DETAILED ACTION
This application is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Drawings
The grayscale drawings of FIGS. 1-3, 6-10, and 13A-15 are objected to under 37 CFR 1.84(a) because they are not of sufficient quality so that all details in the photographs are reproducible in a printed patent. See MPEP 608.02.
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, every element recited in Claim 9 must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
Claims 1-8 and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the disclosed invention is deemed to be inoperative and therefore lacks utility insofar as pertains to applicant’s implication throughout the disclosure that the device can produce motion without reacting against an outside force (e.g. friction, land, or water), and without expelling mass such as in a jet plane. An example of implications appear as follows: “According to this embodiment, the thrust generator 11, and thus the propulsion device 1 are configured to generate thrust in a direction perpendicular to the central axis O of the thrust generator 11 based on the drive of the thrust-generator motor, 15, therefore the propulsion device 1 can be propelled without injecting combustion gas or the like.” Page 18 of the specification.
Thus, the disclosed invention is a propulsion system which allegedly generates thrust through a thrust generator configured to generate thrust in one direction perpendicular to the central axis (Claim 1). It is submitted however that such an operation violates basic physical laws, including conservation of linear momentum and Newton’s Law of Motion. Since all mass is completely recirculated within the system; there is no mass transfer and thus no momentum transfer between the system and its environment. Therefore, the disclosed device is considered inoperative.
In order to operate in the manner and for the purpose disclosed, the device would have to violate Newton’s third law of motion which states that an action force must be imposed upon an external frame of reference in order for there to be a net reaction force with respect to the external reference frame. In this case, the specification does not disclose an action force which is applied to the device, and accordingly there cannot be a net reaction force with respect to the device.
The Patent and Trademark office is authorized to require evidence to the operability of an invention for which patent protection is sought. Consequently, in order to overcome the above rejection, applicant is required to demonstrate the operability of the invention, for example, by way of a working model.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. §§ 102, 103
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.
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 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Japanese Patent Publication No. JP 3-273883 A to Mizuochi, which discloses: A propulsion device, comprising:
a first mass body 6;
a second mass body 8;
a rotational motion excitation section 4 configured to receive energy supply to excite rotational motion in the first mass body 6;
a rotational kinetic energy transfer section 1, 7 configured to transfer rotational kinetic energy between the first mass body 6 and the second mass body 8;
a translational kinetic energy transfer section 3 configured to transfer translational kinetic energy between the first mass body 6 and the second mass body 8; and
a rotation restrain section (recession of housing that holds bottom bearing shown in FIG. 2) configured to restrain the rotation of a retaining section (bottom bearing shown in FIG. 2) that holds the rotational motion excitation section 4, which is caused by rotational motion excited by the rotational motion excitation section 4.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RANDELL J KRUG whose telephone number is (313) 446-6577. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9:00-14:00 AZ time.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Minnah Seoh can be reached on 571-270-7778. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RANDELL J KRUG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3618
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