DETAILED ACTION
This is a first action on the merits of application 18987854.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
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) 1-5, 7-13, 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura US 20090298361 and further in view of Otsuka US 5059162.
Claim 1 and 19-20, Nakamura discloses a marine propeller propulsion unit [3] comprising a pinion planetary gear for driving a front 34a and a rear 34b propeller by means of an input shaft [368], wherein a sun gear [465/565] is adapted to be connected to the input shaft, a ring gear [466/566] is adapted to be connected to the front propeller [34a], and a planet carrier [470/571] is adapted to be connected to the rear propeller [34b]. See figs. 4-6. He does not disclose a double pinion planetary gear. Otsuka discloses a planetary gear system that uses a double pinion [26] fig. 1, col. 3 lines 40-50. Thus, it 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 to have modified Nakamura with Otsuka in order to control the rotating propellers.
Claim 2, Nakamura discloses wherein the sun gear [465/565] is directly connected to the input shaft [368] such that the sun gear and the input shaft are adapted to rotate at the same velocity. See figs 4-6, 10-12.
Claim 3, Nakamura discloses a propulsion motor [30] for driving the input shaft [368].
Claim 4, Nakamura discloses the aforementioned limitations of claim 1, he does not disclose an electric motor but this is well known in the art to use by one of ordinary skill as a suitable substitute, thus it 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 to have use said motor because of its increased efficiency.
Claim 5, Nakamura discloses wherein the propulsion motor [30] is directly connected to the input shaft [368] such that the propulsion motor and the input shaft are adapted to rotate at the same velocity (inherent). See figs 4-6, 10-12.
Claim 7, Nakamura and Otsuka disclose the aforementioned limitations of claim 1, they do not disclose the propulsion motor and the double-pinion planetary gear are of approximately the same outer dimension. However, it has been held that a change in size is of ordinary skill in the art, thus having the same outer dimension is mere design choice to fit in the outboard motor compartment design.
Claim 8, Nakamura discloses the input shaft [368] and a first [34a] and a second [34b] propeller shaft, which connect the respective propeller to the pinion planetary gear, are coaxial. See figs. 4-6, He does not disclose a double-pinion planetary gear. Otsuka discloses a planetary gear system that uses a double pinion [26] fig. 1, col. 3 lines 40-50. Thus, it 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 to have modified Nakamura with Otsuka to have coaxial connection for driving the propeller while maintaining the said alignment.
Claim 9, Nakamura discloses the aforementioned limitations of claim 1, he does not disclose the double pinion. Otsuka discloses the double-pinion planetary gear comprises a sun gear [26s], a ring gear [26r], a planet carrier [26pc], an inner planet gear [26p1] and outer planet gear [26p2], wherein the sun gear meshes with the inner planet gear that meshes with the outer planet gear that meshes with the ring gear. See fig, 1, thus it 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 to have modified Nakamura with Otsuka to use a double pinion for redundancy.
Claim 10, Otsuka discloses the radiuses of the inner planet gear and the outer planet gear are larger than the radius of the sun gear. See fig. 2b they have more teeth than the sun gear and thus larger radiuses.
Claim 11-12, Otsuka discloses the radiuses of the inner planet gear and the outer planet gear are essentially equal. See fig. 1
Claim 13, Otsuka discloses the double-pinion planetary gear comprises three or four pairs of inner and outer planet gears. See fig. 13
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura US 20090298361 and further in view of Otsuka US 5059162 and Koda US 4963108.
Claim 6, Nakamura and Otsuka discloses the aforementioned limitations of claim 1 and 4, they do not disclose wherein the propulsion motor is coaxial with the front and rear propellers. Koda in fig. 1 displays the propulsion motor is coaxial with the front and rear propellers. Thus, it 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 to have modified Nakamura and Otsuka with Koda to have the above said alignment for its simplistic design to deliver power to a propeller.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 14-18 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
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/JOVON E HAYES/Examiner, Art Unit 3615
