DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-7 of U.S. Patent Application No. 18/928,568, filed on 28 October, 2024, were presented for examination and are currently pending in the application.
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.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because the reference numerals are faded in appearance, particularly in figs. 1-2, such that when a patent results from this application, they might not be legible. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Information Disclosure Statement
The listing of references in the specification is not a proper information disclosure statement. 37 CFR 1.98(b) requires a list of all patents, publications, or other information submitted for consideration by the Office, and MPEP § 609.04(a) states, "the list may not be incorporated into the specification but must be submitted in a separate paper." Therefore, unless the references have been cited by the examiner on form PTO-892, they have not been considered.
The “list” referred to above is the mention of CN 114123702 B in page 1. The Examiner has included US 2023/0198363 A1, which is in the same patent family, in the attached PTO Form 892, such that the contents of the patent family are on record in the application. No further action is needed by Applicant unless Applicant desires the CN reference itself to be on record.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
In line 5 of page 5, the reference numeral for the “rotation shaft” is provided as 16, when in all the drawings and the rest of the written description it is listed as 6.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the body" in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examination on the merits, the Examiner will interpret the “body” to mean the “housing”.
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.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan (US 2013/0200823 A1) in view of Niemela (US 3,493,793 A).
With respect to claim 1, Chan teaches a non-contact magnetically suspended hair clipper [clipper 10, including housing 12 and attachment 14] (the reference numeral for 10 is not shown in the drawings, but see ¶ 0027), comprising a casing [housing 12], a control circuit board [PCB 206] (see ¶ 0028 and the joint annotated excerpt of figs. 1 and 2 attached below), a magnetic core [E-shaped lamination 212] and an oscillating part [pivot head 206] (see ¶ 0029),
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at least one coil [402] is installed in the magnetic core [212] (see joint annotated excerpt of figs. 3 and 5A below, as well as ¶ 0031), a rotation shaft [pivot pole 220] is installed in between the oscillating part [206] and the casing [12] (¶ 0030 recites “pivot pole 220 is inserted into bushing 222 which together are inserted through aperture 224 and received within apertures 226 and 228 of upper and lower brackets 208a and 208b…” these apertures necessarily are spaces “between” 206 and 12 because everything in figs. 2-3 and 5a is inside the casing 12, particularly because they are not visible in fig. 1), a cutter assembly [grooming attachment 14] is connected at an end [top end in fig. fig. 5A, although not shown, and left-hand-end in fig. 1, where it is shown] of the oscillating part [206] (referring back to figs. 1 and 2),
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at least one magnet set [combined magnet 216 and poles N/S formed in laminations 214a/214b] (see fig. 5A and ¶ 0033-0034) is installed at another end [bottom end in fig. 5A] of the oscillating part [206], and a gap (labeled by the Examiner in the fig. 5A excerpt) is configured in between the at least one magnet set [216/N/S/214a/214b] and the at least one coil [402].
Chan omits explicitly teaching wherein an end of the at least one coil is connected with the control circuit board.
Niemela discloses a hair clipper comprising a casing, a magnetic core, an oscillating part [55], a coil [58] installed in the magnetic core, a rotation shaft [51] installed between the oscillating part and the casing, a cutter assembly connected at an end of the oscillating part, at least one magnet set [38a/39a] installed at another end of the oscillating part, and a gap configured in between the at least one magnet set and the at least one coil.
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Niemela teaches wherein an end [lead 69] of the coil [58] is connected with a control member [switch 62] (see col. 5, lines 67-75 which recite “suitable leads are provided to interconnect the power cord 61, the switch 62, and the field coil 58…” and col. 6, lines 25-27 which recite “the end wall of the bobbing and receives the ends of the coil wire 60 and the connecting lead 69…”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to make the hair clipper of Chan, while connecting the end of the coil to the control member, as taught by Niemela, such that the end of the coil of Chan would be connected to the circuit board of Chan, in order to make a connection between the circuit board and the coil, in order to supply electricity to the coil such that the device actually functions. It is clear that Chan’s omission of the connection between the circuit board and the coil is due to the fact that the authors took the connection for granted, fully knowing that any practitioner in the art that consumed the contents of the Chan reference would know the connection is part of the device, but is not mentioned because its discussion could be foregone in lieu of more important matter such as the inventive features they wished to focus on. Chan would not provide the circuit board without it being connected to an end of the coil, because there are no other electronic elements disclosed in Chan that the circuit board could be used to control.
