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 .
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 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Rudnev USPGPUB 20210238704.
Claim 1, Rudnev discloses a bearing component (bearing component 100)(Fig. 1(a))([0006], l. 4) for a roller bearing ([0006], ll. 6 – 10: “[d]epending upon a specific application, there are a number of variations of bearing race designs with many of the designs being standardized. This includes, but is not limited to, radial ball and roller bearings, and thrust ball and roller bearings”), the bearing component comprising: a main body forming the bearing component and having at least one raceway (races 101a and 102a)([0006], l. 12) configured to support at least one rolling body ([0006], ll. 9 – 12: “[h]ardened zones 101 and 102 are bearing features or regions where rolling elements (for example balls or rollers) ride against inner bearing races 101a and 102a respectively”), the main body being made of cast iron ([0005], ll. 1 – 4: “[v]arious steel grades are used for the fabrication of the majority of forged bearing races. In less frequent applications, powder metallurgy materials and cast irons are also used”) and the at least one raceway being inductively hardened ([0003], ll. 12 – 17: “[r]egardless of the design specifics, the bearing contact working surfaces need to be treated to assure their wear resistance and strength over the lifetime of the bearing, as well as some assuring other mechanical properties, and electric induction hardening is one of the most popular methods of such heat treatment”).
Claim 5, Rudnev discloses the bearing component as a gear hub and/or a bearing ring (Fig. 1(a)).
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) 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rudnev USPGPUB 20210238704 as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Xu et al. USPGPUB 20190194771.
Claim 1, Rudnev discloses all of the limitations of the invention of claim 2, except for the cast iron being a spheroidal graphite cast iron.
Xu teaches that it was known to use a spheroidal graphite cast iron for rolling bearing components, such as inner and outer rings ([0030], ll. 1 – 4: “[h]ollow ductile cast irons profiles (tubes) with an ultra-fine microstructure are adopted as the raw materials to manufacture these parts of rolling bearings such as inner rings, outer rings and cages”), in order to minimize fatigue cracking associated with conventional cast iron used in bearing components ([0040]: “the main factor that causes the rolling bearing failure is the point contact fatigue when they run under ordinary service conditions. The graphite in the nodular graphite cast iron can act as lubricant for the bearing, but because of its low strength, actually, it is a small pit in the metal matrix of cast iron. If the graphite nodules in the cast iron are not round and not small, when a periodic force is applied on them, a great stress will be generated on the edges of graphite nodules, thus the edges will be the initiation areas for fatigue cracks. Actually, the graphite nodules in the cast iron are not round and not small when the cast iron is prepared through conventional casting, thus it is unavoidable that the edges of graphite nodules will be fatigue cracks initiation areas”…[0063]: [t]he first advantage: the regular, dense and fine graphite nodules not only can supply the lubricant for the running of rolling bearing, but also can avoid the damage resulted from the point-contacting fatigue. As shown in FIG. 6, the nodularity is above 90% in the tubes produced via upwards vertical continuous casting. Moreover, the roundness of the graphite nodules is improved further, thus the probability of fatigue cracks resulted from the edge and the sharp corner of graphite caves is reduced after the tubes are austempered. The number of graphite nodules is so great that it is up to 500-700/mm.sup.2. Such dense and fine graphite nodules make the cross-sectional area of caves coming from the graphite nodules very tiny, and the area of caves is only several tenths of that from the graphite nodules with grade 7 (the number of graphite nodules was 200/mm.sup.2), and also is far smaller than the transient contacting area between the ball and the ring, thus the caves cannot become the initiation of fatigue cracks”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the bearing component device of Rudnev, such that the cast iron is a spheroidal graphite cast iron, as taught by Xu, for the purpose of minimizing fatigue cracking associated with convention cast iron materials used in bearing components.
Claim 3, Rudnev discloses all of the limitations of the invention of claim 3, except for the main body being at least partly formed of austenitic-ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron.
Xu teaches that it was known to use a main body of rolling bearing components, such as inner and outer rings, formed, at least partly, of austenitic-ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron ([0070], ll. 1 – 5: “the raw materials for the rings of rolling bearing all come from the profiles produced via upwards vertical continuous casting, and all are austempered. Their microstructure is austenite-ferrite with fine and dense nodular graphite in it”), in order to minimize fatigue cracking associated with conventional cast iron used in bearing components ([0040] and [0063]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the bearing component device of Rudnev, such that the cast iron is a spheroidal graphite cast iron, as taught by Xu, for the purpose of minimizing fatigue cracking associated with convention cast iron materials used in bearing components.
Claim 4, the modification of Xu discloses at least a region of the main body including the at least one raceway being made from austenitic-ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron ([0070], ll. 1 – 4).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 – 11 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior art of record, including Rudnev USPGPUB 20210238704 and Xu et al. USPGPUB 20190194771, taken as a whole neither teaches nor makes obvious the claimed combination of process for producing a bearing component as set forth in claim(s) 6, including annealing the bearing component subsequent to inductively hardening the at least one raceway and prior to processing the hardened raceway.
Conclusion
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/PHILLIP A JOHNSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3617
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