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 .
Foreign Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in Japan on January 11" 2022. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the JP 2022-002316 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed September 10th 2025, with respect to the rejection of claims 5-6 under 35 U.S.C 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 5-6 has been withdrawn due to amendments.
Applicant’s arguments, filed September 10th 2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 and 3-12 under 35 U.S.C 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of 35 U.S.C 103.
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1, 3-4, 7-9, 11-12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin et al. (US 20170334296 A1) in view of Machida et al. (JP 2018170854 A) further in view of Nakamura et al. (US 20210107373 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Martin teaches a power supply system (Fig. 2), comprising:
power supply equipment (62) configured to be supplied with electric power from an external power supply (electrical grid 58) and supply the electric power to a vehicle (12A, 12B) traveling in a travel lane on a road (51, 52, see Fig. 2)
and a vehicle management device (65) configured to manage a plurality of vehicles configured to transfer electric power to and from the power supply equipment (62) (¶[55] “each control system 60 communicates information to the inductive roadway interface 65 for coordinating the exchange of energy between the charging modules 62 and the inductive charging system 68”),
wherein each of the plurality of the vehicles includes a Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor (¶[55] “Each control system 60 communicates information to the inductive roadway interface 65 for coordinating the exchange of energy between the charging modules 62 and the inductive charging system 68. This information includes, but is not limited to, vehicle identification data, vehicle location data, vehicle direction and velocity data, and charging data”),
the road includes a first lane (51), a second lane (52), and the power supply equipment (62) is installed in the first lane and the second lane (see Fig. 2, ¶[44] “In a non-limiting embodiment, each of the first section S1 and the second section S2 of the inductive roadway 54 includes a plurality of charging modules 62”), and
the vehicle management device is configured to:
select a balancing vehicle to be controlled for power balancing of the external power supply (58) from the vehicles (12) (¶[58] “the control strategy 100 can be performed to control operation of the electrified vehicle 12 in a manner that balances the electrical grid 58 during an inductive roadway event”);
acquire position information of the balancing vehicle from the GPS sensor (see ¶[55] quoted above);
Martin does not explicitly teach a third lane.
Martin does not teach to determine wherein the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane to the third lane based on the acquired position information;
and in a case where the vehicle management device determines that the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or the second lane to the third lane, determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, and newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Machida teaches a third lane (L20), and wherein to determine wherein the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane (L10) to the third lane (L20) based on the acquired position information (¶[52] “The setting unit 91 determines whether or not the electric vehicle 1 is traveling in the charging lane L10 based on, for example, the calculation result of the current position of the electric vehicle 1 outputted from the car navigation device 81 and information indicating the position of the charging lane L10”).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Martin to incorporate the teachings of Machida to provide a third lane, and to determine wherein the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane to the third lane based on the acquired position information in order to provide a non-charging option for travel and quickly determine if a vehicle is traveling in a charging lane or a non-charging lane.
Martin in view of Machida does not teach in a case where the vehicle management device determines that the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or the second lane to the third lane, determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, and newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Nakamura teaches the vehicle management device (aggregator server 30) is configured to determine whether control of the balancing vehicle (50) for power balancing of the external power supply (PG) (see ¶[27]) has been stopped halfway through;
and when the vehicle management device (30) determines that the control of the balancing vehicle (50A) for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through (¶[152] “Vehicle 50A thus quits external power feed earlier than scheduled (line L11A)”),
newly select a substitute vehicle (50D) to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply (¶[152] “When controller 31 of server 30 receives the stop prediction signal from vehicle 50A, it controls vehicle 50D to start external power feed at timing t.sub.D before external power feed that is being carried out by vehicle 50A is stopped”, see also Fig. 15 where P10 is the substitute vehicle).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Martin and Machida to incorporate the teachings of Nakamura to provide the vehicle management device is configured to determine whether control of the balancing vehicles for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through;
and when the vehicle management device determines that the control of any of the balancing vehicles for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply in order to continue balancing the external power supply if one of the vehicles interrupts the process.