With respect to claim 2/1, Chan in view of Niemela teaches the hair clipper of claim 1, Chan further teaches wherein the magnetic core [212] is U-shaped, and an insertion portion (labeled by the Examiner in the new fig. 5A excerpt attached below) for inserting into the at least one coil [402] is formed in the magnetic core [212].
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With respect to claim 3/1, Chan in view of Niemela teaches the hair clipper of claim 1, Chan further teaches wherein a number of the at least one coil [402] is configured to be at least one (it is 1), a number of the at least one magnet set [216/N/S/214a/214b] is configured to be at least one (it is 1), and the number of the at least one coil and the number of the at least one magnet set are equal (they are both 1).
With respect to claim 4/1, Chan in view of Niemela teaches the hair clipper of claim 1, Chan further teaches wherein an installation hole [aperture 224] for installing the rotation shaft [220] is opened in the oscillating part [206], and a shaft sleeve [bushing 222] is provided in between the rotation shaft [220] and the installation hole [224] (see ¶ 0030).
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With respect to claim 5/1, Chan in view of Niemela teaches the hair clipper of claim 1, Chan further teaches wherein the rotation shaft [220] is transversely provided in the casing [12], two supporting plates [brackets 208a and 208b] are provided in the casing [12] (still referring to the fig. 3 excerpt attached above, in conjunction with fig. 1), and a first installation groove [apertures 226 and 228] for installing the rotation shaft [220] is respectively formed in the two supporting plates [208a/208b] (see ¶ 0030).
With respect to claim 6/4/1, Chan in view of Niemela teaches the hair clipper of claim 4, Chan further teaches wherein the rotation shaft [222] is vertically provided in the casing [12], two installation cylinders [apertures 226 and 228] are provided in the casing [12] (again, everything in fig. 3 is inside the casing) and a second installation groove [226 and 228] is respectively opened in the two installation cylinders (the brackets 208a/208b are discussed together such that it can be inferred that they are identical and that there is a cylinder on the unseen side of 208a in fig. 3 – see ¶ 0030).
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With respect to claim 7/1, Chan in view of Niemela teaches the hair clipper of claim 1, Chan further teaches wherein a spring [252] is installed in between the oscillating part [206] and the body [12] (see rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) above – ¶ 0033 recites “springs 252 are mounted between an interior of the housing 12 and a side face 254 of pivot head 206…”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
DE 1009968 B (provided herein with machine translation) will become relevant prior art if amendments are made to firmly establish (claim 5 currently does not) that the shaft is “transverse” such that it is orthogonal to a plane defined by the Y and Z axes, along the X axis (i.e. parallel to the oscillation direction of the oscillating part) shown in fig. 1 (the axes were added by the Examiner to tie them to this paragraph).
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The device teaches a stator [11] that is clearly intended to have a U-shaped core, a shaft [15], and an oscillating part [14] that is driven by the interaction of armature [12] with the stator [11] to drive a cutter assembly [13]. The reference does not describe actual magnets but they would be obvious.
CN 115256474 A (provided herein with machine translation) could become relevant prior art if amendments are made to firmly establish (claim 5 currently does not) that the shaft is “transverse” such that it is orthogonal to a plane defined by the Y and Z axes, along the X axis (i.e. parallel to the oscillation direction of the oscillating part, the axes being described above with reference to DE 1009968 B) shown in figs. 1 and 2
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The oscillating parts ride on transverse shafts [212/213].
Fig. 1 of EP 0349077 A2 also teaches the oscillating part moving transversely (along the X axis and/or orthogonally to a plane defined by the Y and Z axes.
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Fig. 1 of US 2007/0113409 A1 also teaches the oscillating part moving transversely (along an A direction – the Examiner will not keep adding axes to the rest of the drawings) in a housing wherein the stator core is U-shaped and otherwise comports to the claims of the application.
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US 6,223,438 B1 teaches the oscillating parts of a hair cutter riding along shafts 133/134 that are “transverse” in the way described above.
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL K SCHLAK whose telephone number is (703)756-1685. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 6:00 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Seye Iwarere can be reached at (571) 270 - 5112. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Daniel K Schlak/Examiner, Art Unit 2834
/OLUSEYE IWARERE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2834
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