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 .
This Office action is in response to the application filed 01/07/2025. Claims 1-13 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Li et al. (CN 210036003).
Regarding claim 1, Li discloses an air-cooled refrigerator, comprising: a bottom liner (300, Fig. 1), internally defining a cooling chamber (147) located at its bottom, a water receiving tank (301, 302, 303; Fig. 2) being formed on a bottom wall of the bottom liner, and a water drainage outlet (330) being formed at a bottom of the water receiving tank; an evaporator (500), provided inside the cooling chamber, and configured to cool an air flow entering the cooling chamber to form a cooled air flow; a water receiving tray (505), provided between the evaporator and the bottom wall of the bottom liner, and configured to receive water on the evaporator, a plurality of through holes (550) being formed in a region of the water receiving tray facing towards the water receiving tank, the water receiving tray comprising a front plate segment (551) located at a front end of the water receiving tray; and a heating wire (503), provided between the water receiving tray and the evaporator in a coiled manner (Fig. 3), and configured to provide heat for defrosting of the evaporator, the heating wire comprising an expansion section (532), a middle portion of the expansion section being provided abutting against the front plate segment (middle portion of 532 abutting against the front plate segment 551; Figs. 2-3).
Regarding claim 2, Li discloses the air-cooled refrigerator according to claim 1, wherein the expansion section (532) extends towards two sides to a position close to a side wall of the bottom liner (302) to conduct defrosting heating on a region in front of the evaporator (500).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-13 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art does not anticipate nor render obvious the combination set forth in the independent claims, and specifically does not show "wherein the bottom wall of the bottom liner comprises:… a sunken portion, provided on a rear side of the first oblique portion, and configured to be inclined upwards from a transverse middle to two sides to form the water receiving tank in the transverse middle”; “the heating wire has an extension portion extending to the water receiving tank through the through holes”. The closest prior art of record discloses an air-cooled refrigerator including a bottom liner and water receiving tank with many of the limitations claimed, but not further including the combination of technical features as claimed above. Although it is well known to provide a heating wire in the drain of the water collecting tray (Liu—CN 109458782; Richardson—US 2021/0025640; De Witt et al.—US 3,099,914), there is no teaching in the prior art of record that would, reasonably and absent impermissible hindsight, motivate one having ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of the prior art to incorporate the air-cooled refrigerator including the combination of technical features in the arrangement as claimed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH F TRPISOVSKY whose telephone number is (571)270-5296. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8AM-4PM.
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/JOSEPH F TRPISOVSKY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763
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