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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Applicant is advised that the new art unit number is 2692. Please use the new art unit number for all future communications.
This Office action is in response to the Preliminary Amendment filed on 11/13/2024.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 1/26/2025, 10/30/2025, 6/8/2026, 7/15/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification - Title
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 10, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang (CN 114189778 using an English machine translation).
Regarding claim 1, Wang discloses an earphone, comprising a core module (1) and a hook structure (2) connected with the core module (Fig. 1/2a/2b), wherein,
in a wearing state, the core module is disposed at a front side of an ear (see Fig. 1), a free end of the core module not connected with the hook structure extends into a cavity of auricular concha of the ear (Figs. 1/3a/3b/5 and page 6, bottom paragraph and page 9, bottom paragraph: since 1 is used to clamp, it will clamp against the surface of the cavity of the auricular concha of the ear, which also means it will extend into said cavity), and at least a portion of the hook structure is disposed at a rear side of the ear (see Fig. 1),
the core module (1) has a thickness direction (Figs. 3a/3b: direction of thickness of 1), a length direction (Fig. 2a: direction of the diagonal dotted line), and a width direction (Fig. 2a: direction orthogonal to the diagonal dotted line) which are orthogonal to each other (see Figs. 2a/3a/3b), the thickness direction being a direction in which the core module is close to or away from the ear in the wearing state (see Figs. 3a/3b), a length of the core module is greater than a width of the core module (see Fig. 2a), and the length of the core module is in a range of 22 mm-35 mm (page 10, top paragraph),
the hook structure (2) includes a transition portion (e.g., Fig. 2a: left-most quarter of 2) connected with the core module (see Fig. 2a), the transition portion is disposed at the front side of the ear in the wearing state (Fig. 5: 1 is completely at front side of ear, so 2 which comes out of 1 as seen in Fig. 4 starts at front side of ear), and an area of an outer surface of the transition portion on a reference cross-section perpendicular to a length direction of the hook structure gradually decreases in a positive direction which is along the length direction of the hook structure and points away from the core module (Fig. 2a: left-most quarter of 2 gets thinner as it extends to the right), and
in the wearing state and viewed along a direction of a human coronal axis, compared with the free end of the core module not connected with the hook structure, a connection end of the core module connected with the hook structure is closer to the top of the head of a user (see Fig. 1), and an angle between the length direction and a direction of a human sagittal axis is in a range of 15°-60° (page 6, bottom paragraph: 30 to 300 degrees).
Regarding claim 2, Wang discloses the earphone of claim 1, wherein the width of the core module is in a range of 10 mm-16 mm (page 10, top paragraph: length of 1 is 22-30 mm, and Fig. 2b depicts the width of 1 being approximately 1/2 of the length of 1, so the width is approximately 11-15 mm, which is in the claimed range).
Regarding claim 3, Wang discloses the earphone of claim 1, wherein a first reference line segment (RLS1 of marked-up Fig. 6 below) which is parallel to the width direction and has the longest length (has longest length because it is the only reference line segment) is provided between an orthographic projection of the hook structure on a reference plane perpendicular to the thickness direction and an orthographic projection of the core module on the reference plane, an orthographic projection of the transition portion has an inner edge (IE) and an outer edge (OE1 or OE2) each of which has a continuous arc transition, respectively, the outer edge is farther away from the first reference line segment than the inner edge in the length direction, and an overall curvature of the inner edge is greater than an overall curvature of the outer edge (see marked-up Fig. 6 below).
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Regarding claim 6, Wang discloses the earphone of claim 3, wherein the orthographic projection of the hook structure and the orthographic projection of the core module do not overlap (see Fig. 5).
Regarding claim 10, Wang discloses the earphone of claim 1, wherein in the wearing state, the core module and the hook structure jointly clamp an ear region corresponding to the cavity of auricular concha from a front side and a rear side of the ear region (see Fig. 5 and page 9, bottom paragraph).
Regarding claim 16, Wang discloses the earphone of claim 1, wherein in the wearing state, the core module includes an upper side surface (Fig. 3a: bottom surface of 1) away from an external ear canal of the ear along the width direction, a lower side surface (Fig. 3a: top surface of 1) facing the external ear canal, and a rear side surface (Fig. 3a: visible surface of 1) configured to connect the upper side surface and the lower side surface (see Fig. 3a), and the rear side surface at least partially abuts against the cavity of auricular concha in the wearing state (see Fig. 5).
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) 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang in view of Hatfield et al. (US 2020/0314518) in view of He (CN 113301463 using an English machine translation).
Regarding claim 17, Wang discloses the earphone of claim 1.
Wang is not relied upon to disclose further comprising a main control circuit board disposed in the core module and a battery disposed at an end of the hook structure away from the core module.
In a similar field of endeavor, Hatfield discloses an earphone comprising a main control circuit board disposed in the core module (112) (¶ 0025 and Fig. 1B).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to: further comprising a main control circuit board disposed in the core module, the motivation being to include a common electrical component and enclose it (Hatfield - ¶ 0025).
In a similar field of endeavor, He discloses a battery disposed at an end (30) of the hook structure away from the core module (Fig. 1 and page 5, second-to-last paragraph).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to: further comprising a battery disposed at an end of the hook structure away from the core module, the motivation being to contain larger volume of battery thus improving the endurance ability (He - page 5, second-to-last paragraph).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4-5, 7-9, 11-15, 18-20 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:
In regard to claim 4, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“wherein the orthographic projection of the transition portion has a second reference line segment, a third reference line segment, a fourth reference line segment, and a fifth reference line segment which are parallel to the length direction and spaced in sequence, a starting point and an end point of the second reference line segment, fall on the inner edge and the outer edge, respectively, and
a point where the first reference line segment intersects with the orthographic projection of the core module is regarded as a starting point of the first reference line segment, and a point where the first reference line segment intersects with the orthographic projection of the hook structure is regarded as an end point of the first reference line segment, wherein,
a length of the second reference line segment is in a range of 5 mm-8 mm, and an extension line of the second reference line segment passes through a point at 1/8 of the first reference line segment.”
In regard to claim 5, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“wherein a length of the first reference line segment is in a range of 13 mm-20 mm.”
In regard to claim 7, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“wherein the core module includes an inner side surface facing the ear and an outer side surface away from the ear along the thickness direction in the wearing state, and the hook structure includes an adapter housing connected with the core module and an elastic metal wire connected with the adapter housing, at least a portion of the adapter housing being disposed at the front side of the ear in the wearing state, and at least a portion of the elastic metal wire being disposed at the rear side of the ear in the wearing state, and
an area of an outer surface of the adapter housing on the reference cross-section gradually decreases in the positive direction which is along the length direction of the hook structure and points away from the core module, the adapter housing extends in the thickness direction toward a side of the inner side surface away from the outer side surface.”
In regard to claim 8, the prior art of record alone or in combination fails to teach or suggest the following limitations of the claim in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim:
“wherein the core module includes a core housing and a loudspeaker disposed in the core housing, one side of the core housing facing the ear in the wearing state is provided with a sound outlet hole, a sound wave generated by the loudspeaker is transmitted out through the sound outlet hole, the core module cooperates with the cavity of auricular concha to form an auxiliary cavity communicated with an external ear canal of the ear in the wearing state, and the sound outlet hole is at least partially disposed in the auxiliary cavity.”
Claim 9, 11-15, 18-20 is/are dependent upon base claims having allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK FISCHER whose telephone number is (571)270-3549. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 1-6, 7:30-11:59pm EST.
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/MARK FISCHER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
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