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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/19/2025 has been entered. Claims 1-8 are still pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/19/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues on page 4 that Ito describes an inverter circuit used to prevent braking that is too strong via on/off control. Kawamura describes operating a gate circuit breaking contact 53a that is opened in an emergency situation to ostensibly effect dynamic braking. However, neither reference describes causing a phase-to-phase short-circuit of the door motor as recited in amended Claim 1.
The examiner respectfully disagrees because Ito clearly discloses that the
inverter circuit 4 is controlled to short-circuit between the winding terminals of the DC brushless motor, and the motor rotational energy during the door deceleration is converted into the three phases of the DC brushless motor 5 as mentioned below in the rejection. Also, it is possible to perform braking stop with higher accuracy using ON/OFF control for repeatedly short-circuiting the winding terminals. Furthermore, even though ITO does not explicitly say “an intermediate position”. However, the door can be moved to either direction from any position including “an intermediate position”. It does not require any specialized skills or technique. The door can be moved from any position, which would be a starting position when the power failure occurs.
Therefore, none of the arguments is persuasive. The examiner maintains the rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ITO JP2006197750A in a view of KAWAMURA JP2004189448A.
Regarding claim 1, ITO discloses
An elevator door control device (Fig. 1, item 1), comprising a door dynamic braking control circuit (Item 4) configured to perform when a power failure occurs in a condition in which a door of an elevator is in an intermediate position, dynamic braking control of a door motor by at least operating a shorting to cause a phase-to-phase short-circuit of the door motor until full close of the door is detected (Emphasis added “the
Inverter circuit 4 is controlled to short-circuit between the winding terminals (phase-to-phase) of the DC brushless motor, and the motor rotational energy during the door deceleration is converted into the three phases of the DC brushless motor 5).
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ITO does not explicitly say “an intermediate position”. However, the door can be moved to either direction from any position including “an intermediate position”, which does not require any specialized tool or technique. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to move the door from an intermediate position to the close position to fully stop the door.
ITO does not disclose but KAWAMURA discloses deactivate the dynamic braking control when the full close of the door is detected [0008, 0022. At time t35, the gate breaking contact 53a is opened].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to deactivate the dynamic braking as disclosed by KAWAMURA in ITO’s teachings to successfully implement door closing operation.
Regarding claim 2, ITO and KAWAMURA discloses
a door control circuit (Item 10) configured to stop an inverter circuit that supplies AC power to the door motor when the power failure occurs; and suspend restarting the inverter circuit until the dynamic braking control is deactivated when the power failure recovers during a period from when the dynamic braking control is started to when the door full close is detected (KAWAMURA discloses the dynamic brake is deactivated when the door is fully closed. ITO discloses the dynamic braking is used as long as there is an increase in bus voltage).
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Regarding claims 3 and 5, ITO discloses
, wherein the door dynamic braking control circuit is provided in an existing emergency control circuit (Items 4 and 11).
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Regarding claims 4, 6 and 7, ITO discloses
, wherein the door dynamic braking control circuit does not perform the dynamic braking control when an operation mode change-over switch is in a condition of a maintenance mode.
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Regarding claim 8, ITO discloses
a power failure detection circuit (Item 10) configured to detect the power failure.
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Conclusion
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/BICKEY DHAKAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2896