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 allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). 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, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 2/26/26 has been entered.
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) 1-4 and 6-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yanagita (US Patent 10693399), of record and Abacan et al (Microchip AN3049).
Claims 1,10, and 18, Yanagita teaches a method/electronic circuit for estimating a motor position comprising: isolating a ripple waveform from a current signal outputted by a brushed DC motor 3, the current ripple is isolated for example my means 15; filtering the detected current signal using filter 23 which is part of control generation circuit 21; counting the number of pulses of a rectangular resulting waveform; and determining a rotation parameter based on the isolated current ripple (see for example the description given in col. 9 lines 29-65).
Although the previous rejections of claims 1/10/18 used the description given in col. 1 lines 16-29 of Yanagita to show that estimating motor parameters such as speed, direction of rotation, and rotation angle (position) of DC motors using current ripple counting technique is commonly known, Abacan et al will be introduced to show the use the output of a comparator having a positive polarity output to determine a count of peaks of a ripple waveform to determine the position of a movable structure coupled to a brushed DC motor.
Abacan et al teaches a sensorless position control of a brushed DC motor using ripple counting technique comprising a series of stages: current sensing stage, signal conditioning stages (using a bandpass filter), comparator stage, and PI-MCU stage for estimating the motor position based on the output pulses delivered by the comparator (see Figure 2-1 Ripple Conversion Stages Output Signals, page 10). Each of the stages provide a description of a well known technique for using current ripple to estimate the position of a brushed DC motor. In the current sensing stage, the motor current is detected through current sense resistor R1 (section 2.1, pages 11-12); in the signal conditioning stages, the detected current is filtered using a bandpass filter (see sections 2.2-2.3, pages 12-15); in the comparator stage, the filtered signal is transformed by the comparator into a positive polarity signal having an output of either 0 or 5V (see the configuration of the comparator in figure 2-8 and the description of this stage on page 16); and in the PI-MCU stage, the pulses outputted by the comparator are use to estimate the position (various methods and digital components are described that can accomplish the estimation of position based on a pulse count, see the description of the different solution on pages 17-30). Additionally, the position of various movable structures, as described on page 1, can be determined using the current ripple counting technique.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to use a comparator having the configuration taught by Abacan et al, since the configuration of a the comparator depends on the specific requirements for the motor system and how suitable it would be for said specific application in order to ensure optimal performance. One additional comment will be made in reference to the use of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) at the first stage of determining the pulse count vs using the ADC at the last stage of the process, the position is ultimately estimated using a digital value of the ripple count. Abacan et al describes in the different solutions, pages 16-29, for processing the current ripple pulses that different analog and digital peripherals are combined to create a one chip solution (see for example the description of PIC16F177X Solution given on page 22.
Claims 2, 9, 11, and 14, Yanagita describes, col. 7 lines 27-30, the current originating at the brushes and using a high pass filter 28 to smooth a voltage signal S2.
Claims 3, 12, and 19, Yanagita describes converting an analog voltage signal to a digital signal using converter 16. Yanagita describes using various types of filters to smooth different signals outputted by the motor device. Selecting a bandpass filter is considered a design choice and is not given any patentable weight, since the selection of a specific filter would depend on what type of signal, we are trying to prevent from getting through.
Claim 4, Yanagita describes for example in col. 9 lines 29-42 that a resulting waveform is used to determine the count of the current ripples.
Claims 6-7, Abacan et al teaches a set of signal conditioning stages for conditioning the current signal sensed across the motor, see the filters described in sections 2.2-2.3. Bandpass filters combine the characteristics of high-pass filters and low-pass filters.
Claim 8, Abacan et al uses analog signals to condition the current signal.
Claim 13, Yanagita describes a gain adjustment circuit 25.
Claim 15, Yanagita describes in col. 10 line 36-41 that his motor drive device operates devices in a vehicle.
Claims 16-17 and 20, since nothing has been described in terms of how the fault condition will be detected, the examiner takes official notice that one person skilled in the art would know to use the estimated position/speed/and direction of rotation to assess the movement of a power window in a vehicle (as described by applicant in col. 10 lines 36-41, the illustrated motor device is used to operate various movable components in a vehicle). The user of the motor vehicle can easily be alerted about issues with the movable components such as the powered windows, wipers, or motorized seats. The position/speed/direction of rotation of the brushed DC motor is determined from the measurement of the current ripple.
Claim 21, in addition to the control electronic circuit described in the rejection of claim 10 above, Yanagita and Abacan et al further teach motor systems comprising brushed DC motors and drivers for operating movable structures (see Yanagita, col. 6 lines 23-40 and Abacan et al, pages 1 and 5).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The additional references listed in the attached PTO-892 describe other system that use current ripple counting technique to estimate or determine the position of a motor without the use of a position sensor.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Rina I Duda whose telephone number is (571)272-2062. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4 PM.
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/RINA I DUDA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2846