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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 7/24/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This action is responsive to the amendment and RCE dated 7/24/2026. The previous 112(a) and 112(b) rejections have been withdrawn due to applicant’s amendment. Claims 1-11 remain pending. This action is Non-Final.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code 102 not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by JP52-116726 (supplied by the applicant in the IDS dated 4/9/2025 with included machine translation)(hereinafter “JP52”).
JP52 discloses a valve comprising: a housing (3, 4); a spool (5) having a throttle port (13), disposed in the housing to be movable in an axial direction, and partitioning off the housing into a primary chamber and a secondary chamber (left and right of the throttle port); and a compression spring (6) configured to bias the spool toward a primary chamber side in an axial direction (biasing toward the left side), wherein the spool operates in the axial direction due to a pressure difference between the primary chamber and the secondary chamber (figs. 1-2, see also the first page of the machine translation, toward the bottom, the line starting with “Next, the operation of the valve will be explained.” to the next page of the machine translation and the line ending with “The conventional device was constructed as shown in Fig. 3”), the spool is disposed between the primary chamber and the secondary chamber in the axial direction, the housing is provided with a primary chamber side inlet (2) which always communicates with the primary chamber and is open in the axial direction (figs. 1-2), and a secondary chamber side inlet/outlet (1) which always communicates with the secondary chamber and which is open in the axial direction (figs. 1-2), the housing has an annular space (9) formed therein and extending along an outer periphery of the spool, the housing further has an inner wall portion (4) formed between the annular space and the spool, the inner wall portion of the housing is provided with a first through hole (12) which causes the throttle port to communicate with the annular space (figs. 1-2), and all of the compression spring is disposed on a secondary chamber side with respect to the throttle port (figs. 1-2, to the right of 13).
Regarding claim 2, JP52 further discloses wherein the spool has a step portion with which an end of the compression spring comes into contact (notice the inward, vertically extending surface of the spool which contacts with the spring).
Regarding claim 3, JP52 further discloses wherein the step portion is provided on an inner peripheral surface of the spool (figs. 1-2).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-8 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.
Claims 9-11 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: regarding claim 4, JP52 does not disclose the spool having a further open-close port to switch a communication state between the primary chamber and secondary chamber with a second through hole in the housing which is configured to switch between communicating with and not communicating with the open-close port. Regarding claim 5, it is not seen to be obvious to add an additional compression spring as this would change the principle operation of the device by providing a different biasing. Regarding claim 9, while the previously applied reference to Hayama et al. (U.S. 2021/0033082) teaches using either a compression spring or a tension spring, it is not seen to be obvious to modify the compression spring of JP52 which is located on the secondary chamber side to a tension spring located on the primary chamber side. This is primarily due to the structure of JP52, which has a portion of the housing (4) between the spool and the end of the housing portion (3) at the left side. The modification to add a tension spring at this location, in order to bias the spool (5), would require substantial redesign and re-engineering due to this.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL R REID whose telephone number is (313)446-4859. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9am-5pm est.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisors can be reached by phone. Craig Schneider can be reached at 571-272-3607, or Ken Rinehart can be reached at 571-272-4881. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated- interview-request-air-form.
/MICHAEL R REID/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3753
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