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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 02/25/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive for the following reasons:
In response to applicant’s arguments regarding claim 1, the examiner disagrees. The examiner does acknowledge that the Mizumura teaches of processor-executed control, however, Liu explicitly demonstrates that such a control can be achieved with logic gates. Further, the examiner does not claim that all the processors of Mizumura be replaced with logic gates which would not be obvious, the examiner only states that the microprocessors 1042 that receive the sensors readings and output a signal to control the fans based on the sensor readings are replaced with logic gates. Liu explicitly states that controlling a fan through inputs from sensors can be achieved by either logic gates or microprocessors which satisfies the requirements of relying on the rationale of substituting equivalents known for the same purpose as outlined in MPEP 2144.06.II. The examiner does not need to explicitly describe the architecture of the logic gate array to achieve the equivalent function of the microprocessors as a person of ordinary skill in the mechanical and electrical arts would be capable of performing such a task or provide any further rationale as to why a person of ordinary skill in the art would want to make such a substitution.
In response to applicant’s arguments regarding claim 5, the examiner disagrees. In claim 1, only microprocessors 1042 are replaced with logic gates. Therefore, the system of Mizumura still has processors 2012. The examiner does not need to find a reference that teaches control with both logic gates and processors as the findings in claim 1 state that logic gates and processors are equivalent and interchangeable and therefore the overall system of Mizumura would function with both the logic gates replacing 1042 and the processor 2012.
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, 3, 5 and 7-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mizumura (US 20120140402 A1) in view of Liu (US 20050030171 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Mizumura teaches of:
An automotive climate system comprising:
at least one fan (Fig. 18, 231); and
control circuitry (Fig. 18, 1042) including at least one speed sensor (¶ [0087], “a revolving speed sensor that measures the number of revolutions of the fan 231”) configured to detect a speed of the at least one fan (Figs. 18, the control circuitry is 1042 is the control circuitry that receives sensors inputs from 1054, 2014 and 2015; ¶ [0087], “The environment monitor circuit 2015 monitors the operating status of the storage apparatus 10 in real time, and acquires at any time measurement values sent from sensors installed in various positions in the storage apparatus 10. The sensors include, for example, a temperature sensor, a voltage sensor, a current sensor, a frost sensor and a revolving speed sensor that measures the number of revolutions of the fan 231”; ¶ [0109], “Moreover, the revolving speed of each fan 231 is acquired by the environment monitor circuit 2015 at certain time intervals from the revolving speed sensor provided to each fan 231 and is similarly recorded in the environment monitor database 1500. The MP 1042 in charge of fan operation control accesses the environment monitor database 1500 at proper time intervals through the drive control I/F 1054, the drive I/F 2014 and the environment monitor circuit 2015, acquires the temperature measurement value and the revolving speed measurement value, and executes the fan operation control on the basis of the values thus acquired.”), at least one temperature sensor configured to detect a temperature (Fig. 18, 235; ¶ [0109], “Each fan unit 230 is provided with a temperature sensor 235 that outputs as an electric signal a measurement value of an ambient temperature”), configured to, receive signals from the at least one speed sensor and the at least one temperature sensor, generate output to drive the at least one fan at a speed greater than a threshold speed (Fig. 18, environmental monitor circuit 2015 receives signals from the sensors and interfaces 2014 and 1054 transfer the received inputs in 2015 to 1042 which further executes the necessary motor control outputs to the fan to match the method shown in Fig. 22 which outlines that the temperature in S2201 and the speed of the fan in S2202 are acquired and further if the speed of the fan is less than the threshold of SP2 in S2203 and the temperature is above a threshold S2204, the speed of the fan is increased in S2205).
