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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group II, which includes claims 21-25, 27 and 29, in the reply filed on 11/18/25 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-20, 26, and 28 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 11/18/25.
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) 21, 27 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tada et al. (WO 2017/042949, hereafter referred to as Tada).
Regarding claims 21, 22 and 29, Tada teaches an anomaly determination apparatus comprising: a determining unit 9 configured make a determination relating to an anomaly of a device installed with a displacement type compressor (see Abstract, ‘an abnormality determination unit for predicting or detecting failure of the compressor’), wherein the displacement type compressor 11 has a structure in which a compression mechanism 105 and an electric motor 104 are mechanically connected, and a first torque generated in a compression process and a second torque generated by the electric motor are correlated with each other, and the displacement type compressor 11 also has a structure in which a gap is provided in a compression chamber 109 and the compression chamber is sealed with oil 116.
However, Tada does not explicitly teach the determining unit 9 determining that there is the anomaly based on a decrease in a component of a driving frequency of the electric motor in the first torque.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teaching of Tada since it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result
effective variable involves only routine skill in the art. In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272,205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 22-25 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMEL E WILLIAMS whose telephone number is (571)270-7027. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 10am-4pm.
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/JAMEL E WILLIAMS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855