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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of Species I (Fig. 1; claims 1-2) in the reply filed on 05/26/2026 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)).
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. 17/913,664, filed on 02/21/2025.
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it is referring to elements by numbers. The filed abstract needs to remove the element numbers.
A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Piraneo (U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0019943) in view of Havard (WO 2004/101264).
Regarding claim 1: Piraneo discloses a device for manufacturing a rectangular-bottomed packaging bag (Fig. 5), in which the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag is manufactured by a method for manufacturing a rectangular-bottomed packaging bag in which the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag is manufactured from a flat bag, the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag including a bottom including a bottom gusset of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag, a front, a rear, a pair of sides including side gussets of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag, and a pair of folding portions having an isosceles triangle shape and formed inside the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag on the pair of sides, the flat bag including a bottom gusset of the flat bag folded in half protruding to an inside of the flat bag, see for example (Figs. 5 & 8; via the shown formed rectangular bottomed package), the method comprising:
an unfolding step of unfolding the flat bag from the inside of the bag by unfolding the bottom gusset folded in half of the flat bag such that an opening cross section of the flat bag has a rectangular shape and the bottom, the front, the rear, the pair of sides (Fig. 5; via formation paddles 60/62), and the pair of folding portions of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag are formed (via bottom fold 32); and
a gusset forming step, after the unfolding step, of forming the side gussets of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag by bending the pair of sides such that the pair of sides protrude toward an inside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag and forming the bottom gusset of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag by bending the bottom such that the bottom protrudes toward the inside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag while the formed side gussets are held, see for example (Fig. 5; via gusset paddles 64/66 support on formation of the bottom gusset 32),
the device comprising:
a pair of opening/closing plates used in the unfolding step for opening and closing (via formation paddles 60/62) so as to open the flat bag from the inside of the bag by unfolding the bottom gusset folded in half of the flat bag such that a cross section of the flat bag has a rectangular shape to form the bottom, the front, the rear, the pair of sides, and the pair of folding portions of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag (Fig. 8; via the shown rectangular shape of the bag);
side portion folding plates used in the gusset forming step which enter a space between the pair of opening/closing plates from an outside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag toward the inside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag and forms the side gussets of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag by bending the pair of sides such that the pair of sides protrude toward the inside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag (via gusset paddles 64/66); and
a bottom portion folding plate used in the gusset forming step (Fig. 5; via bottom fold paddle 68) which enters the space between the pair of opening/closing plates by thrust onto the bottom from the outside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag toward the inside of the rectangular- bottomed packaging bag and forms the bottom gusset of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag by bending the bottom such that the bottom protrudes toward the inside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag, see for example (Figs. 11 & 13; via the formed gusseted bottom 32),
the bottom portion folding plate is configured to start an insertion operation toward the inside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag slightly after start of an insertion operation of the side portion folding plates, see for example (Fig. 5; via 68 appears to be inserted toward the bag after the side paddles 64/66).
Piraneo may not disclose the pair of opening/closing plates are configured to be shiftable between a close state in which the pair of opening/closing plates are closest to each other and a separated state in which the pair of opening/closing plates are separated from each other, nor
the pair of opening/closing plates are configured to be shiftable from the separated state to the close state as an insertion depth of the side portion folding plates becomes deeper after the side portion folding plates are inserted between the pair of opening/closing plates in the separated state. However, Havard discloses similar device with the use of shiftable mechanism of the opening/closing plates to get them close and/or apart from each other’s, see for example (Figs. 3-5; via shifting mechanism 7/16 of the pair of opening/closing plates 5/6).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention, to have modified Piraneo’s opening/closing plates by a shifting mechanism, as suggested by Havard, in order to gain more control of positioning of those opening/closing plates and to be adapted for different size of bags.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2 is 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 prior art of record fails to disclose the combination of the claimed device for manufacturing a rectangular bottomed packaging bag as suggested and claimed by claim 2. In particular, the prior art of record fails to disclose the use of a bottom push-opening device which thrusts a bottom of the opened flat bag and being provided in an outer circumferential portion of a rotary table toward a center in a radial direction of the rotary table from the outside of the rectangular-bottomed packaging bag, see for example (Fig. 18; via bottom push-opening device 88 in the rotary table 71).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAMEH TAWFIK whose telephone number is (571)272-4470. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri. 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM.
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/SAMEH TAWFIK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3731
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