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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 3 is objected to because of the following informality: the recitation “both ends of the resin extension portion” lacks strict antecedent basis with “a plurality of resin extension portions” as recited in claim 2. Appropriate correction is required (e.g., “both ends of each of the resin extension portions”).
Claim Rejections — 35 U.S.C. § 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 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant Admitted Prior Art (AAPA, specification ¶ [0003]) in view of Gotwald et al. (US 4,768,581, “Gotwald”) and Harada et al. (US 2016/0336199 A1, “Harada”).Regarding claim 1: AAPA discloses a cooling system including a metal case and semiconductor modules housed in the metal case and disposed on the lower surface of an upper wall of the metal case, with cooling provided on the upper wall side (¶ [0003]: “a metal case; semiconductor modules housed in the metal case and disposed on the lower surface of an upper wall of the metal case; and a coolant channel provided on the upper wall side of the metal case”). AAPA’s cooling medium is a liquid coolant flowing through the coolant channel; AAPA does not disclose a blower or a resin duct disposed on the upper surface of the upper wall. Gotwald discloses an air cooling system for semiconductor modules comprising a blower (blower 12; col. 2, lines 36–39); a base element adapted to receive heat from electronic elements, with a pair of rows of spaced parallel fins mounted on the upper surface of the base element (fins 24, base element 14; col. 2, lines 66–68); an elongated duct mounted on the tops of the rows of fins (duct 32; col. 3, lines 13–16), with cooling fluid forced across the fins, upwardly into the duct, and out of exits open to outside (col. 3, lines 21–25); and a plenum mounted on or over the substrate to direct fluid from the blower across the fins and out of the duct (plenum 50; col. 3, lines 36–39; see also claim 18: a blower, means to funnel the cooling gas to the fins, and “duct means distinct from said funnel means over said fins to convey said cooling gas away from said fins”). The plenum-and-duct structure together receives cooling air from the blower and guides it along the finned upper surface to openings open to the outside, and accordingly meets the duct limitation under the interpretation set forth above. Gotwald further teaches that liquid cooling “tends to be expensive,” requiring “plumbing and a pump” and design effort to prevent corrosion, whereas “air cooling offers better economy” (col. 1, lines 21–31), and teaches that the duct “is preferably formed of a material with a low heat conductivity” (col. 3, lines 27–29; claim 12). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute Gotwald’s forced-air arrangement — blower, upper-surface fins, and plenum/duct air-guidance structure — for the coolant channel on the upper wall side of AAPA’s metal case, in order to obtain the economy Gotwald expressly attributes to air cooling and to avoid the plumbing, pump, and corrosion-management burdens Gotwald attributes to liquid cooling (col. 1, lines 21–31). The substitution of one known cooling technique for another, each performing the same function of removing heat from semiconductor modules through the wall on which they are mounted, would have yielded predictable results. Neither AAPA nor Gotwald discloses that the duct includes a first resin portion made of a thermoplastic resin and a second resin portion made of a thermosetting resin, the second resin portion located above the semiconductor module and supported by the first resin portion. Harada teaches a resin molded article for vehicular electronic devices in which a thermosetting resin member is partially sealed within, and thereby held on, a thermoplastic resin member so as to form a single body (¶ [0106]; FIG. 1), the thermosetting resin member overlying a semiconductor device (¶¶ [0112]–[0114]), such that the article obtains the advantages of both resins (¶ [0006]). It would have been obvious to form Gotwald’s low-heat-conductivity duct as a resin duct — resin being a conventional low-thermal-conductivity molding material, consistent with Gotwald’s own stated material preference (col. 3, lines 27–29; claim 12) — constructed in accordance with Harada’s teaching with a thermoplastic first portion and a thermosetting second portion supported thereby, and to locate the thermosetting second portion, being the portion most resistant to heat deformation, in the region of the duct directly above the semiconductor module, where heating of the duct is greatest. Doing so is a predictable application of Harada’s known two-resin molding technique, and is consistent with Harada’s own placement of the thermosetting resin over a semiconductor heat source in the same vehicular-electronics field (¶¶ [0112]–[0114]).Regarding claim 5: The combination of AAPA, Gotwald, and Harada renders obvious a duct having thermoplastic and thermosetting resin portions as set forth above. The selection of polypropylene as the thermoplastic resin and a phenolic resin as the thermosetting resin is the selection of notoriously conventional exemplars of each recited resin class, and the specification itself attaches no criticality to these species, expressly stating: “The ‘thermoplastic resin’ and the ‘thermosetting resin’ are not limited to polypropylene and phenolic resins, respectively” (¶ [0045]). The selection of a known material on the basis of its suitability for the intended use is within the level of ordinary skill (MPEP § 2144.07).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2–4 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 of record does not teach or fairly suggest, in combination with the remaining limitations of claim 2, a second resin portion made of a thermosetting resin including a plurality of resin extension portions extending in the first direction and arranged in the second direction, wherein each of the resin extension portions is disposed above two adjacent ones of the fins provided on the upper surface of the upper wall of the metal case.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 2017/0170097 - forced-air cooling of power semiconductor modules
US 2018/0315675 - two-resin molded bodies
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/ZHENGFU J FENG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2835 July 24, 2026
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