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) 1-2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hanai, USP 11,333,198, in view of Fujita, USP 6,964,713.
Regarding claim 1, Hanai discloses a bush member (Hanai describes a sliding bearing for internal combustion engines, these are commonly also referenced as “bushings”) for use in a piston pin (intended use), comprising: an Fe-based back metal layer (2 or 12, disclosed as steel which is an iron based product); and a bearing alloy layer (4 or 14) joined to the back metal layer, wherein the bearing alloy layer is formed of a Cu-based alloy containing 25 to 45% by mass of Zn (Hanai discloses a range that extends up to 30% thus anticipating the range, see column 4, lines 51-59), and the back metal layer has a Vickers hardness of 160 to 240 HV (the backing layer is disclosed as a hypoeutectoid steel, these types of steels have a hardness ranging from 120-180 HB, see attached NPL document showing properties of hypoeutectoid steel, additional 1HV is approximately equal to 0.95HB, thus when converted to HV values the hardness would still anticipate the claimed range).
Hanai does not disclose that the Cu-based alloy has a Vickers hardness of 150 to 230 HV.
Fujita teaches a Cu-based alloy for a sliding bearing wherein the hardness is set, specifically a brass type alloy with zinc present at a value of 25% by mass (see claim 1), to a range of 90-180 Hv for the purpose of providing a sliding bearing with a copper based alloy that has high resistances to seizure and wear (see column 2, lines 3-10).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify Hanai and use any previously known copper alloy, including one having a hardness within the range of 150-230 Hv, as taught by Fujita, for the purpose of providing a sliding bearing with a copper based alloy that has high resistances to seizure and wear
Regarding claim 2, Hanai in view of Fujita discloses that the Vickers hardness of the back metal layer is more than or equal to 0.9 times the Vickers hardness of the bearing alloy layer (“more than or equal to 0.9 times” coves a 1 to 1 relationship, because of the overlapping hardness ranges in the combination of Hanai in view of Fujita the combination allows for the presences of an equal hardness thus rendering the claim obvious).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hanai, USP 11,333,198, in view of Fujita, USP 6,964,713, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Toda, USP 8,790,574.
Regarding claim 3, Hanai, while disclosing the use of zinc within the claimed range as stated in claim 1, does not disclose the narrower range of 35 to 45% by mass of Zn.
Toda further teaches that in a bearing made of a copper alloy the amount of zinc can range from 20-45% by mass with the preferred range being 28-40% (see column 2, line 65-column 3, line 2).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to modify Hanai and increase the amount of zinc to a range inclusive of 35-45% by mass, as taught by Toda, since it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art. In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980). The disclosure of Toda further establishes the amount of zinc as a result effective variable with lower levels of zinc providing insufficient wear resistances with higher levels of zinc making the bearing more brittle (column 2, line 65-column 3, line 2). Thus, selecting a specific range of zinc in the copper alloy is a known result effective variable as demonstrated by the prior art of record.
Conclusion
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/JAMES PILKINGTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3617
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