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 required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-3, 7, 9 and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Sueishi (US Pat. No. D978,067).
PNG
media_image1.png
1489
1151
media_image1.png
Greyscale
Regarding claim 1, Sueishi teaches a motorcycle tire (for running on rough terrain is an intended use which does not further limit the claim) (title), the tire having a tread portion, the tread portion comprising a tire equator, first and second tread edges, a tread development width, a crown region, a pair of side regions on both axially outer sides of the crown region, a plurality of crown blocks provided in the crown region, and a plurality of middle blocks shoulder blocks (collectively taken to be the claimed outer blocks) provided in the side regions, where each of the blocks is depicted with a narrow groove (taken to be a sipe) except for a small number of crown blocks, and the middle blocks have a protruding surface (see annotated figure 8 above). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide a sipe on each of the crown blocks not depicted with a sipe in order to increase the edge effect of the tire and thus the traction while travelling on snow and/or ice. While the crown region does not specify exactly how much of the tread width is the crown region, the crown blocks appear to all be provided with at least part of the block within a region centered on the equator and having a width of 20% of the tread width (see annotated figure 8 above), and the instant application also has the crown blocks depicted as extending beyond the center region width (see instant application at figure 2 – the crown blocks extend beyond the depicted Wc). The description of the article pictured can be relied on, in combination with the drawings, for what they would reasonably teach one of ordinary skill in the art (see MPEP at 2125). While patent drawings are not to scale, relationships clearly shown in the drawings of a reference patent cannot be disregarded in determining the patentability of claims. See In re Mraz, 173 USPQ 25 (CCPA 1972). Accordingly, either Sueishi teaches an embodiment where all of the crown blocks are at least partially provided within 20% of TWe centered on the equator, or else it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the crown blocks at least partially within this region as being suggested by Sueishi (see annotated figure 8 above).
Regarding claim 2, the limitation “the tire is bound with an intended tire rotational direction” is an intended use of the tire and does not further limit the claim, regardless given the symmetric nature of the tire (rather than the axisymmetric nature of a non-directional tire), one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the tire of Sueishi is a directional tire with an intended tire rotational direction, and Sueishi teaches the crown blocks have axially extending edges on both sides of the block, and thus have a heel side edge and a toe side edge, and Sueishi teaches a narrow groove including an axial portion, the angle of the axial portion being depicted as being less than 20 degrees (see annotated figure 8 above).
Regarding claim 3, Sueishi teaches that the crown block taken to be the claimed crown block having a first surface and a second surface divided by the narrow groove having both ends communicating with outer peripheral edges of the ground contacting surface of the block, and the claimed centroids being depicted as having a distance of about 20% or more of the length of the block (see annotated figure 8 above). It is further noted that the crown block of Sueishi is depicted extremely similarly to the crown block of the instant application (compare annotated figure 8 above to figure 11 of the instant application).
Regarding claim 7, as is set forth above, Sueishi teaches that the middle blocks have protruding surfaces, and the middle blocks are substantially less than 75% of the total number of blocks in the tread portion (see annotated figure 8 above), falling within the claimed range.
Regarding claim 9, as is set forth above, the limitation “the tire is bound with an intended tire rotational direction” is an intended use of the tire and does not further limit the claim, regardless the tire has an intended rotational direction and the crown blocks have a toe side edge, and Sueishi teaches that the crown blocks have an equator side edge extending in the circumferential direction on the equator side and a narrow groove including a circumferential and axial portion (see annotated figure 8 above), and given the similarity of Sueishi to the instant invention, it is believed that the circumferential portion of the narrow groove extends from the toe side edge towards the heel side edge as claimed. Regardless, there are only two possible configurations with respect to the heel and toe sides, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to try either configuration as choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success.
Regarding claims 17-18, as is set forth above, the limitation “the tire is bound with an intended tire rotational direction” is an intended use of the tire and does not further limit the claim, regardless the tire has an intended rotational direction, Sueishi teaches that the outer blocks include shoulder blocks and middle blocks, the middle block top edge taken to the claimed toe side edge extending axially, and a tire equator side edge extending circumferentially on the equator side, the narrow groove of each of the middle blocks includes a circumferential portion with a constant width and an oblique portion (see annotated figure 8 above), however the oblique portion can be arbitrarily divided somewhere along the groove to read on the claimed second oblique portion and third axial portion, because this portion extends obliquely as is required by the second portion and it extends axially as is required by the third portion, and this portion of the groove has a continuously increasing width as is required by claim 18. It is noted that Applicant describes the first groove portion 16 as extending in the tire circumferential direction (see published application at paragraph [0070]) but depicts it as extending at an angle to the circumferential direction (see figure 10), indicating that the language of “extends in a direction” is not requiring a 0 degree angle to such a direction, and it being noted that the claim does not require that the first, second and third portions be at different angles.
Claims 4-5 and 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sueishi as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Xiang (CN-215621205-U; machine translation relied upon).
