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 .
Preliminary Amendment
Acknowledgement is hereby made to the Preliminary Amendment filed 23 December 2024. Claims 20-38 are pending in the application. Claims 1-19 have been cancelled.
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.
Claims 20, 24, 25, 26-29, 31-33 and 35-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ichigawa (International Patent Application Publication No. WO 2006/077876)1 in view of Borders et al. (U. S. Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0346162) and Mason et al. (U. S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0161667).
As to claim 20, Ichigawa discloses a motor (FIG. 2, Mach. Trans. ‘MT’ Abstract) comprising:
a rotor (FIG. 2, MT para. 0030, inter alia, shown extending from motor 51 to drive fan 52, not separately labelled) rotatable about a central axis extending in an axial direction (as shown);
a stator 51 (Id., not separately described, motor 51 inherently includes a stator or stationary part producing an electromagnetic field to drive the rotor) to drive the rotor (normal operation);
a housing 61 (MT para. 0030) to accommodate the rotor and the stator (as shown);
and a controller 54A (MT para. 0045, rotation control unit 54A) configured or programmed to control energization to the stator (Id., powering motor with variable voltage to control flow rate __interpreted as controlling energization to the stator accordingly).
Ichigawa is silent as to: 1) an acceleration sensor to detect acceleration applied to the housing, and 2) the controller [being] configured or programmed to perform a rotation speed change of any of a rotation start of the rotor, at least one of an increase and a decrease of a rotation speed, and a rotation stop based on a detection result of the acceleration sensor. However, sensor-based control systems are known for activating and varying fan speed in appliances such as ceiling fans that can be activated based upon motion or temperature changes in a room. To this point, Borders teaches a fan control unit that provides motion-based control of fan operations, i. e., starting/stopping and speed changes, based upon a user being detected by a motion sensor (para. 0036, as described2). Touch-based controls are commonly used to activate appliances such as lighting systems. In this regard, Mason teaches a touch interface control operable by touch sensing (para. 0021) and/or using a vibration sensor (para. 0026, equivalent to the recited acceleration sensor) in order to control lighting patterns. With this in mind, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to modify Ichikawa with a control to perform rotation speed changes for its motor based upon the detected result from an acceleration sensor in order to allow a user touch-based control of the motor controlling the fan including powering on/off and varying fan speed as taught by Borders and Mason, Id.
As to claim 24, once modified, the applied art further teaches or suggests at least one of a temperature sensor and a humidity sensor (Borders – para. 0036, supra); wherein the controller is configured or programmed to perform the rotation speed change of the rotor based on a detection result of the at least one sensor (upon modification, the control taught collectively by the applied art is capable of rotation speed control based upon various sensor inputs).
As to claim 25, Ichigawa further discloses a communication module 57 to wirelessly communicate with an external operation device (MT para. 0045, “[t]he receiving unit 57 receives a signal transmitted wirelessly from a remote controller (transmitting means)”); wherein the controller 54A is configured or programmed to perform the rotation speed change based on a signal received from the operation device, (Id., “[t]he rotation control unit 54A controls the driving of the motor 51 based on the signal received by the receiving unit 57”).
As to claim 26, Ichigawa discloses a blower 50 comprising (FIG.’s 1 & 2, Mach. Trans. ‘MT” Abstract):
the motor according to claim 20 (as set forth in the aforesaid rejection of claim 20 using the teachings of Borders and Mason, supra); and an impeller 52 (FIG. 2, MT para. 0030) accommodated in the housing 61 and rotatable together with the rotor about the central axis (as shown);
wherein the impeller 52 includes:
a hub attached to the rotor (refer to an Annotated copy of Ichigawa FIG. 2 attached below, as shown and indicated); and
an impeller blade (shown) that extends radially outward from the hub and extends at least in the axial direction; and
the housing 61 includes:
a peripheral wall portion 65 located radially outward of the impeller 51 and surrounding the impeller 51 (Annotated Ichigawa FIG. 2, as shown and indicated);
a canopy portion 65, 69 (MT para. 0030) that extends in a radial direction, extends farther in one axial direction than the rotor, the stator, and the impeller 51, and covers one axial end portion of the peripheral wall portion (Annotated Ichigawa FIG. 2, as shown and indicated);
a first opening in the peripheral wall portion and connects an internal space surrounded by the peripheral wall portion and an external space of the housing (Annotated Ichigawa FIG. 2, as shown and indicated, note that the opening(s) are not shown per se in this figure, however, the flow arrows depicted in FIG. 2 indicated presence of openings for air flow); and
a second opening 50A (FIG. 1) in the canopy portion 65, 69 and connects an internal space surrounded by the peripheral wall portion and an external space of the housing (Annotated Ichigawa FIG. 2, as shown and indicated).
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Annotated Ichigawa FIG. 2
As to claim 27, Ichigawa further discloses wherein the blower 50 is attached to a clothing accessory 10 (FIG. 1, MT para. 0022); the housing 61 further includes a mark portion with a specific display or shape (any element of housing 61 is essentially interpretable as recited mark portion, refer to the FIG. 1 depiction showing inlet grill 50A); the mark portion is on a surface of the canopy portion 65, 69; and the canopy portion is located outside the clothing accessory 10 (since canopy is not part of clothing accessory, the canopy portion is considered to be outside under broadest reasonable interpretation).
