DETAILED ACTION
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-10 and 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 appear to teach or fairly suggest, in combination with all the other limitations of the claims from which they depend, the deflector which has the twist component about the axis of rotation as required by claim 9 and illustrated in Fig. 2.
Yonezu (US 2020/0156433) does teach the use of such a twisted air guide member, but Yonezu teaches the air guide upstream of a fan for inducing a rotational component to inlet air prior to interacting with a fan rather than directing output air from a fan, as in the present invention.
The prior art does not appear to teach or fairly suggest, in combination with all limitations of the claims from which it depends, the heat sink assembly with capacitors located between the fan and heat sink and spanning gaps formed in the deflector.
Claim Objections
Claim1 is objected to because of the following informalities: line 17 should read “…includes a flow channel…”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
In claim 1, “a small distance” is a term of degree whose scope is unclear. Multiple different possible interpretations for what constitutes ‘small’ are presented in the disclosure which does not provide certainty as it is unclear what standard or range is intended.
Claims 2-13 depend from claim 1.
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) 1-8 and 11-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lai (US 2008/0062641) in view of McClellan (US 2008/0239661).
Regarding claim 1, Lai teaches a heat sink (100) having a body part (120) and a plurality of cooling fins (140) protruding from the body in a first direction (up-down); a cooling fan (200) providing a cooling air flow for cooling the heat sink is an axial flow fan (Figs.) having a fan body and impeller (Figs.) adapted to rotate relative to the fan body, and a distance between the cooling fan and the heat sink in a second direction (lateral spacing between the two in the flow direction) is ‘small’ (e.g. Fig. 5) and at least a portion of the cooling air flow passes between the fins (Fig. 5); an air deflector (370a) deflects at least part of the cooling air flow; the body part of the heat sink is spaced apart from the axis of rotation of the impeller in the first direction (Fig. 5) and the air deflector is adapted to deflect at least part of the cooling air toward the body part of the heat sink in the first direction (see downward slant of 320a from 324a to 322a); a flow channel between the cooling fan and heat sink (delineated by 312, 314) defined by flow channel walls (see Figs. 5 and 6) the air deflector divides the flow channel into first and second (360a, 370a) flow channels with the first closer to the body of the heat sink than the second.
Lai does not teach lateral deflection.
McClellan teaches deflectors with vertical (113) and lateral (104) deflection of air toward a heat sink (307).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to form the device of Lai with lateral deflection, as taught by McClellan, in order to allow for a greater diameter of fan and thus greater air flows.
Lai further teaches that: the plane defined by the body of the heat sink (flat bottom surface) is parallel to the axis of the fan (see Fig. 5), per claim 2; the vertical distance from the axis of rotation of the impeller to the body part of the heat sink is equal to a radius of the impeller (in the embodiment of Fig. 6 the lower surface of 360a, surface 310a, is parallel to the axis indicating that this embodiment is not mounted lower than the body part of the heat sink), per claims 3 and 4; the cross sectional area of the first (360a) part of the flow channel is greater near the fan than the heat sink (see Fig. 6), per claim 11; there are no gaps between the first and second parts of the flow channel (i.e. 0% of surface area; see Fig. 6), per claim 12.
Regarding claims 5-8, while the recited ranges are present in the specification, no criticality could be located for the particular ranges. As such, it would have been within the ordinary skill in the art to choose the relevant distance and ratio dimensions as Lai has left such choices to one of ordinary skill and a change in dimension is recognized to be within the ordinary skill.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Devon Lane whose telephone number is (571)270-1858. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th, 9-4.
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/DEVON LANE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763
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