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 .
Continued Prosecution Application
The request filed on November 26, 2025 for a Continued Prosecution Application (CPA) under 37 CFR 1.53(d) based on Application No. 29/773,725 is acceptable and a CPA has been established. An action on the merits follows.
An office action under Ex parte Quayle was issued on September 19, 2025, closing prosecution on the merits and permitting amendment only as to formal matters. See MPEP § 714.14. Applicant filed a reply on November 13, 2025, including replacement drawings and an amended specification.
On November 26, 2025, applicant filed a Continued Prosecution Application (CPA) under 37 CFR 1.53(d), along with an Information Disclosure Statement. No drawings were submitted with the CPA. Under CPA practice, prosecution is reopened, and only amendments filed with the CPA may be considered. See MPEP § 201.06(d) (“New matter in a CPA is not entered and is not the subject of a rejection.”).
Appendix
The appendix submitted by Applicant with the original papers is understood to form no part of the claim or its disclosure. However, although the appendix may form antecedent basis for certain amendments to the application, it may not constitute a part of the drawing disclosure. The appendix has been placed in the file.
Per Applicant’s request upon allowance, the Appendix will be cancelled because it contains descriptions of embodiments not shown in the drawings or described in the specification. Therefore, the proposed amendment to the appendix and specification dated 11/13/2025 will not be entered.
Acknowledgement of Amendment
Acknowledgement is here made of the applicant’s Amendment of November 13, 2025 including amendments to the specification and replacement sheets for Figures 1-10. The merits of the application have been carefully reconsidered in view of Applicants’ remarks and amendments but NOT entered into the CPA because they were not submitted with the CPA that was filed on November 26, 2025, as required by 37 CFR 1.53(d) and they include modifications to the drawings that alter the appearance of the originally disclosed design and therefore constitute amendments that cannot be entered under CPA practice. See MPEP § 201.06(d) and MPEP § 1503.02. As a result, the drawings and specification of record are the originally filed materials from March 11, 2021.
The replacement drawings submitted November 13, 2025 are refused entry under 37 CFR 1.153(d) and MPEP § 201.06(d) because:
They were not filed with the CPA and therefore do not carry forward.
They contain substantive modifications to the originally disclosed design.
Amendments introducing such modifications constitute new matter and therefore cannot be entered in a CPA.
(CPA practice requires that such amendments be refused entry rather than rejected. See MPEP § 201.06(d).)
Claim Rejection
35 U.S.C. § 112, (a) and (b)
The claim is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112, (a) and (b), as the claimed invention is not described in such full, clear, concise and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the same, and fails to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The claim is indefinite and non-enabling for the following:
The replacement drawings filed November 13, 2025 show inconsistent treatment across views and depict the connector with boundary lines applied to the separated end surfaces. Boundary lines serve to delimit the extent of claimed surface area. See MPEP § 1503.02(III).
Figures 1–2 retain the original dash-dot-dash boundary lines. Figures 3–4 replace the same dash-dot-dash boundary lines with das-dash broken lines, which indicate subject matter that forms no part of the claimed design per MPEP §1503.02(II). Converting boundary lines to broken lines changes originally claimed surfaces into surfaces that form no part of the claimed design, which is a substantive change to the claimed design.
Additional modifications appear in the replacement figures that alter line types, contours, and/or visible features compared to the originally filed drawings. These changes also modify the design’s appearance and are not supported by the original disclosure. Under CPA practice, none of these amendments may be entered.
Further, all views must be consistent in their depiction of the design. The replacement drawings show boundary lines on the connector end surfaces in Figs. 1–2 and the broken lines in the same locations in Figs. 3–4. This results in two conflicting representations of the claimed design, creating ambiguity and rendering the claim indefinite. Please see Examiner's annotated drawings on the following page for identification of the non-enabled subject matter.
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REPLACEMENT
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FIG. 3
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FIG. 4
In Figures 3 & 4 of the Examiner's annotated drawings above, the overall appearance of the surfaces WITHIN the highlighted boundary is shown differently between the figures and cannot be determined. The highlighted surface shows an overall difference in the appearance than that of the originally claimed design. The dash-dot-dash boundary lines are shown as dash-dash broken lines in the replacement sheets.
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FIG. 1
In Figure 1 of the Examiner's annotated drawings above, the overall appearance of the highlighted areas identified by annotated arrow “A” is shown differently between the figures and cannot be determined. The highlighted areas show an overall difference in the appearance than that of the originally claimed design. The same issue is also present in Figure 2.
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FIG. 1
FIG. 4
In Figures 1 & 4 of the Examiner's annotated drawings above, the overall appearance of the highlighted surfaces is shown differently between the figures and cannot be determined. In Figure 1, dash-dot-dash boundary lines are used on the claimed surface. The same surface, in Figure 4, is shown with dash-dash broken lines as if the surface forms no part of the claimed design.
Corrected drawing sheets are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The corrected drawing sheets must match the contours and surface boundaries of the originally filed drawings, apply boundary lines consistently in all views where appropriate and make no changes to the claimed design’s appearance. If applicant's response to the requirements set forth above is incomplete or includes new matter, the examiner may hold the response non-compliant.
Replacement Drawings
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. If all the figures on a drawing sheet are canceled, a replacement sheet is not required. A marked-up copy of the drawing sheet (labeled as “Annotated Sheet”) including an annotation showing that all the figures on that drawing sheet have been canceled must be presented in the amendment or remarks section that explains the change to the drawings. 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.
When preparing new or replacement drawings, be careful to avoid introducing new matter. 35 USC §132 and 37 CFR §1.121(f).
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRYAN N. MELVIN whose telephone number is (571)272-9675. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday 9AM-4:30PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sandra Snapp can be reached on (571)272-8364. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BRYAN N. MELVIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2912