Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . See 35 U.S.C. § 100 (note).
Art Rejection
Obviousness
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.
Claims 14–33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of CN 107820171 A (published 20 March 2018) (“Meng”); KR 20200085146 A (published 14 July 2020) (“Park”) / CN 114257899 A (published 29 March 2022) (“Lu”); CN 114806034 A (published 29 July 2022) (“Zhou”) and CN 114496654 A (published 13 May 2022) (“Gutmann”).
Claim 14 is drawn to “a speaker.” The following table illustrates the correspondence between the claimed speaker and the Meng reference.
Claim 14
The Meng Reference
“14. A speaker, comprising:
Meng describes a music-capable mobile internet device that includes a loudspeaker module that corresponds to the claimed speaker. Meng at ¶¶ 2–9.
“a speaker unit,
Meng’s module includes a corresponding speaker unit 3. Id. at ¶ 29, FIG.1.
“a first housing and
“a second housing,
Meng’s module further includes first and second housings 1 and 2. Id.
“an energy director is disposed on the first housing or the second housing…
“the energy director melts after being welded to connect the first housing and the second housing together,
The Meng reference describes a first welding rib 26 between housings 1 and 2. Id. at ¶ 33, FIG.5. Welding rib 26 corresponds to the claimed energy director since it is melted during welding to adhesively connect housings 1 and 2.
“wherein an overflow groove is disposed on a side of the energy director, and the overflow groove is configured to accommodate a molten material overflowing after being melted…
Meng does not describe the provision of any type of overflow groove to accommodate the overflow of molten material after welding rib 26.
“wherein raw material components of the second housing and the first housing comprise:
“a polymer composite material and a hollow sphere material;
“the polymer composite material comprises polyamide PA, a range of a mass percentage of the PA in the polymer composite material is 80-100 wt%,
“a range of a diameter of the hollow sphere material particle is 2-130 pm,
“a range of a mass percentage of the hollow sphere material in the raw material components is 10-50 wt%, and
“a range of a mass percentage of the polymer composite material in the raw material components is no less than 50 wt%...
Meng does not describe forming housings 1 and 2 from the claimed composite of materials. In fact, Meng does not describe the materials used in forming housings 1 and 2.
“the speaker unit is disposed between the first housing and the second housing,
“the speaker unit connects with the first housing adhesively to form a front cavity on a first side of the speaker unit,
“a sound outlet channel is disposed on the first housing,
“the front cavity is connected to the sound outlet channel,
“the speaker unit is configured to drive air in the front cavity to vibrate, and the air vibrating in the front cavity is directed out through the sound outlet channel; and
Meng describes locating speaker unit 3 between housings 1 and 2. Id. at ¶ 29, FIGs.1, 5. Speaker unit 3 is welded by second welding rib 25 to the housing 2 in order to divide the housing into a front cavity 101 that is located in front of speaker diaphragm 31 (i.e., a first side of speaker unit 3). Id. at ¶¶ 35–37, FIGs.4, 5. Front cavity 101 connects to a sound guide part 23, or sound outlet channel, in cover plate, or housing, 2. Id. Accordingly, speaker unit 3 drives its diaphragm 3 to drive air in front cavity 101 to vibrate, causing air in cavity 101 to be directed out through sound guide part 23. Id. at ¶ 32, FIG.5.
“a rear cavity is disposed on a second side of the speaker unit based on the first housing, the second housing and the speaker unit,
“the rear cavity is a sealed cavity.”
Speaker unit 3 further divides the housing into a rear cavity 102 located to the rear of speaker diaphragm 31 (i.e., a second side of speaker unit 3). Id. at ¶¶ 36–37, FIG.5. Meng depicts and describes rear cavity 102 as being sealed by speaker unit 3, wall 11, wall 123, main body 21 and top plate 232. Id. at ¶ 36, FIG.5.
Table 1
The table above shows that the Meng reference describes a speaker corresponding closely to the claimed speaker. The Meng reference does not anticipate the claimed speaker, however. Meng does not anticipate the claimed housing materials. Meng also does not anticipate the claimed overflow groove.
The differences between the claimed invention and the Meng reference are such that the invention as a whole would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time this Application was effectively filed. The Meng reference describes a speaker module, particularly one useful in portable electronics. Meng at ¶¶ 2, 4, FIG.1. Meng’s speaker module includes a speaker unit 3 contained in a housing, or speaker box, formed by elements 1 and 2. Meng’s module includes a corresponding speaker unit 3. Id. at ¶ 29, FIG.1. Meng does not describe the materials used to form the speaker box.