The combination therefore teaches a case where the vehicle management device determines that the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or the second lane to the third lane, determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, and newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
Machida further teaches the vehicle management device is configured to
determine whether the balancing vehicle has left the first lane or the second lane through an exit based on the acquired position information (¶[52] “in step S501, the setting unit 91 determines whether or not the electric vehicle 1 is traveling in the charging lane L10”, see also Fig. 2 which shows the adjacent travel lane (L10) and no-power-supply lane (L20)), and
Nakamura further teaches in a case where the balancing vehicle has left the first lane or second lane through the exit of the travel lane, select the substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply (¶[152] “When controller 31 of server 30 receives the stop prediction signal from vehicle 50A, it controls vehicle 50D to start external power feed at timing t.sub.D before external power feed that is being carried out by vehicle 50A is stopped”, see also Fig. 15 where P10 is the substitute vehicle).
The combination further teaches selecting from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
Martin further teaches wherein the vehicle management device (54) is configured to:
monitor a state of charge of an energy storage device (57) of the balancing vehicle (12) (¶[59] “The vehicle data may include expected drive routes of the electrified vehicle 12, current and expected SOC's of the battery pack 57, charging information, and any other relevant vehicle information”);
Nakamura further teaches the vehicle management device (30) is configured to: determine based on the state of charge of the energy storage device (130) of the balancing vehicle (50) whether the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through (¶[158-159] “vehicle 50A quits external power feed earlier than scheduled (line L11A). For example, when the SOC of battery 130A (FIG. 3) is equal to or lower than a prescribed SOC value and vehicle 50A is no longer able to continue external power feed, vehicle 50A may quit external power feed earlier than scheduled … Controller 31 can sense end of external power feed by vehicle 50A earlier than scheduled, by monitoring feed power of vehicle 50A”).
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura further teaches wherein the vehicle management device is configured to, in a case where the vehicle management device determines that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through,
select the substitute vehicle from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane (see rationale used to reject Claim 1).
The combination does not explicitly teach selecting the substitute vehicle based on at least one of the following values of energy storage devices of each of the vehicles: state of charge, full charge capacity, rated charge power, and rated discharge power; however, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to select the substitute vehicle based on at least one of the following values of energy storage devices of each of the vehicles: state of charge, full charge capacity, rated charge power, and rated discharge power in order to ensure that the substitute vehicle has a sufficient state of charge and/or rated charge/discharge power to replace the vehicle for which the power balancing was interrupted.
Regarding Claim 8 the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
Martin further teaches wherein the vehicle management device is configured to:
determine charge power for each of the balancing vehicles in a case where charging of energy storage device of the balancing vehicle is requested for power balancing of the external power supply (¶[55] “another exemplary function of the control systems 60 is to communicate with the inductive roadway interface 65 of the inductive roadway 54 .... The charging data may include requested power, maximum charging power, maximum discharge power, priority of charge or discharge, etc.”);
and send a first command to perform charging with the determined charge power to the balancing vehicle traveling in the travel lane (¶[63] “After confirming whether the electrified vehicle 12 is still traveling on an inductive roadway or confirming the electrical surplus again at block 115, the power output or the run time of the power source 55 is decreased at block 123. Excess power can then be received from the inductive roadway at block 125”, see Fig. 4B).
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
Martin further teaches wherein the vehicle management device is configured to:
determine discharge power for each of the balancing vehicle in a case where discharging of energy storage devices of the balancing vehicles is requested for power balancing of the external power supply (¶[55] “another exemplary function of the control systems 60 is to communicate with the inductive roadway interface 65 of the inductive roadway 54 .... The charging data may include requested power, maximum charging power, maximum discharge power, priority of charge or discharge, etc.”);
and send a second command to perform discharging of the determined discharge power or to stop charging to the balancing vehicle traveling in the first lane (51) or the second lane (52) (¶[61] “After confirming whether the electrified vehicle 12 is still traveling on an inductive roadway or confirming that the electrical shortage is still occurring at block 111, the power output of the power source 55 is increased to greater than the propulsion power required to propel the electrified vehicle 12 at block 112. Excess power can be added to the inductive roadway at block 117”, see Fig. 4B).
