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
This is the first action on the merits for application 18/993221. Claims 1-4 are currently pending in this application.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
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) 1-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ARIMACHI (2019/0169349) in view of TSUJI (JP 2018017398A) and DAISAKU (JP 2009092234A).
Regarding Claim 1, ARIMACHI teaches A toothed belt comprising: a belt body (1) having a plurality of tooth portions (2) provided on a belt inner circumference at a constant pitch; and a cord (3) embedded in the belt body so as to have a pitch in a belt width direction,
ARIMACHI does not teach wherein a peak friction coefficient µA and an average friction coefficient µB measured by the following method have a relationship of µA - µB ≤ 0.3 and µB ≤ 0.5. <Measurement Method> the toothed belt is cut in the width direction to cut out a measurement sample having two belt teeth from the toothed belt, the obtained measurement sample is placed on a flat plate such that the belt teeth are in contact with the flat plate, the measurement sample is moved in one direction for 30 seconds in this state, a friction force at this time is measured, a friction coefficient calculated by dividing a maximum value of the friction force for 30 seconds by a normal force is regarded as the peak friction coefficient µA, and a friction coefficient calculated by dividing an average value of the friction force for 30 seconds by the normal force is regarded as the average friction coefficient µB; a measurement environment has a temperature of 23±5°C and a humidity of 50±5%,the measurement sample is placed on the flat plate while a constant load is applied thereto, the flat plate is made of SUS304, and a surface roughness of a surface of the flat plate on which the measurement sample is placed is 1.6 µm or less as Ra (arithmetic mean roughness), and a movement speed of the measurement sample is 100 mm/min.
TSUJI teaches reducing the coefficient of friction in order to suppress heat generation and noise [0007].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to change the belt in ARIMACHI so it has the reduced coefficient of friction in TSUJI so the belt runs cooler and is less noisy.
DAISUKU teaches abnormal noise resulting from a belt coefficient of friction becoming uneven, and configuring the coefficient of friction to be even [0005]-[0006].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to change the belt in ARIMACHI so it has the even coefficient of friction in TSUJI so the belt is less noisy.
ARIMACHI as modified shows the result effective variable of a peak friction and an average friction since the belt has some peak friction and some average friction.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to recognize the parameters as result effective variables and optimize them to create an adequately quiet and cool running belt for a given application.
Regarding Claim 2, ARIMACHI as modified teaches wherein a reinforcement fabric is provided on inner circumferential surfaces of the tooth portions [0053].
Regarding Claim 3, ARIMACHI as modified teaches wherein the belt body is made of thermosetting polyurethane [0029].
Regarding Claim 4, ARIMACHI as modified teaches wherein the belt body contains a lubricant [0059].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HENRY Y LIU whose telephone number is (571)270-7018. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5:30 ET.
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HENRY Y. LIU
Examiner
Art Unit 3654
/HENRY Y LIU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3654