Mizumura fails to explicitly teach of:
the use of logic gates to convert the inputs from the sensors into the desired motor control outputs
Liu teaches of:
using logic gates to receive inputs from sensors and to output motor controls to a fan (¶ [0071], “The controller 436 controls the speed of the fan 432 through fan logic 438a based on temperature signals received from a temperature sensor 422 located on or near the graphics processor420. The fan logic 438a includes logic gates or program code executable by the controller 436”; ¶ [0076], “To realize the above-described method, the controller 436 can utilize software or hardware or a suitable combination of the two. That is, fan logic 438a and power logic 438b can be software code, hardware logic gates, or a microprocessor”)
The primary reference can be modified to meet this/these limitation(s) as follows:
Modify 1042 of Mizumura so that logic gates are used instead of microprocessors to convert the sensor data into the claimed motor control of the fan
A person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make the above modification(s) because:
It has been found that when the prior art recognizes that two components are equivalent within the same field of endeavor, than the substitution of one of the equivalent components for the other would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art (see MPEP 2144.06.II.). In the instant case, Liu recognizes that microprocessors and logic gates can interchangeably execute the function of receiving sensor inputs and outputting motor control to a fan based on those sensor inputs. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have replaced the microprocessors 1042 of Mizumura with logic gates to execute the desired motor control of the fan as logic gates and microprocessors are considered to be art recognized equivalents known for the same purpose.
Regarding claim 3, the combined teachings teach of the automotive climate system of claim 1, and the combined teachings further teach:
wherein the control circuitry further includes at least one driver (Mizumura, Fig. 18, 232) configured to convert the output to a voltage signal to drive the at least one fan (Mizumura, ¶ [0108], “The fan driver 232 is a circuit for adjusting a voltage, frequency and the like of the driving power to be supplied to each fan 231 in order to control the revolving speed of the fan 231 by using the power supply from the fan power supplies 203, and a control signal received from the MP 1042 in charge of fan operation control through the drive control I/F 1054, the drive I/F 2014 and the environment monitor circuit 2015”).
Regarding claim 5, the combined teachings teach of automotive climate system of claim 1, and the combined teachings further teach:
further comprising at least one processor (Mizumura, Fig. 12, 2012) configured to generate control signals for the at least one fan (processor 2012 loads the microprogram that generates the desired control signal of the fan; ¶ [0085], “FIG. 12 shows a hardware configuration of the drive board 201. The drive board 201 includes an internal network I/F 2011, a processor 2012, a memory 2013, a drive interface (hereinafter, "drive I/F") 2014 and an environment monitor circuit 2015. The memory 2013 stores a microprogram therein. The processor 2012 implements various types of functions provided by the drive board 201 by loading the microprogram from the memory 2013 and then executing the microprogram.”).
Regarding claim 7, the combined teachings teach of the automotive climate system of claim 5, and the combined teachings further teach:
wherein the at least one fan is arranged to cool the processor (Mizumura, Fig. 3, fans 231 cool the drive unit device 200 which includes the processor 2012).
Regarding claim 8, the combined teachings teach of the automotive climate system of claim 1, and the combined teachings further teach:
wherein a number of the at least one speed sensor is equal to a number of the at least one fan (Mizumura, ¶ [0109], “Moreover, the revolving speed of each fan 231 is acquired by the environment monitor circuit 2015 at certain time intervals from the revolving speed sensor provided to each fan 231”).
Regarding claim 9, the combined teachings teach of the automotive climate system of claim 1, and the combined teachings further teach:
wherein a number of the at least one temperature sensor is equal to a number of the at least one fan (Mizumura, ¶ [0132], “the temperature sensor 235 is provided to each of the fan units 230”).
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mizumura (US 20120140402 A1) in view of Liu (US 20050030171 A1) as presented in claim 1, and in further view Gongwer (US 4906870 A).
Regarding claim 2, the combined teachings teach of the automotive climate system of claim 1, however, the combined teachings fail to explicitly teach:
wherein the control circuitry further includes a latch configured to hold the output to drive the at least one fan at the speed greater than the threshold speed regardless of the signals until climate system power down.
Gongwer teaches of:
wherein the control circuitry further includes a latch (Fig. 7A, latch 99) configured to hold the output to drive the at least one fan at the speed greater than the threshold speed regardless of the signals until climate system power down (Fig. 7A, latch 99 maintains the output signal from logic array 31 and the latch will remain active as long as power is supplied to the circuit).