Regarding Claim 11, Martin teaches a server (80) configured to manage a plurality of vehicles (12), the vehicles being configured to transfer electric power to and from power supply equipment (62) that is supplied with electric power from an external power supply (58) and supplies the electric power to a vehicle traveling in a travel lane on a road (¶[55] “each control system 60 communicates information to the inductive roadway interface 65 for coordinating the exchange of energy between the charging modules 62 and the inductive charging system 68”), wherein
wherein each of the plurality of the vehicles includes a Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor (¶[55] “Each control system 60 communicates information to the inductive roadway interface 65 for coordinating the exchange of energy between the charging modules 62 and the inductive charging system 68. This information includes, but is not limited to, vehicle identification data, vehicle location data, vehicle direction and velocity data, and charging data”),
the road includes a first lane (51), a second lane (52), and the power supply equipment (62) is installed in the first lane and the second lane (see Fig. 2, ¶[44] “In a non-limiting embodiment, each of the first section S1 and the second section S2 of the inductive roadway 54 includes a plurality of charging modules 62”), and
the server is configured to:
select balancing vehicle to be controlled for power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles (¶[58] “the control strategy 100 can be performed to control operation of the electrified vehicle 12 in a manner that balances the electrical grid 58 during an inductive roadway event”);
acquire position information of the balancing vehicle from the GPS sensor (see ¶[55] quoted above);
Martin does not explicitly teach a third lane.
Martin does not teach to determine wherein the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane to the third lane based on the acquired position information;
Martin does not teach wherein the server is configured to: in a case where the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or the second lane to the third lane, determine that control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, and newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Machida teaches a third lane (L20), and wherein to determine wherein the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane (L10) to the third lane (L20) based on the acquired position information (¶[52] “The setting unit 91 determines whether or not the electric vehicle 1 is traveling in the charging lane L10 based on, for example, the calculation result of the current position of the electric vehicle 1 outputted from the car navigation device 81 and information indicating the position of the charging lane L10”).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Martin to incorporate the teachings of Machida to provide a third lane, and to determine wherein the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane to the third lane based on the acquired position information in order to provide a non-charging option for travel and quickly determine if a vehicle is traveling in a charging lane or a non-charging lane.
Martin in view of Machida does not teach in a case where the vehicle management device determines that the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or the second lane to the third lane, determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, and newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Nakamura teaches wherein the server (30) is configured to: when control of the balancing vehicle (50) for power balancing of the external power supply (PG) (see ¶[27]) has been stopped halfway through (¶[152] “Vehicle 50A thus quits external power feed earlier than scheduled (line L11A)”),
newly select a substitute vehicle (50D) to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply (¶[152] “When controller 31 of server 30 receives the stop prediction signal from vehicle 50A, it controls vehicle 50D to start external power feed at timing t.sub.D before external power feed that is being carried out by vehicle 50A is stopped”, see also Fig. 15 where P10 is the substitute vehicle).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Martin and Machida to incorporate the teachings of Nakamura to provide wherein the server is configured to: when control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply in order to continue balancing the external power supply if one of the vehicles interrupts the process.
The combination therefore teaches to select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the travel lane.
Regarding Claim 12, Martin teaches a power balancing method (Fig. 4), comprising:
selecting balancing vehicles to be controlled for power balancing of an external power supply (58) from vehicles (12) traveling in a travel lane on a road (51, 52) equipped with power supply equipment (64) configured to be supplied with electric power from the external power supply (58),
each of the vehicles including a Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor(¶[55] “Each control system 60 communicates information to the inductive roadway interface 65 for coordinating the exchange of energy between the charging modules 62 and the inductive charging system 68. This information includes, but is not limited to, vehicle identification data, vehicle location data, vehicle direction and velocity data, and charging data”),
and the road includes a first lane (51), a second lane (52), and the power supply equipment (62) is installed in the first lane and the second lane (see Fig. 2, ¶[44] “In a non-limiting embodiment, each of the first section S1 and the second section S2 of the inductive roadway 54 includes a plurality of charging modules 62”), and
controlling the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply (¶[58] “the control strategy 100 can be performed to control operation of the electrified vehicle 12 in a manner that balances the electrical grid 58 during an inductive roadway event”);
acquiring position information of the balancing vehicle from the GPS sensor (see ¶[55] quoted above);
Martin does not explicitly teach a third lane.
Martin does not teach determining whether the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane to the third lane based on the acquired position information;
Martin does not teach in a case where the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or the second lane to the third lane, determining that control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through;
when determination is made that the control of any of the balancing vehicles for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, and newly selecting a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane;
and controlling the substitute vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply.