The Park/Lou reference describes a speaker module for use in diverse environments and with different sizes. Park at ¶¶ 1, 4. Like Meng, the Park/Lou reference describes a speaker module formed as the combination of a speaker and a speaker box. Id. at ¶ 15, FIG.1. Park/Lou teaches forming the speaker box from a variety of materials, including the claimed use of polyamide as well as other polymers, including polystyrene. Id. at ¶ 27. See also Lou at ¶ 49 (teaching the use of polyamide as a suitable plastic for a speaker box).
The Zhou reference teaches a novel material for a speaker box. Zhou at ¶¶ 1–9. In particular, Zhou describes the use of syndiotactic polystyrene in combination with hollow, spherical glass (i.e., SiO2) beads and other potential materials to further reinforce the material. Id. Zhou further specifies specific weight ratios corresponding to the claimed ranges. Id. at ¶¶ 5–10, 36, 43, 51. See also Table 2, below. According to Zhou, this combination of materials advantageously reduces the weight of the housing while retaining high strength, low density, small deformation and high assembling characteristics. Id. at ¶ 22.
Read together, the Meng, Park and Zhou references reasonably suggest modifying Meng’s housing 1, 2 to be formed from the claimed combination of materials. In particular, Park teaches the use of either polyamide or polystyrene as a suitable base polymer. Zhou further teaches and suggests combining the base polymer with hollow spherical glass beads and reinforcing materials to produce a housing shell that has high strength, low density, small deformation and high assembly characteristics. In one example, Zhou suggests providing hollow glass beads with a mass percentage of 7.2 wt% and a base polymer mass percentage of 91.8 wt%. Id. (describing provision of glass beads with density of 0.36 g/cm3 by 20 parts and provision of a base polymer with density 1.02 g/cm3 by 90 parts). Zhou further suggests forming the beads with a diameter of 1–50 microns.
The Gutmann reference teaches a two-piece housing for an electronic, where the housing is formed by a top housing 8 and a bottom housing 6. Gutmann at ¶¶ 1, 3, 4, 49, FIGs.1, 2. Gutmann’s housings, like Meng’s housing parts 1 and 2, are formed with bumps/protrusions 14, or energy directors, intended to be melted during an ultrasonic welding process. Id. at ¶ 49, FIGs.1, 2. Gutmann teaches including gaps 16 on either side of bumps 14. Id. Molten material pools in gaps 16 to improve adhesion between housing parts 6 and 8. Id. This teaching reasonably suggests modifying Meng’s housings 1, 2 to similarly include grooves around first welding rib 26 to collect molten material after welding of rib 26, to improve the adhesion between housings 1 and 2. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 15 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein the range of a mass percentage of the polymer composite material in the raw material components is 50-90 wt%.”
Claim 16 depends on claim 15, and further requires the following:
“wherein the mass percentage of the polymer composite material in the raw material components is one of 60 wt%, 65 wt%, 70 wt%, 75 wt%, 80 wt%, and 85 wt%.”
Claim 17 depends on claim 15, and further requires the following:
“wherein the mass percentage of the hollow sphere material in the raw material components is one of 15 wt%, 20 wt%, 25 wt%, 30 wt%, 35 wt%, and 40 wt%.”
Claim 18 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein a mass percentage of the PA in the raw material components is 77 wt%, and the mass percentage of the hollow sphere material in the raw material components is 20 wt%.”
Claim 19 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein a mass percentage of the PA in the raw material components is 40 wt%, and the mass percentage of the hollow sphere material in the raw material components is 50 wt%.”
Claim 20 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein a mass percentage of the PA in the raw material components is 81 wt%, and the mass percentage of the hollow sphere material in the raw material components is 10 wt%.”
Claims 15–20 are analyzed together because they commonly relate to various mass percentages of the raw material used to form the claimed housing. As shown in the obviousness rejection of claim 14, incorporated herein, the Zhou reference teaches and suggests a composite material suitable for implementing a speaker box housing, such as Meng’s housing components 1 and 2. Zhou’s composite includes a base polymer component, a weight-reducing component and a reinforcing material component. Zhou teaches ranges for inclusion (i.e., number of parts by mass). Zhou at ¶¶ 5–10, 36, 43, 51. Those values are summarized in Table 2, below.
