DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 1/16/26 and 2/17/26 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98. Accordingly, the references cited therein are considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
3. 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.
4. Claim(s) 1 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Koike et al. (US 2019/0201284; “Koike”).
Regarding claim 1, Koike discloses a drug packaging device (1) comprising:
a drug supply unit (11) configured to supply various types of drugs (para. [0038]);
a drug packaging portion (45) configured to package the drugs supplied from the drug supply unit (11) in a packaging sheet (S; para. [0039]; Fig. 3);
a pooling portion (52) configured to temporarily pool, upstream of the drug packaging portion (45), the drugs supplied from the drug supply unit (11; Fig. 3); and
a drug-receiving plate (51, 7) including:
a rotating plate (51) rotationally driven about an axis and including a plurality of opening portions (52a) at equal distance from the axis (Fig. 5), and
a drug-receiving bottom (7) including a portion configured to function as a bottom portion (72) of the plurality of opening portions (52a; para. [0044]-[0045]; Fig. 3) and a packaging opening (72b; para. [0045]) provided at a specific location in a region through which the plurality of opening portions (52a) move by rotation of the rotating plate (51) relative to the drug-receiving bottom (7; para. [0043]-[0044]),
wherein the drug-receiving bottom (7) is configured to be detachable from the rotating plate (51; Figs. 5 and 8 depict screw holes which mean the apparatus is capable of being disassembled);
wherein the plurality of pooling portions (52) are formed by:
the plurality of opening portions (52a) of the rotating plate (51; Fig. 3), and
the portion of the drug-receiving bottom (7) configured to function as the bottom portion (72) of the plurality of opening portions (52a; Fig. 3).
Regarding claim 8, Koike discloses a drug-receiving bottom (7) for a drug packaging device (1), comprising:
a portion configured to function as a bottom portion (72) of a plurality of opening portions (52a; para. [0044]-[0045]; Fig. 3) and a packaging opening (72b; para. [0045]) provided at a specific location in a region through which the plurality of opening portions (52a) move by rotation of a rotating plate (51) relative to the drug-receiving bottom (7; para. [0043]-[0044]), wherein
the bottom portion (72) is configured to be positioned below the rotating plate (51; Fig. 3),
the rotating plate (51) is rotationally driven about an axis (para. [0043]-[0045]) and includes the plurality of opening portions (52a) at equal distance from the axis (Fig. 3);
the openings (52a) and the bottom portion (72) form a plurality of pooling portions (52) for temporally pooling drugs before packaging (Fig. 3); and
the drug-receiving bottom (7) is configured to detachably mount to the drug packaging device (Fig. 3, 5, 8 depict an apparatus with separate parts, and screws. This means the drug-receiving bottom can be disassembled from the device).
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 2-7 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.
Regarding claim 2, Koike et al. (US 2019/0201284; “Koike”) is the most relevant prior art.
Koike discloses the rotating plate (51) having a bottom surface side (Fig. 3).
Koike fails to disclose further comprising a cleaning member provided in a portion on a bottom surface side of the rotating plate.
It would not have been obvious to modify Koike with the aforementioned limitation because a cleaning member would mechanically interact with the rotation f the drug-receiving bottom (7). This would render the apparatus inoperable.
Conclusion
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EYAMINDAE JALLOW whose telephone number is (571)270-1927. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday from 7:30am-5:00pm and alternating Fridays from 7:30am-4:00pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, SHELLEY SELF, can be reached on (571)272-4524. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571)273-8300.
9. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/EYAMINDAE C JALLOW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3731
Prosecution Insights