Machida teaches a third lane (L20), and determining whether the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane (L10) to the third lane (L20) based on the acquired position information (¶[52] “The setting unit 91 determines whether or not the electric vehicle 1 is traveling in the charging lane L10 based on, for example, the calculation result of the current position of the electric vehicle 1 outputted from the car navigation device 81 and information indicating the position of the charging lane L10”).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Martin to incorporate the teachings of Machida to provide a third lane, and determining whether the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or second lane to the third lane based on the acquired position information in order to provide a non-charging option for travel and quickly determine if a vehicle is traveling in a charging lane or a non-charging lane.
Martin in view of Machida does not teach in a case where the vehicle management device
Nakamura teaches determining whether control of the balancing vehicles for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through (¶[150] “When relayed external power feed by the first vehicle and the second vehicle does not proceed as scheduled, controller 31 of server 30 may control the third vehicle to carry out external power feed”);
determining that the control of the balancing vehicle (50A) for power balancing of the external power supply (PG) has been stopped halfway through (¶[152] “Vehicle 50A thus quits external power feed earlier than scheduled (line L11A)”), and
newly selecting a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply (¶[152] “When controller 31 of server 30 receives the stop prediction signal from vehicle 50A, it controls vehicle 50D to start external power feed at timing t.sub.D before external power feed that is being carried out by vehicle 50A is stopped”, see also Fig. 15 where P10 is the substitute vehicle).
and controlling the substitute vehicle (50D) for power balancing of the external power supply (¶[152] “During a period for which vehicle 50D and vehicle 50B are simultaneously carrying out external power feed, controller 31 may control at least one of vehicle 50D and vehicle 50B such that the sum of electric power fed from vehicle 50D and electric power fed from vehicle 50B attains to target electric power”).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Martin and Machida to incorporate the teachings of Nakamura to provide determining whether control of the balancing vehicles for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through;
when determination is made that the control of any of the balancing vehicles for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, newly selecting a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply;
and controlling the substitute vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply in order to continue balancing the external power supply if one of the vehicles interrupts the process.
The combination therefore teaches a case where the vehicle management device determines that the balancing vehicle has changed lanes from the first lane or the second lane to the third lane, determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through, and newly select a substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Regarding Claim 14, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
Martin further teaches the first lane (51) and second lane (52) are adjacent (see Fig. 2).
Machida further teaches the third lane (L20) is adjacent to a power supply lane (L10) (see Fig. 2)
Therefore the combination teaches wherein the second lane is positioned between the first lane and the third lane (the two power supply lanes together as shown in Martin, and the no power supply lane adjacent to them as shown in Machida).
Claim(s) 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin et al. (US 20170334296 A1) in view of Machida et al. (JP 2018170854 A) further in view of Nakamura et al. (US 20210107373 A1) and further in view of Mohge et al. (US 20190039470 A1).
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches wherein the vehicle management device is configured to, in a case where the vehicle management device determines that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through (see rationale used to reject Claim 1),
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura does not explicitly teach to select a vehicle located near the balancing vehicle the control of which has been stopped halfway through as the substitute vehicle from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
Mohge teaches to control the spacing between vehicles for optimal power transfer (¶[93]) and to interleave charging vehicles with non-charging vehicles for effective power transfer (¶[91]). Therefore it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura to select a vehicle located near the balancing vehicle the control of which has been stopped halfway through as the substitute vehicle from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane in order to maintain effective spacing between vehicles and allow for recovery time between charging coils.
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches in a case where the vehicle management device determines that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through (see rationale used to reject Claim 1).
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura does not teach wherein the vehicle management device is configured to:
divide the first lane and the second lane into a plurality of blocks and perform area management on a block-by-block basis;
and in a case where the vehicle management device determines that the control of a the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through,
select a vehicle traveling in the same block of the first lane or the second lane as the block in which the balancing vehicle the control of which has been stopped halfway through is traveling or a block associated with the block as the substitute vehicle.