Component
Density
Parts by Mass
Percentage1
Base polymer
1.02 g/cm3
40–90
30–93%
Weight-reducing
0.1–0.8 g/cm3
1–40
0–47%
Reinforcing
1.5–2.0 g/cm3
5–50
0–55%
Table 2
As seen in the table, the total mass percentage of the base polymer and reinforcing material ranges from 30–100% (claims 15 and 16). The base polymer accounts for 30–93% of mass while the weight-reducing components account for 0–47% of mass (claims 17–20). For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claims.
Claim 21 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein the hollow sphere material comprises silicon dioxide.”
As shown in the obviousness rejection of claim 14, incorporated herein, the Zhou reference teaches and suggests a composite material suitable for implementing a speaker box housing, such as Meng’s housing components 1 and 2. Zhou’s composite includes a base polymer, a weight-reducing component and a reinforcing material. Zhou at ¶¶ 5–9. Zhou describes its weight-reducing component as a hollow glass bead. Id. at ¶ 9. The term “glass” without qualifier would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art as referencing a solid formed primarily from silica, or silicon dioxide. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 22 depends on claim 21, and further requires the following:
“wherein a range of a density of the hollow sphere material is 0.2-0.6 g/cm3.”
Zhou likewise teaches and suggests forming hollow glass beads with a density of 0.1–0.8 g/cm3. Zhou at ¶¶ 9, 51. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 23 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein the overflow groove is located on a side, of the energy director, away from the speaker unit.”
The obviousness rejection of claim 14, incorporated herein, shows that the Gutmann reference teaches and suggests forming Meng’s first welding rib 26 in a groove (e.g., Gutmann’s groove 53) located to the side of an energy director (e.g., Gutmann’s bump/protrusion 14). See Gutmann at ¶ 46, FIG.2. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 24 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein the polymer composite material further comprises a fiber material.”
Claim 25 depends on claim 24, and further requires the following:
“wherein the fiber material comprises at least one of glass fiber, aramid fiber, carbon fiber, silicon carbide, or carbon nanotubes.”
Claims 24 and 25 are analyzed together. As shown in the obviousness rejection of claim 14, incorporated herein, the Zhou reference teaches and suggests a composite material suitable for implementing a speaker box housing, such as Meng’s housing components 1 and 2. Zhou’s composite includes a base polymer, such as syndiotactic polystyrene, hollow glass beads for weight reduction and a reinforcing material. Zhou at ¶¶ 5–9. Zhou teaches the use of various materials for the reinforcing material, including carbon fiber, glass fiber and silicon carbide among others. Id. at ¶ 43. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to implement Meng’s housing parts 1 and 2 with a glass fiber, silicon carbide or carbon fiber reinforcing material. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claims.
Claim 26 depends on claim 14, and further requires the following:
“wherein a cross section of the energy director is trapezoidal, rectangular, or W-shaped.”
The Meng reference does not describe or clearly depict the cross section of first welding rib 26. However, the Gutmann reference teaches the use of a rectangular (or slightly trapezoidal) shape in cross section for welding. Gutmann at ¶ 46, FIG.2. This reasonably suggests similarly embodying Meng’s first welding rib 26 as a rectangular or trapezoidal shape. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 27 is drawn to “an electronic device.” The following table illustrates the correspondence between the claimed device and the Meng reference.
Claim 27
The Meng Reference
“27. An electronic device, wherein the electronic device comprises the speaker, and the speaker comprises:
Meng describes a music-capable mobile internet device that includes a loudspeaker module that corresponds to the claimed speaker. Meng at ¶¶ 2–9.
“a speaker unit,
Meng’s module includes a corresponding speaker unit 3. Id. at ¶ 29, FIG.1.
“a first housing and a second housing,
Meng’s module further includes first and second housings 1 and 2. Id.
“an energy director is disposed on the first housing or the second housing…
“the energy director melts after being welded to connect the first housing and the second housing together;
The Meng reference describes a first welding rib 26 between housings 1 and 2. Id. at ¶ 33, FIG.5. Welding rib 26 corresponds to the claimed energy director since it is melted during welding to adhesively connect housings 1 and 2.
“wherein an overflow groove is disposed on a side of the energy director, and the overflow groove is configured to accommodate a molten material overflowing after being melted…
Meng does not describe the provision of any type of overflow groove to accommodate the overflow of molten material after welding rib 26.
“wherein raw material components of the second housing and the first housing comprise: a polymer composite material and a hollow sphere material; the polymer composite material comprises polyamide PA, a range of a mass percentage of the PA in the polymer composite material is 80-100 wt%, a range of a diameter of the hollow sphere material particle is 2-130 pm, a range of a mass percentage of the hollow sphere material in the raw material components is 10-50 wt%, and a range of a mass percentage of the polymer composite material in the raw material components is no less than 50 wt%;
Meng does not describe forming housings 1 and 2 from the claimed composite of materials. In fact, Meng does not describe the materials used in forming housings 1 and 2.
