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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 7, 8, and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang (US 2023/0324037).
Regarding claim 1, Zhang teaches a waterproof lamp, comprising a lamp body (101, Fig. 5, Paragraph 0087), a wire inlet base (the area of 101 around 3m Fig. 5) arranged at a bottom of the lamp body and an electrical wire (9, Fig. 3), wherein a PCB (2, Fig. 2, Paragraph 0089) and a lamp panel (1, Fig. 2, Paragraph 0089) electrically connected to the PCB are arranged in the lamp body, a female terminal (23, Fig. 4, Paragraph 0107) is arranged on the PCB, a male terminal (20, Fig. 3 in view of 5) is correspondingly arranged at an end of the electrical wire, and the male terminal is configured to extend into the lamp body through the wire inlet base to be connected to the female terminal (Fig. 5); a first waterproof sealing ring (30, Fig. 5) is arranged between the wire inlet base and the electrical wire (Fig. 5), a locking nut (29, Figs. 5 and 6) is disposed around the electrical wire, and the locking nut is configured to be fixedly connected to the wire inlet base to lock the first waterproof sealing ring in the wire inlet base (Figs. 5 and 6).
Zhang fails to teach a male terminal is arranged on the PCB, a female terminal is correspondingly arranged at an end of the electrical wire, and the female terminal is configured to extend into the lamp body through the wire inlet base to be connected to the male terminal.
Examiner takes official notice in pointing out that it would been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the earliest effective filing date to have replaced the male terminal with a female terminal and have used a female terminal in place of the male terminal.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the earliest effective filing date to have used the male terminal in place of the female terminal and to have used the female terminal in place of the male terminal, since it has been held by the courts that a mere reversal of the essential working parts of a device involves only routine skill in the art. In re Gazda, 219 F.2d 449, 104 USPQ 400 (CCPA 1955).
Regarding claim 2, Zhang teaches a receiving cavity (inside of 6, Fig. 1) is formed in the wire inlet base, a wire inlet is formed in an end surface of a side, close to the lamp body (Fig. 1), of the receiving cavity, the receiving cavity is in communication with to an inside of the lamp body by means of the wire inlet (Fig. 1), an outer diameter of the male terminal is less than or equal to an inner diameter of the wire inlet (Fig. 1), and the male terminal is configured to extend into the lamp body via the wire inlet to be connected to the female terminal (Fig. 1).
Regarding claim 3, Zhang teaches the receiving cavity comprises a first cavity (the upper part of 6 which is skinnier) and a second cavity (the lower part of the inside of 6 which is wider) which are sequentially arranged in a direction away from the lamp body (Fig. 1), the first cavity and the second cavity are arranged coaxially and connected (Fig. 1), a cross-sectional area of the first cavity is less than a cross-sectional area of the second cavity (Fig. 1), the wire inlet is formed in an end surface of a side (Fig. 1), close to the lamp body, of the first cavity, the female terminal is configured to be mounted in the first cavity (specifically including the reversal of the male and female terminals), and the first waterproof sealing ring is configured to be mounted in the second cavity (Fig. 5).
Regarding claim 5, Zhang teaches the female terminal comprises a terminal head (23, Fig. 4) and a terminal body (24, Figs. 1 and 3, Paragraph 0117, Specifically if the male and female terminals were switched) which are detachably connected, an outer diameter of the terminal head is less than an inner diameter of the wire inlet (Figs. 4 and 5), an outer diameter (the widest part of 7, Fig. 1) of the terminal body is greater than the inner diameter (skinniest part of the inside of 6) of the wire inlet, the terminal body is configured to be abutted against an inner side of the end surface of the side, close to the lamp body, of the receiving cavity, and the first waterproof sealing ring is disposed around the electrical wire and is configured to be abutted against the terminal body (Fig. 5).
Regarding claim 7, Zhang teaches at least one limiting groove (the groove being the bump out of 24, Fig. 5) is formed in an outer side of the terminal body in an axial direction, and a limiting bump (the bottom of 31, Fig. 5) matched with the limiting groove is arranged on an inner surface of the receiving cavity.
Regarding claim 8, Zhang teaches the lamp body comprises a lamp holder (4, Fig. 2) and a lamp shade (13 and 14, Fig. 2, Paragraph 0125) mounted on the lamp holder, the PCB and the lamp panel are located in the lamp holder, and a LED bead is arranged on the lamp panel (Fig. 2).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the earliest effective filing date to have used a plurality of LED beads in place of one LED bead, in order to spread the light distribution for a given application and to spread the head of the light source over a larger area thereby reducing damage from heat.
Regarding claim 10, Zhang teaches a waterproof gasket (30, Fig. 5) is disposed around the wire inlet base (Fig. 5), and two ends of the waterproof gasket are configured to be abutted against the lamp body and the locking nut, respectively (Fig. 5).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6, and 9 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:
The prior art taken as a whole does not show nor suggest all of the limitations of claims 4, 6, and 9 as specifically called for the claimed combinations.
The closest prior art, Zhang (US 2023/0324037) teaches several limitations and their specifics as rejected above.
However Zhang fails to disclose the second cavity being funnel shaped, the inner diameter of the first waterproof sealing ring is less than an outer diameter of the terminal head, first and second grooves corresponding to a protrusion and waterproof sealing ring as required in claim 9 as required by the claim and there is no motivation absent the applicant' s own disclosure, to modify the Zhang reference in the manner required by the claims.
Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Zhu et al. (US 2024/0240782) teaches a gasket around the light source. Wang (US 2023/0246380) teaches connection elements for a wire to a light source. Moghal et al. (US 9719672) teaches a plurality of light sources with gasket and protrusions. Yu (US 7883261) teaches a connection of the light source to the wire.
Conclusion
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/ERIC T EIDE/ Examiner, Art Unit 2875