), in view of Hattori (US 2007/0063607).
Regarding claim 1, Yamagishi discloses an embedded magnet type rotary motor (abstract) comprising:
a stator that has a stator coil (abstract); and
a rotor having a rotor core with a plurality of permanent magnets embedded therein and held inside the stator so as to be rotatable about a rotation axis (abstract),
wherein the plurality of permanent magnets (M1, M2 of Figure 12) are held in an outer circumference portion of the rotor core (22 of Figure 12), spaced from each other in a circumferential direction, and have magnetic poles at both ends in the circumferential direction (see Figure 11);
the rotor core has a plurality of lightening holes (48 of Figure 14B) spaced from each other in the circumferential direction on the rotation axis side of the plurality of permanent magnets (see Figure 14B);
each of the plurality of lightening holes has a bottom wall surface portion extending in the circumferential direction on the rotation axis side, an outer circumferential wall surface portion on the outer circumferential side, and a side wall surface portion connecting between the bottom wall surface portion and the outer circumferential wall surface portion (see Figure 14B);
the outer circumferential wall surface portion has two inclined wall surface portions that approach the rotation axis as it moves from the center of one of the plurality of permanent magnets toward the magnetic pole side (see Figure 14B);
the two inclined wall portions are connected (see Figure 14B); and
the lightening hole has the center line extending radially outward from the rotation axis of the rotor and overlapping with a q-axis of the permanent magnet, is present in position avoiding on the d-axis, and is formed with curved corners (see Figure 14B).
Yamagishi does not explicitly disclose the two inclined wall portions are connected on the q-axis.
Hattori discloses the two inclined wall portions are connected on the q-axis (see Figure 6).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing of the claimed invention to have the two inclined wall portions of Yamagishi connected on the q-axis, as taught by Hattori, to absorb stress acting in parallel with the main surface of each permanent magnet [Hattori: Para. 0067].
Regarding claim 5, Yamagishi discloses wherein the inclined wall surface portion has an angle α [deg] with respect to an axis between magnetic poles connecting the magnetic poles at each of the two ends of the permanent magnet (see Figure 14B).
Yamagishi does not explicitly disclose the angle α [deg] being equal to or greater than the angle θa [deg] obtained by dividing 180 degrees by the number Nm of permanent magnets, and is equal to or less than the angle 2θa [deg] obtained by dividing 360 degrees by the number Nm of permanent magnets.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing of the claimed invention to have the angle α of Yamagishi be between angle θa and angle 2θa so as to prevent reduction of the magnetic flux density [Yamagishi: Para. 0014], since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.
Regarding claim 6, Yamagishi discloses wherein the inclined wall surface portion has a flat surface portion formed by a flat surface (see Figure 14B).
Regarding claim 8, Yamagishi discloses an electric device (10 of Figure 1-2) equipped with the embedded magnet rotary motor as claimed in claim 1 (abstract).
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Tajima (US 2005/0200223), Tajima (US 5,811,904), Syverson (US 5,747,909) disclose an embedded magnet type rotary motor comprising a plurality of lightening holes.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHARLES H REID whose telephone number is (571)272-9248. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-4:45 PM.
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/Charles Reid Jr./ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2834
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