“the speaker unit is disposed between the first housing and the second housing,
“the speaker unit connects with the first housing adhesively to form a front cavity on a first side of the speaker unit,
“a sound outlet channel is disposed on the first housing,
“the front cavity is connected to the sound outlet channel,
“the speaker unit is configured to drive air in the front cavity to vibrate, and the air vibrating in the front cavity is directed out through the sound outlet channel; and
Meng describes locating speaker unit 3 between housings 1 and 2. Id. at ¶ 29, FIGs.1, 5. Speaker unit 3 is welded by second welding rib 25 to the housing 2 in order to divide the housing into a front cavity 101 that is located in front of speaker diaphragm 31 (i.e., a first side of speaker unit 3). Id. at ¶¶ 35–37, FIGs.4, 5. Front cavity 101 connects to a sound guide part 23, or sound outlet channel, in cover plate, or housing, 2. Id. Accordingly, speaker unit 3 drives its diaphragm 3 to drive air in front cavity 101 to vibrate, causing air in cavity 101 to be directed out through sound guide part 23. Id. at ¶ 32, FIG.5.
“a rear cavity is disposed on a second side of the speaker unit based on the first housing, the second housing and the speaker unit,
“the rear cavity is a sealed cavity.”
Speaker unit 3 further divides the housing into a rear cavity 102 located to the rear of speaker diaphragm 31 (i.e., a second side of speaker unit 3). Id. at ¶¶ 36–37, FIG.5. Meng depicts and describes rear cavity 102 as being sealed by speaker unit 3, wall 11, wall 123, main body 21 and top plate 232. Id. at ¶ 36, FIG.5.
Table 3
The table above shows that the Meng reference describes a device corresponding closely to the claimed device. The Meng reference does not anticipate the claimed device, however. Meng does not anticipate the claimed housing materials. Meng also does not anticipate the claimed overflow groove.
The differences between the claimed invention and the Meng reference are such that the invention as a whole would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time this Application was effectively filed. The Meng reference describes a speaker module, particularly one useful in portable electronics. Meng at ¶¶ 2, 4, FIG.1. Meng’s speaker module includes a speaker unit 3 contained in a housing, or speaker box, formed by elements 1 and 2. Meng’s module includes a corresponding speaker unit 3. Id. at ¶ 29, FIG.1. Meng does not describe the materials used to form the speaker box.
The Park/Lou reference describes a speaker module for use in diverse environments and with different sizes. Park at ¶¶ 1, 4. Like Meng, the Park/Lou reference describes a speaker module formed as the combination of a speaker and a speaker box. Id. at ¶ 15, FIG.1. Park/Lou teaches forming the speaker box from a variety of materials, including the claimed use of polyamide as well as other polymers, including polystyrene. Id. at ¶ 27. See also Lou at ¶ 49 (teaching the use of polyamide as a suitable plastic for a speaker box).
The Zhou reference teaches a novel material for a speaker box. Zhou at ¶¶ 1–9. In particular, Zhou describes the use of syndiotactic polystyrene in combination with hollow, spherical glass (i.e., SiO2) beads and other potential materials to further reinforce the material. Id. Zhou further specifies specific weight ratios corresponding to the claimed ranges. Id. at ¶¶ 5–10, 36, 43, 51. See also Table 2, below. According to Zhou, this combination of materials advantageously reduces the weight of the housing while retaining high strength, low density, small deformation and high assembling characteristics. Id. at ¶ 22.
Read together, the Meng, Park and Zhou references reasonably suggest modifying Meng’s housing 1, 2 to be formed from the claimed combination of materials. In particular, Park teaches the use of either polyamide or polystyrene as a suitable base polymer. Zhou further teaches and suggests combining the base polymer with hollow spherical glass beads and reinforcing materials to produce a housing shell that has high strength, low density, small deformation and high assembly characteristics. In one example, Zhou suggests providing hollow glass beads with a mass percentage of 7.2 wt% and a base polymer mass percentage of 91.8 wt%. Id. (describing provision of glass beads with density of 0.36 g/cm3 by 20 parts and provision of a base polymer with density 1.02 g/cm3 by 90 parts). Zhou further suggests forming the beads with a diameter of 1–50 microns.
