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 .
Claims 1-5 are pending.
Claims 1-5 have been examined.
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 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abe et al. (JP 2016155541) (“Abe”) in view of JP 60-006356 (“JP ‘356”). Abe teaches a trim cover comprising: a cover main body (fig. 1: 5) covering a pad of a seatback; a pocket cloth piece (fig. 1: 7) that is provided at a back face of the seatback, that together with the cover main body forms a back face pocket opening toward a seat upper side; and a reinforcement member that includes a strip-shaped portion having a strip shape (fig. 4: 9) and a rod-shaped portion (fig. 4: 10) having a rod shape fixed to a width direction one-end portion of the strip-shaped portion, and that is housed inside the bag section in an orientation in which the rod-shaped portion is positioned at the seat upper side with respect to the strip-shaped portion, with the strip-shaped portion sewn to the pocket cloth piece (fig. 4).
Abe does not teach a pocket entry of the back face pocket partitioned left and right by part of an upper edge portion of the pocket cloth piece being sewn to the cover main body at a sewn portion, and with a bag section having a bag shape provided at the upper edge portion being partitioned by the sewn portion into a left side bag portion and a right side bag portion. However, JP ‘356 teaches a cloth pocket for the rear of a seat back having the opening/bag portion sewn at the top to be split into one or more different pocket entry areas (fig. 1: y), as is considered old and well known in the art. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to sew one or more pocket areas in order to provide the desired size pockets.
As concerns claim 5, Abe, as modified, teaches a vehicle seat comprising: a seat cushion for an occupant of a vehicle to sit on (fig. 1: 2); and a seatback (fig. 1: 3) for supporting a back of the occupant that includes a pad covered by the cover main body of the trim cover of claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2-4 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art references of Abe and JP’365 fail to teach:
wherein a seat upper side portion of the rod-shaped portion is formed thicker in a seat front-rear direction than a seat lower side portion thereof; or
a left and right pair of cores that are each formed in a plate shape and are respectively housed inside the left side bag portion and the right side bag portion at a seat lower side of the rod-shaped portion.
Further, there is no teaching, suggestion or motivation to modify the prior art absent hindsight.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY J BRINDLEY whose telephone number is (571)270-7231. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm.
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/TIMOTHY J BRINDLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3636
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