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 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) 1-6, 9-12 and 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Garofalo (4203250), Hohns (2016/0199748) and Neufeld (4233775). Garafalo discloses a toy aircraft kit (Fig. 11, column 2 line 32-column 4 line 11) having a foam fuselage (20) configured with a slot (34) for frictionally engaging a monolithic foam main wing (80) and further configured for retaining a rear stabilizing wing (88) and an upwardly extending rear tail fin (70). Garafalo discloses the basic inventive concept with the exception of the main wing and fuselage having bodies formed from ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) foam with the wing further configured with an embedded malleable aluminum wire frame configured to allow bending or twisting of the wing along a span-wise length of the wing into a plurality of distinct wing configurations that can be selectively maintained. Hohns discloses a throwable toy with components formed from ethylene-vinyl acetate foam material (paragraph 328) and includes a flexible wing (400) with an external body and a malleable metal frame embedded within the external body to allow the wing to be bent and maintained in a plurality of distinct wing configurations to allow movements of the toy to be adjusted by a user (Fig. 50, paragraphs 389-391). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to configure the wing of Garafalo with an embedded metal frame and to use a known flexible foam such as EVA as taught by Hohns for the predictable results of configuring a toy with increased functionality and utility by enabling characteristics of the toy to be manually changed by the user to create different movements of the toy thereby increasing play value. Neufeld discloses a foam toy object configured with an embedded malleable aluminum wire frame configured as a loop corresponding to a perimeter of the object to allow the object to be bent and maintained at any position along a length of the object (Fig. 2, column 3 line 66 – column 4 line 30). Although, Neufeld does not disclose the toy object being a wing of a toy aircraft, it does teach a configuration for a malleable frame embedded within a foam body of a toy to make the toy bendable into a plurality of distinct and stable positions and as such it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute one configuration of the frame for another for the predictable result of configuring a toy object so as to be easily adjustable into a wider variety of maintainable configurations. Further in regard to the materials used for the components, the examiner also notes that it has been held that using known materials suitable for the intended use has been held to be obvious. See In re Leshin, 277 F.2d 197, 125 USPQ 416 (CCPA 1960).
Claim(s) 1-2 and 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Garafalo, Hohns and Abeson (3236007). Garafalo discloses a toy aircraft kit (Fig. 11, column 2 line 32-column 4 line 11) having a foam fuselage (20) configured with a slot (34) for frictionally engaging a monolithic foam main wing (80) and further configured for retaining a rear stabilizing wing (88) and an upwardly extending rear tail fin (70). Garafalo discloses the basic inventive concept with the exception of the main wing configured with an embedded malleable aluminum sheet frame configured to allow bending or twisting of the wing along a span-wise length of the wing into a plurality of distinct wing configurations that can be selectively maintained. Hohns discloses a throwable toy with components formed from ethylene-vinyl acetate foam material (paragraph 328) and includes a flexible wing (400) with an external body and a malleable metal frame embedded within the external body to allow the wing to be bent and maintained in a plurality of distinct wing configurations to allow movements of the toy to be adjusted by a user (Fig. 50, paragraphs 389-391). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to configure the wing of Garafalo with an embedded metal frame as taught by Hohns for the predictable results of configuring a toy with increased functionality and utility by enabling characteristics of the toy to be manually changed by the user to create different movements of the toy thereby increasing play value. Abeson discloses a foam toy object configured with an embedded malleable aluminum sheet frame (11) to allow the object to be bent and maintained at any position along a length of the object (Figs. 1-2 & 4, column 2 lines 10-39). Although, Abeson does not disclose the toy object being a wing of a toy aircraft, it does teach a configuration for a malleable frame embedded within a foam body of a toy to make the toy bendable into a plurality of distinct and stable positions and as such it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute one configuration of the frame for another for the predictable result of configuring a toy object so as to be easily adjustable into a wider variety of maintainable configurations.
Claim(s) 1 and 13-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bloom (2724211), Hohns and Neufeld. Bloom discloses a toy aircraft kit (Figs. 1 or 3), having a fuselage (10, 14) configured with a slot (11) or left and right slots (3) for frictionally engaging distinct left and right main wing portions (6). Bloom discloses the basic inventive concept with the exception of the main wing portions configured with an embedded wire frame configured to allow bending or twisting of the wing along a span-wise length of the wing into a plurality of distinct wing configurations that can be selectively maintained. Hohns discloses a throwable toy having a flexible wing (400) with an external body and a malleable metal frame embedded within the external body to allow the wing to be bent and maintained in a plurality of distinct wing configurations to allow movements of the toy to be adjusted by a user (Fig. 50, paragraphs 389-391). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to configure the wing of Bloom with an embedded metal frame as taught by Hohns for the predictable results of configuring a toy with increased functionality and utility by enabling characteristics of the toy to be manually changed by the user to create different movements of the toy thereby increasing play value. Neufeld discloses a flexible toy object configured with an embedded malleable aluminum wire frame configured as a loop corresponding to a perimeter of the object to allow the object to be bent and maintained at any position along a length of the object (Fig. 2, column 3 line 66 – column 4 line 30). Although, Neufeld does not disclose the toy object being a wing of a toy aircraft, it does teach a configuration for a malleable frame embedded within a body of a toy to make the toy bendable into a plurality of distinct and stable positions and as such it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute one configuration of the frame for another for the predictable result of configuring a toy object so as to be easily adjustable into a wider variety of maintainable configurations.
Conclusion
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/A.M.H/Examiner, Art Unit 3711 /EUGENE L KIM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3711
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