The Gutmann reference teaches a two-piece housing for an electronic, where the housing is formed by a top housing 8 and a bottom housing 6. Gutmann at ¶¶ 1, 3, 4, 49, FIGs.1, 2. Gutmann’s housings, like Meng’s housing parts 1 and 2, are formed with bumps/protrusions 14, or energy directors, intended to be melted during an ultrasonic welding process. Id. at ¶ 49, FIGs.1, 2. Gutmann teaches including gaps 16 on either side of bumps 14. Id. Molten material pools in gaps 16 to improve adhesion between housing parts 6 and 8. Id. This teaching reasonably suggests modifying Meng’s housings 1, 2 to similarly include grooves around first welding rib 26 to collect molten material after welding of rib 26, to improve the adhesion between housings 1 and 2. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 28 depends on claim 27, and further requires the following:
“wherein the electronic device is one of a personal computer, a tablet, or a mobile phone.”
The Meng reference describes using the described speaker in a mobile internet platform capable of playing music, which would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art as a reference to all currently known mobile devices with speakers, such as personal computers, tablets and mobile phones. Alternatively, Meng’s reference to music-enabled mobile internet platforms reasonably suggests incorporation of Meng’s speaker into a personal computer, tablet or mobile phone, all of which are ubiquitous devices worthy of Official notice. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 29 depends on claim 27, and further requires the following:
“wherein the range of a mass percentage of the polymer composite material in the raw material components is 50-90 wt%.”
As shown in the obviousness rejection of claim 27, incorporated herein, the Zhou reference teaches and suggests a composite material suitable for implementing a speaker box housing, such as Meng’s housing components 1 and 2. Zhou’s composite includes a base polymer component, a weight-reducing component and a reinforcing material component. Zhou teaches ranges for inclusion (i.e., number of parts by mass). Zhou at ¶¶ 5–10, 36, 43, 51. Those values are summarized in Table 2, above. As seen in the table, the total mass percentage of the base polymer and reinforcing material ranges from 30–100%. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 30 depends on claim 27, and further requires the following:
“wherein the hollow sphere material comprises silicon dioxide.”
As shown in the obviousness rejection of claim 14, incorporated herein, the Zhou reference teaches and suggests a composite material suitable for implementing a speaker box housing, such as Meng’s housing components 1 and 2. Zhou’s composite includes a base polymer, a weight-reducing component and a reinforcing material. Zhou at ¶¶ 5–9. Zhou describes its weight-reducing component as a hollow glass bead. Id. at ¶ 9. The term “glass” without qualifier would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art as referencing a solid formed primarily from silica, or silicon dioxide. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 31 depends on claim 30, and further requires the following:
“wherein a range of a density of the hollow sphere material is 0.2-0.6 g/cm3.”
Zhou likewise teaches and suggests forming hollow glass beads with a density of 0.1–0.8 g/cm3. Zhou at ¶¶ 9, 51. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 32 depends on claim 27, and further requires the following:
“wherein the overflow groove is located on a side, of the energy director, away from the speaker unit.”
The obviousness rejection of claim 14, incorporated herein, shows that the Gutmann reference teaches and suggests forming Meng’s first welding rib 26 in a groove (e.g., Gutmann’s groove 53) located to the side of an energy director (e.g., Gutmann’s bump/protrusion 14). See Gutmann at ¶ 46, FIG.2. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Claim 33 depends on claim 27, and further requires the following:
“wherein the polymer composite material further comprises a fiber material, and the fiber material comprises at least one of glass fiber, aramid fiber, carbon fiber, silicon carbide, or carbon nanotubes.”
As shown in the obviousness rejection of claim 27, incorporated herein, the Zhou reference teaches and suggests a composite material suitable for implementing a speaker box housing, such as Meng’s housing components 1 and 2. Zhou’s composite includes a base polymer, such as syndiotactic polystyrene, hollow glass beads for weight reduction and a reinforcing material. Zhou at ¶¶ 5–9. Zhou teaches the use of various materials for the reinforcing material, including carbon fiber, glass fiber and silicon carbide among others. Id. at ¶ 43. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to implement Meng’s housing parts 1 and 2 with a glass fiber, silicon carbide or carbon fiber reinforcing material. For the foregoing reasons, the combination of the Meng, the Park/Lu, the Zhou and the Gutmann references makes obvious all limitations of the claim.
Summary
Claims 14–33 are rejected under at least one of 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 as being unpatentable over the cited prior art. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WALTER F BRINEY III whose telephone number is (571)272-7513. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8 am-4:30 pm.
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/Walter F Briney III/
Walter F Briney IIIPrimary ExaminerArt Unit 2692
7/23/2026
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Prosecution Insights