PNG
media_image2.png
1261
974
media_image2.png
Greyscale
Regarding claims 4-5, Sueishi teaches a small number of the crown blocks have another crown block connected by a tie bar (see annotated figure 8 under paragraph 12 above – top pair of crown blocks connected by a tie bar), but does not specifically disclose connecting crown blocks with middle blocks or middle blocks with shoulder blocks. In a similarly configured motorcycle block tire, Xiang teaches reinforcing blocks 9 (taken to be the claimed tie bars) connecting together each crown block with an adjacent crown block and a first middle block, and second middle blocks with two shoulder blocks, where the first and second middle blocks alternate circumferentially (machine translation at page 3, second full paragraph; annotated figure 2 above). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a tie bar configuration as taught by Xiang in the tire of Sueishi in order to keep the high strength of the tread, reduce the tread deformation, and increase the durability of the pattern blocks (see Xiang machine translation at page 3, second full paragraph).
Regarding claim 13, as is set forth above, the limitation “the tire is bound with an intended tire rotational direction” is an intended use of the tire and does not further limit the claim, regardless the tire of Sueishi has an intended rotational direction, the top two crown blocks pointed to in the annotated figure taken to be first blocks, the two crown blocks below taken to be the second blocks (see annotated figure 8 under paragraph 12 above), and in the combination of Sueishi in view of Xiang, each of the first crown blocks are connected by tie bars to one of the first middle blocks on a heel side, each of the second crown blocks are connected by tie bars to one of the first middle blocks on a toe side, the first and second crown blocks consist of block pairs which sandwich the equator and have a tie bar connecting the crown blocks in a pair together, and the first and second crown block pairs alternate circumferentially (see Xiang annotated figure 2 above).
Regarding claim 14, the tread portion has a plurality of virtual annular bodies arranged in the tire circumferential direction, each of the virtual annular bodies is formed by one first crown block pair, one second crown block pair, and two first middle blocks connected by the tie bars so as to have a ring shape in a tread plan view, and the second crown block pair is located on the heel side in the tire rotational direction relative to the first crown block pair in each of the virtual annular bodies (see Xiang annotated figure 2 above).
Regarding claims 15-16, taking the top crown block pair of the annotated figure 8 as the first crown block pair, and the next crown block pair down as the second crown block pair, for the combination of Sueishi in view of Xiang, each of the second crown block pairs has a larger maximum width and a larger tie bar width than each of the first crown block pairs (see annotated figure 8 under paragraph 12 above).
Claims 6-8 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sueishi as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Ishida (US Pub. No. 2013/0284333) and/or Miwa (US Pub. No. 2020/0207156).
Regarding claim 6, Sueishi teaches that the narrow groove of each of the crown blocks has both ends communicating with outer peripheral edges of the ground contacting surface of each of the crown blocks so as to divide the ground contacting surface of each of the crown blocks into a first surface and a second surface having a larger area than the first surface (see annotated figure 8 above – the small portion of the crown blocks taken to be the claimed first surface and the larger portion taken to be the claimed second surface), as well as teaching that the middle blocks have a protruding surface (see annotated figure 8 above – easiest to see the protrusion on the topmost blocks on either side – protrusion was verified on magnification of the original drawings of Sueishi). Sueishi does not specifically disclose a protruding surface on the shoulder blocks. In similarly configured motorcycle block tires, Ishida teaches protruding surfaces 30s on the middle and shoulder blocks and no protruding surfaces on crown blocks (paragraphs [0101]-[0107]; figures 1 and 5), and Miwa teaches protruding surfaces on the middle blocks 9, and protruding surfaces 15B and 16B on shoulder blocks 15 and 16, and no protruding surfaces on the crown blocks (paragraphs [0045], [0078] and [0086]; figures 1 and 5-6). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to protrude a portion of the shoulder blocks as well as middle blocks as taught by Ishida and/or Miwa in the tire of Sueishi in order to even the ground contact pressure of the tire. Given that the smaller portions are depicted as being about 25% of each block (see Sueishi annotated figure 8 above), the sum of the areas would be expected to be about 25%, falling within the claimed range of 20% to 60%.
Regarding claim 7, for Sueishi (combined) the middle and shoulder blocks have protruding surfaces, and the middle blocks and shoulder blocks are depicted as 2/3 of the total number of blocks in the tread portion (see annotated figure 8 above), falling within the claimed range.
Regarding claim 8, for Sueishi (combined), all of the crown and outer blocks have the narrow grooves (see annotated figure 8 above), thus N2=Nt, and N1=0.67*Nt, therefore N2/N1 = Nt(0.67*Nt) = 150%, falling within the claimed range.
Regarding claim 19, Sueishi teaches that the narrow groove of each of the shoulder blocks extend in the circumferential direction and completely crosses the ground contacting surface of each of the shoulder blocks so as to divide the ground contacting surface, and the narrow groove is inclined to the tire equator side as it goes toward the heel side in the rotational direction (figure 1 – verified these features on magnified original figure), and Ishida teaches that the protruding surfaces 30s on the shoulder blocks are on the tire equator side of the blocks (paragraphs [0101]-[0107]; figures 1 and 5), and Miwa teaches that the protruding surfaces 15B and 16B on shoulder blocks 15 and 16 are on the tire equator side of the blocks (paragraphs [0045], [0078] and [0086]; figures 1 and 5-6), so the combination set forth above has the base surface located on the first tread edge side and the protruding surface on the tire equator side as claimed.
