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 .
General Information
The inventor’s response of 8/18/25 to the Ex Parte Quayle Action of 4/17/25 is acknowledged. Some of the drawing objection issues have been resolved but not all. The claim cannot be fully understood. Therefore prosecution is reopened and the application is now rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) and (b).
DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejection - 35 USC § 112
The claim is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) and (b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first and second paragraphs, 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 not enabled because the precise appearance of the claim cannot be determined for the following reasons:
1) In the Quayle action it was suggested that the rounded area in FIG. 1 indicated with the arrow in the illustration below be amended to be more consistent with the corresponding areas of the other views. The area has not been made more consistent as suggested.
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2) In the amended FIGS. 6-9 there are features with uneven and broken lines within the circle areas indicated in the illustrations below.
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3) In the amended FIGS 1 and 5 the areas with breaks in the solid lines have not been corrected.
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Due to these ambiguities in the disclosure, the scope of protection sought by the claim cannot be determined and therefore the claim fails to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter that the applicants regard as the invention and enable a designer of ordinary skill to reproduce the shape and appearance of the claimed design.
If corrected drawings are submitted in response to this Office action, they must be in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d).
Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all 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.
All changes to the drawings should be explained in either the drawing amendment or remarks section of the amendment paper. 37 CFR 1.121 (d). A marked-up copy of any amended drawing figure, including annotations indicating the changes made, must be provided with the response. 37 CFR 1.121 (d) (2).
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 includes an explanation of the change to the drawings. All changes to the drawings shall be explained, in detail, in either the drawing amendment or remarks section of the amendment paper. A marked-up copy of any amended drawing figure, including annotations indicating the changes made, must be provided. See 37 CFR 1.121.
Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing dale 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 applicant chooses to amend the drawings and/or specification, the amendment must meet the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112(a). It must be apparent that applicant was in possession of the amended design at the time of original filing. When preparing new or replacement drawings, avoid introducing new matter prohibited by 35 U.S.C. 132(a) and 37 CFR 1.121(f).
Conclusion
The claim stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112 (a) and (b). A response is required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jonathan Fiencke whose telephone number is 571-272-9301. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET.
Note that to act on behalf of the applicant in most situations, a properly executed power of attorney must be present in the application file. See MPEP 402.02. See also 37 C.F.R. 1.32 (b).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the applicant can contact the examiner’s supervisor George Ulsh, who can be reached at 571-272-5714.
Examiner Interviews
Examiner interviews are available via telephone and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool.
A telephonic or in person interview may only be conducted with an attorney or agent registered to practice before the USPTO (“registered practitioner”) or with a pro se applicant (an applicant who is the inventor and who is not represented by a registered practitioner).
The registered practitioner may either be of record or not of record. To become “of record”, a power of attorney (POA) in accordance with 37 CFR 1.32 must be filed in the application. Form PTO/AIA /80 “Power of Attorney to Prosecute Applications Before the USPTO”, is available at:
https://www.uspto.gov/patent/forms/forms-patent-applications-filed-or-after-september-16-2012.
See MPEP 402.02(a) for further information.
Interviews may also be conducted with a registered practitioner “not of record” provided the registered practitioner can show authorization to conduct an interview by completing, signing and filing an “Applicant Initiated Interview Request Form” (PTOL-413A) See MPEP 405.
To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov.
For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
For assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JEF/ AU 2925
/CALVIN E VANSANT/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2937