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 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, line 23 recites “inclined tailings return auger”, should read – inclined tailings elevating auger – as set forth in line 9.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-5 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kepkay (US 3115142 A) in view of Welty (US 2351567 A).
Regarding claim 1, Kepkay teaches a combine harvester [10] comprising:
a grain cleaning system (see Fig. 1) including a support frame [11] and a sieve assembly [21] comprising a number of components including one or more sieves [22 and 23] mounted on the support frame and enabling a fore-aft shaking movement of one or more of said components (see Col. 2, lines 39-54 and Fig. 1);
a tailings return system (see Fig. 2) for returning tailings issued from the sieve assembly back to the cleaning system or to a threshing system (lifts to the rethreshing unit [33], see Col. 3, lines 1-8) of the combine harvester, wherein the tailings return system includes a transversal tailings return auger [35] and an inclined tailings elevating auger [41], wherein the transversal tailings return auger and the inclined tailings elevating auger each comprises a central rotation axle ([36] and [43] respectively), wherein the transversal return auger is configured to feed tailings to the inclined tailings elevating auger (see Col. 3, lines 1-4 and 8-10); and
a power transmission assembly [79] for transmitting power from a transversal drive shaft (see Col. 3, lines 1-4; inherently transversal due to the angle of belt [40], see Fig. 2) of the harvester to the transversal tailings return auger and the inclined tailings elevating auger, wherein said power transmission assembly includes:
a first belt transmission ([40], see Col. 3, lines 1-4) coupling the transversal drive shaft to the transversal tailings return auger,
a first gear transmission [80 and 82] having an input axle (see below; end of central rotation axis [36]) and an output axle [85], wherein the input axle is either integral with (input axle is integrally formed with the remaining portion of the central rotation axis [36], see Fig. 2) or fixed to the central rotation axle of the transversal tailings return auger, wherein said first gear transmission is a planar gear transmission (each gear [80 and 82] are arranged in a common plane, see Fig. 3),
a second gear transmission [83 and 84] coupling the output axle of the first gear transmission to the central rotation axle of the inclined elevating return auger (couples output axle to the central rotation axle of the inclined elevating auger through connection of the bevel gears [83 and 84], see Fig. 2).
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But Kepkay fails to explicitly disclose a plurality of rocking arms enabling a fore-aft shaking movement of one or more of said components.
Welty discloses a similar combine harvester (see Fig. 1) comprising a number of components [28, 36, 39, and 43] including one or more sieves [36] mounted on the support frame [17] by a plurality of rocking arms ([33], see page 1, lines 52-55) enabling a fore-aft shaking movement of one or more of said components (see page 2, lines 65-70).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to substitute the connection of the sieves on the combine harvester of Kepkay with the rocking arms of Welty since both are ways to connect the sieves to the combine harvester while enabling fore-and-aft shaking movement of the sieves; therefore, yielding the same predictable result.
Regarding claim 2, Kepkay, of the above resultant combination, further discloses wherein the first gear transmission [80 and 82] and the second gear transmission [83 and 84] are mounted in a common gearbox (see Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 3, Kepkay, of the above resultant combination, further discloses wherein the first gear transmission [80 and 82] comprises an even number of gears (comprised of two gears [80 and 82] as [89] is a tensioner, see Col. 4, lines 55-57).
Regarding claim 5, Kepkay, of the above resultant combination, further discloses wherein the second gear transmission [83 and 84] comprises two bevel gears (see Col. 4, lines 52-55).
Regarding claim 10, Kepkay, of the above resultant combination, further discloses wherein the first [80 and 82] and second gear transmission [83 and 84] are contained in a common housing (contained in housing of gearbox, see Fig. 2, and within the housing of harvester [10], see Fig. 1).
Claim(s) 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kepkay (US 3115142 A) and Welty (US 2351567 A) as applied to claims 1-5 and 10 above, and further in view of Hadwani et al. (US 9285022 B2).
Regarding claim 4, the above combination disclose the combine harvester as applied, but fails to disclose wherein the first gear transmission comprises four gears.
Hadwani et al. discloses a similar combine harvester (see Col. 3, lines 37-45) with a gear transmission [22] comprising four gears ([28a-d], see Fig. 4).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the gear transmission of Kapkay with four gears as taught by Hadwani et al. in order to operate the gear transmission for conveying the crop material through the augers at a high and low speed (see Hadwani et al. Col. 4, lines 6-21).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-9 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see attached PTO-892 for the full list of references.
Reference US 9877431 B2 discloses a similar combine harvester comprising a transversal tailings return auger [88 and 90] and an inclined tailings elevating auger [60] driven by a power transmission assembly [100].
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/SUNNY D WEBB/Examiner, Art Unit 3671
/CHRISTOPHER J SEBESTA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3671
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