The combined teachings can be modified to meet this/these limitation(s) as follows:
modify the control circuitry of the combined teachings so that the output of the control circuitry that controls the fan to operate at speed SP2, which is greater than the threshold speed SP1, is held by latch 99 of Gongwer
A person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make the above modification(s) because:
utilizing a latch to hold the output signal of logical circuitry when the logical circuitry is not currently being utilized, allowing for the logical circuitry to be powered down and the only power going to the latch, greatly reducing the amount of power consumed by the control circuit (Gongwer, Col. 1, lines 66-68 and Col. 2, lines 1-13, The above object has been met with a logic array device which includes input switch detection circuitry which detects logic level transitions on inputs to a device's logic arrays. When and only when such a transition occurs are the gates of the logic arrays enabled by an array enable signal generating circuit, because only then will a transition be needed on outputs of the arrays. After such time has passed as is necessary for any such output transitions to occur, the logic array gates are disabled, and their power consumption is essentially eliminated. The logic outputs are stored in a latch while the arrays are disabled. Thus, the total power consumed by the logic device is greatly reduced. Because each gate receives full power when it is enabled, switching speed is not adversely affected.)
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mizumura (US 20120140402 A1) in view of Liu (US 20050030171 A1) as presented in claim 1, and in further view Lee (US 20170321596 A1).
Regarding claim 4, the combined teachings teach of the automotive climate system of claim 1, however, the combined teachings fail to explicitly teach:
wherein the logic gates include an OR gate configured to receive signals associated with the at least one temperature sensor and an AND gate configured to receive a signal from the OR gate and signals associated with the at least one speed sensor.
Lee teaches of:
wherein the logic gates include an OR gate (Fig. 2, 114) configured to receive signals associated with the at least one temperature sensor (Fig. 2, 114 receives a signal from temperature sensor at 101) and an AND gate (Fig. 2, 131) configured to receive a signal from the OR gate and signals associated with the at least one speed sensor (Fig. 2, 131 receives signals from 114 and speed sensor at 106).
The combined teachings can be modified to meet this/these limitation(s) as follows:
modify the control circuit of the combined teachings so that it includes an OR gate that receives signals from the temperature sensor 235 of Mizumura and further an AND gate that receives signals from the OR gate and from the speed sensor of Mizumura
A person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make the above modification(s) because:
Mizumura teaches of the method as claimed in claim 1 and the system of Mizumura requires necessary circuitry to carry out the method of claim 1 which is known and taught in Lee and therefore it would have been obvious to utilize the circuit as shown in Fig. 2 of Lee
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mizumura (US 20120140402 A1) in view of Liu (US 20050030171 A1) as presented in claim 1, and in further view Malarsie (US 6172528 B1).
Regarding claim 6, the combined teachings teach of the automotive control circuit of claim 5, however, the combined teachings fail to explicitly teach:
wherein the control circuitry further includes at least one buffer configured to interrupt the control signals responsive to the output.
Malarsie teaches of:
wherein the control circuitry further includes at least one buffer configured to interrupt the control signals responsive to the output (Fig. 1, buffer 20).
The combined teachings can be modified to meet this/these limitation(s) as follows:
add buffer 20 at the output of the control circuitry of Mizumura
A person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make the above modification(s) because:
buffers are necessary to connect driving circuitry, such as 1042 of Mizumura, with the circuit being driven, such as the fan of Mizumura, and they ensure that the driving signal is only delivered when required (Col. 1, lines 14-19, “Electronic circuit buffers are used to isolate load circuitry from affecting the operation of circuitry designed to control the load circuitry. That is, they provide an interface between a driving circuit and the circuitry being driven. The buffer is designed to ensure that signals are delivered from driving circuitry to one or more loads when required”)
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL J GIORDANO whose telephone number is (571)272-8940. The examiner can normally be reached M-Fr 8 AM - 5 PM EST.
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, Helena Kosanovic can be reached at (571) 272-9059. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL JAMES GIORDANO/Examiner, Art Unit 3762
/HELENA KOSANOVIC/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3762
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