As to claim 28, Ichigawa further discloses a rechargeable battery 53 (MT para.’s 0050-0051); and a switch 55 (MT para. 0029) to stop at least a power supply of the battery 53, Id.
As to claim 29, Ichigawa further discloses the blower 50 is attached to a clothing accessory 10 (FIG. 1, MT para. 0022); the switch 55 is operable to: perform power supply from the battery 53 when the blower 50 is attached to the clothing accessory 10; and stop power supply from the battery 53 when the blower 10 is detached from the clothing accessory (MT para. 0053, power can be stopped when detached under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the terms).
As to claim 31, Ichigawa further discloses a power receiver 58 (MT para. 0047) to wirelessly receive power from an external power feeding device and charge the battery 53 with the received power (Id., non-contact charging method).
As to claim 32, Ichigawa further discloses the blower 50 is attached to a clothing accessory 10; the switch 55 is in a portion inside the clothing accessory 10 of the housing 61 (FIG. 2, shown).
As to claim 33, Ichigawa further discloses the blower 50 is attached to a clothing accessory 10; the housing 61 further includes an engaging portion 71 (MT para. 0047, surface fastener) that engages with an engaged portion 12 inside the clothing accessory 10.
As to claim 35, Ichigawa is silent as to a plurality of engagement structures of the engaged portion and the engaging portion are arranged at intervals along a radially outer surface of the housing, only showing one set of engaged and engaged portions. However, this is simply duplicating the known working elements of Ichigawa, i. e., surface fasteners 71. It has been held that the mere duplication of parts has no patentable significance unless a new and unexpected result is produced. Since the engagement structures are part of the engaged/engaging potions used for attaching the blower to a clothing accessory, having duplicate engagement structures would only produce an expected redundancy. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the claimed invention to duplicate the engagement structures in order to provide redundancy attaching the blower to a clothing accessory. MPEP § 2144.04 (VI)(B).
As to claim 36, Ichigawa further discloses an engagement structure (formed by surface fastener 71) of the engaged portion and the engaging portion extends over an entire circumference of a radially outer surface of the housing 61 (Annotated Ichigawa FIG. 2, as shown and indicated).
As to claim 37, Ichigawa discloses a clothing accessory 10 (FIG. 1, MT para. 0020) comprising the blower 50 according to claim 26 (as set forth in the aforesaid rejection of claim 26 using the teachings of Borders and Mason, supra).
As to claim 38, Ichigawa further discloses the clothing accessory 10 is any of clothing, footwear, and headwear (FIG. 1, MT para. 0022, air-conditioned cloth garment covering predetermine part of the body, upper body sleeves, underwear).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 21-23, 30 and 34 are 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:
With respect to claims 21-23, there is no nexus in the available prior art that teaches or suggests modifying the applied so that controller is configured to control energization of the stator for rotation speed increase, decrease, starting and/or stopping based upon the specific detected acceleration criteria and thresholds recited in these claims.
The prior art of record fails to contemplate the claimed specific acceleration criteria for detecting a user pressing or tapping the housing of the motor of the blower to control activation and cycle through increase or decreases in rotation speed as described at para. 0070 of Applicant’s specification.
With respect to claim 30, the prior art of record either alone or in combination does not teach or fairly suggest wherein the blower is attached to a clothing accessory; the switch includes a changeover portion that abuts on an abutting portion arranged on the clothing accessory when the blower is attached to the clothing accessory; when the changeover portion abuts on the abutting portion, power supply of the battery is performed; and when abutment between the changeover portion and the abutting portion is released, power supply of the battery is stopped.
With respect to claim 34, the prior art of record either alone or in combination does not teach or fairly suggest wherein the blower the housing includes a first curved surface in contact with a second curved surface of the engaged portion; the first curved surface is between another axial end surface and a radially outer surface of the housing; and each of the first curved surface and the second curved surface extends radially inward toward another axial direction when viewed from a direction perpendicular to the axial direction and the radial direction.
It is the Examiner’s opinion that modification of the applied art in the manner recited in the indicated allowable claims would not have been reasonably foreseeable without benefit of the hindsight gleaned from the disclosure of the instant invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENNETH J HANSEN whose telephone number is (571)272-6780. The examiner can normally be reached Monday Friday 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM (MT).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Mark Laurenzi can be reached at (571) 270-7878. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KENNETH J HANSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3746
1 Cited in the International Search Report (ISR) and the IDS of 23 December 2024.
2 “For example, if the presence of a person in the space is detected by the control 10, multiple devices 12 may be regulated on (such as, for example, the light 12b and fan 12a). … The speed of the fan 12a and the level of light 12b may also be regulated differently depending on whether the space is determined to be occupied or not (e.g., a higher fan speed may be dictated during periods of non-occupancy, as may be a lower light level; whereas, a lower fan speed may be dictated during a period of occupancy, along with a higher light level, unless a light sensor detects a sufficient amount of ambient light).” (Borders, para. 0036).