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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Claims 8-12, 14, and 20 are withdrawn from consideration.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Group 1, claims 1-7, 13, and 15-19, in the reply filed on 04/14/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that there is no search burden for searching groups 2 and 3 as they contain the limitations required by claim 1 (the elected product claim).
This is not found persuasive because the instant application is a national stage entry filed under 35 U.S.C. 371 and is therefore not subject to US restriction practice but rather subject to lack of unity practice, see MPEP 1893.03(d). It is noted that undue search burden is not a criterion in lack of unity analysis. The test is whether or not special technical features can be established. It is noted that inventions listed as Groups 1-3 do not relate to a single general inventive concept under PCT Rule 13.1 because, under PCT Rule 13.2, they lack the same or corresponding special technical features as set forth in paragraph 3 of the previous Office Action. The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 8-12, 14, and 20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 04/14/2026.
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) 1-7, 13, and 15-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guedon et al. (DE 2020/20005795 U1 with US 2023/0041565 A1 as the English equivalent) in view of Gascon et al. (WO 2007/060363 A1; machine translation).
Regarding claims 1 and 13,
Guedon teaches a planar glass-ceramic article for a cooking surface (a cooking device) comprising: a first main surface, a second main surface and an edge inherent to the cooktop structure (Guedon: abstract; par. 0073-0074). All or part of a main surface has an intrinsic texture (Guedon: par. 0020).
Guedon is silent towards a main surface having an intrinsic texture that whose hybrid root-mean square roughness Rdq of between 4.4 and 11°.
Gascon teaches a glass-type substrate in which the surface is roughened to achieve the desired aesthetic appearance without affecting the functional performance of glasses (Gascon: abstract; par. 0009).The roughness may have a roughness parameter (Rdq), which indicates an average slope, of greater than or equal to 3°, which overlaps with the claimed 4.4 and 11°, to provide the desired appearance and desired diffusion (Gascon: par. 0024, 0078, and 0132). A prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges overlap or are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. See MPEP 2144.05 I.
Guedon and Gascon are in the corresponding field of glass which aim to adjust the appearance to matte surfaces. Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to design the surface texture of Guedon to contain a Rdq parameter within the claimed range to achieve the desired aesthetic appearance as taught by Gascon.
Regarding claim 2,
Guedon and Gascon teach the glass ceramic article required by claim 1. Guedon is silent towards a main surface having an intrinsic texture that whose hybrid root-mean square roughness Rdq of between 5.5 and 9°.
Gascon teaches a glass-type substrate in which the surface is roughened to achieve the desired aesthetic appearance without affecting the functional performance of glasses (Gascon: abstract; par. 0009).The roughness may have a roughness parameter (Rdq), which indicates an average slope, of greater than or equal to 3°, which overlaps with the claimed 5.5 and 9°, to provide the desired appearance and desired diffusion (Gascon: par. 0024, 0078, and 0132). A prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges overlap or are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. See MPEP 2144.05 I.
Guedon and Gascon are in the corresponding field of glass which aim to adjust the appearance to matte surfaces. Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to design the surface texture of Guedon to contain a Rdq parameter within the claimed range to achieve the desired aesthetic appearance as taught by Gascon.
Regarding claims 3 and 15,
Guedon and Gascon teach the glass ceramic article required by claim 1. Guedon is silent towards a main surface having an intrinsic texture that has a mean spacing roughness Rsm greater than 0.2 mm.
Gascon teaches a glass-type substrate in which the surface is roughened to achieve the desired aesthetic appearance without affecting the functional performance of glasses (Gascon: abstract; par. 0009).The roughness may have a roughness parameter (Rsm) of less than or equal to 300 µm (0.3 mm), which overlaps with the claimed greater than 0.2 mm or the narrower range of greater than 0.27 mm, to provide the desired appearance and desired diffusion (Gascon: par. 0079). A prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges overlap or are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. See MPEP 2144.05 I.
Guedon and Gascon are in the corresponding field of glass which aim to adjust the appearance to matte surfaces. Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to design the surface texture of Guedon to contain a Rsm parameter within the claimed range to achieve the desired aesthetic appearance as taught by Gascon.
Regarding claims 4, 6, 16, and 19,
Guedon and Gascon teach the glass ceramic article required by claim 1. Guedon further teaches the glass-ceramic article has a lightness L* (corresponds to the claimed brightness L*) of 25 or less, which is within the claimed range of less than or equal to 25 and overlaps with the narrower range of equal to or less than 20 (Guedon: par. 0068); and a 60° gloss is between 1.5 and 10, which is within the claimed range of less than or equal to 20 and the narrower range of less than or equal to 10 (Guedon: par. 0105-0106). A prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges overlap or are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. See MPEP 2144.05 I.
Regarding claims 5 and 17-18,
Guedon and Gascon teach the glass ceramic article required by claim 1. Guedon is silent towards a main surface having an intrinsic texture that has a mean spacing roughness Rsk of less than -0.2, less than -0.3, or less than -0.5. Applicant states Rsk is tied to the scratch visibility (Applicant’s specification: par. 0053 and 0112).
Guedon teaches adjusting various roughness parameters via texturing to avoid or limit the visibility of scratches (Guedon: par. 0007-0009 and throughout). Gedeon further teaches the claimed gloss and brightness properties as explained above in point 23. Gascon additionally teaches adjusting scratches by adjusting texture parameters (Gascon: par. 0071, 0081, and 0123).
Therefore, it would be obvious to adjust the roughness of the texturing of Guedon to achieve the desired visibility of scratches as Guedon teaches reducing the visibility of scratches via adjusting roughness parameters (which would also reduce the skewness as evidenced by Applicant’s specification) to be within the claimed ranges.
Regarding claim 7,
Guedon and Gascon teach the glass ceramic article required by claim 1. Guedon further teaches the glass-ceramic article further comprises at least one light source for luminous display by projection or transmission onto the screen-forming work surface such as light displays (Guedon: par. 0005).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Travis M Figg whose telephone number is (571)272-9849. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-5pm.
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/TRAVIS M FIGG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1783
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