Regarding claim 20, Sueishi teaches that the narrow groove of each of the shoulder blocks has a groove width continuously increasing toward the heel side in the rotational direction (figure 1 – verified this feature on magnified original figure).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sueishi as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Sueishi II (US Pub. No. 2021/0347208).
Regarding claim 10, Sueishi does not specifically disclose that the angle between the circumferential and the axial portion is in the range from 70 to 90 degrees. In a similarly configured motorcycle block tire, Sueishi II teaches angling the circumferential portion at 0° ≤ θ < 45° or 135° < θ ≤ 180°, and angling the axial portion at 45° ≤ θ ≤ 135° (paragraph [0043]), and particularly preferably angling the axial portion at 60° ≤ θ ≤ 120°. Such results in an angle difference preferable range of 15° (60 – 45) to 120° (120 – 0), overlapping the claimed range. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use an angle difference as taught by Sueishi II in the tire of Sueishi I in order to generate a suitable moment during cornering (see Sueishi II at paragraph [0047]).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sueishi as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Yamazoe (JP2022-020427; machine translation relied upon).
Regarding claim 11, Sueishi does not specifically disclose that the narrow grooves extend with a constant groove width from the toe side edge to the equator side edge. In a similarly configured tire, Yamazoe teaches using narrow grooves having a constant width all throughout the tire block (figures 2-3 and 5). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a narrow groove with a constant width as taught by Yamazoe in the tire of Sueishi as a known alternative narrow groove configuration with the predictable result of having a functional narrow groove.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sueishi in view of Xiang as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of Tomoda (EP 0100226).
Regarding claim 12, as is set forth above, the limitation “the tire is bound with an intended tire rotational direction” is an intended use of the tire and does not further limit the claim, regardless the tire of Sueishi has an intended rotational direction, the crown blocks having an edge on the top and bottom (toe and heel sides, respectively), the blocks having the heel and toe edge sides inclined to the same side with respect to the axial direction (see annotated figure 8 in paragraph 12 above), and the combined configuration has the first and second crown blocks connected with middle blocks as claimed (see Xiang annotated figure 2 in paragraph 13 above). Sueishi does not specifically disclose angling first-type crown blocks in one direction as they go toward the equator and angling second-type crown blocks inclined in the opposite direction as the go toward the equator. In a motorcycle block tire (page 2, lines 18-20), Tomoda teaches that desirably the crown blocks 1 are arranged in alternate reverse direction along the circumferential direction of the tire (page 4, lines 14-18; figure 2). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to alternate directions of crown blocks as taught by Tomoda in the tire of Sueishi (combined) in order to improve stability in operation (see Tomoda at page 4, lines 14-18). Such a combination has first and second type crown blocks arranged in the circumferential direction in a mixed manner as claimed.
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sueishi in view of Xiang as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of Hikita (US Pub. No. 2012/0305154).
Regarding claim 5, Sueishi (combined) set forth above teaches tie bars connecting the first and second shoulder blocks and the second middle block together, but does not specifically disclose the use of a single tie bar formed by an entirely raised area surrounded by the first shoulder block, the second shoulder block, and the second middle bock. Hikita teaches the use of a single tie bar 15d that is an entirely raised area surrounded by two shoulder blocks and a middle block (paragraphs [0075]-[0084]; figures 2-5a). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a single tie bar that is an entirely raised area as taught by Hikita as a tie bar connecting first and second shoulder blocks and second middle blocks together in the tire of Sueishi (combined) as known configuration of shoulder and middle blocks with the predictable result of a well-functioning block group (see Hikita at paragraphs [0075]-[0084]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and arguments with respect to the rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 112 have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s amendments and arguments with respect to the rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 102 have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s amendments and arguments with respect to the rejection of claims 1-3, 7, 9 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. 103 over Yamazoe have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
Applicant's amendments and arguments with respect to the rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 over Sueishi have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. In particular, it is considered obvious above to add sipes to the small number of blocks without them in order to add edge effect for increased winter traction.
Applicant argues with respect to the rejection of claim 9 over Sueishi that the rejection previously set forth and then set forth again above requires orientation of the tire to be reversed from its intended tire rotation direction, and therefore is not obvious. However, this is mere argument, and no evidence has been provided that the orientation used in the rejection is opposite to that of the intended rotation direction. Regardless, the intended rotation direction is merely an intended use, and a tire can be rotated in either direction, and therefore the rejection set forth above does not require any modification and the rejection remains proper.
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 PHILIP N SCHWARTZ whose telephone number is (571)270-1612. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:00-5:30.
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 supervisor, Katelyn Smith can be reached at 571-270-5545. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/P.N.S/ Examiner, Art Unit 1749 February 4, 2026
/JUSTIN R FISCHER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1749