Mohge teaches wherein the vehicle management device (170) is configured to:
divide the first lane and the second lane into a plurality of blocks (see Fig. 8) and perform area management on a block-by-block basis (¶[105] “FIG. 8 illustrates an example of different WPT regions, according to various embodiments. In some cases, different WPT regions may offer different options that can be used for purposes of selecting ground-based charging coils 164 to be used to charge vehicle”);
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura to incorporate the teachings of Mohge to provide the vehicle management device is configured to: divide the first lane and the second lane into a plurality of blocks (see Fig. 8) and perform area management on a block-by-block basis in order to balance the load of traffic (see ¶[102]).
Mohge teaches to control the spacing between vehicles for optimal power transfer (¶[93]) and to interleave charging vehicles with non-charging vehicles for effective power transfer (¶[91]). Therefore it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention preferentially select a vehicle traveling in the same block of the first lane or the second lane as the block in which the balancing vehicle the control of which has been stopped halfway through is traveling or a block associated with the block as the substitute vehicle in order to maintain effective spacing between vehicles and allow for recovery time between charging coils.
Claim(s) 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin et al. (US 20170334296 A1) in view of Machida et al. (JP 2018170854 A) further in view of Nakamura et al. (US 20210107373 A1) and further in view of Otogasako et al. (US 20210304300 A1).
Regarding Claim 10, Martin in view of Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 1.
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura does not teach wherein the vehicle management device is configured to predict the number of vehicles that are going to be traveling in the travel lane during a predetermined period,
and bid on balancing power for the predetermined period on an electricity market based on the predicted number of vehicles.
Otogasako teaches wherein the vehicle management device (5) is configured to predict the number of vehicles (Fig. 5A) during a predetermined period (¶[44] “The data indicated by the broken line in FIG. 5A indicates the number of vehicles to be connected at each point in time in the future predicted from the data indicated by the solid line”),
and bid on balancing power for the predetermined period on an electricity market based on the predicted number of vehicles (¶[66] “In a case where the information received from the bid determination unit 116 indicates that the bid can be made, the control unit (not illustrated) of the aggregator 5 performs the bid to the power transaction market”, see also ¶[5]).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura to incorporate the teachings of Otogasako to provide wherein the vehicle management device is configured to predict the number of vehicles during a predetermined period and bid on balancing power for the predetermined period on an electricity market based on the predicted number of vehicles in order to buy electricity and avoid an extreme surplus or shortage that may be difficult to balance.
The combination further teaches to predict the number of vehicles that are going to be traveling in the travel lane during a predetermined period.
Claim(s) 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin et al. (US 20170334296 A1) in view of Machida et al. (JP 2018170854 A) further in view of Nakamura et al. (US 20210107373 A1) and further in view of Kim et al. (US 20110078092 A1).
Regarding Claim 13, the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches the power supply system according to claim 4.
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura teaches to newly select the substitute vehicle to be controlled to perform power balancing of the external power supply from the vehicles traveling in the first lane or the second lane.
The combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura does not explicitly teach wherein the vehicle management device is configured to determine whether the state of charge of the energy storage device of the balancing vehicle is above a threshold,
and in a case where the state of charge of the energy storage device of the balancing vehicle is above the threshold,
determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through.
Kim teaches wherein the vehicle management device is configured to determine whether the state of charge of the energy storage device of the balancing vehicle is above a threshold (S250, ¶[52] “if the SOC of the battery 310 exceeds a first threshold value previously set for charging”),
and in a case where the state of charge of the energy storage device of the balancing vehicle is above the threshold,
determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through (¶[52] “if the SOC of the battery 310 exceeds a first threshold value previously set for charging or is smaller than a second threshold value previously set for discharging, the controller 350 generates a control signal (including, for example, discharge control information, discharge stop information, and the like) for stopping charging or discharging of the battery 310”).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Martin, Machida and Nakamura to incorporate the teachings of Kim to provide wherein the vehicle management device is configured to determine whether the state of charge of the energy storage device of the balancing vehicle is above a threshold,
and in a case where the state of charge of the energy storage device of the balancing vehicle is above the threshold,
determine that the control of the balancing vehicle for power balancing of the external power supply has been stopped halfway through,
in order to avoid charging a battery that is fully charged or almost fully charged.
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.
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/A.B./Examiner, Art Unit 2859
/JULIAN D HUFFMAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2859