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 of Group I (claims 1-8) in the reply filed on 10/9/2025 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)).
Claims 9 and 10 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.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 10/9/2025.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDSes filed 12/28/2022 and 7/19/2023 have both been considered and placed of record. The initialed copies are attached herewith.
Specification
The disclosure should be carefully reviewed to ensure that any and all grammatical, idiomatic, and spelling or other minor errors are corrected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 5 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Makino et al. (US 2016/0377685).
Re claim 1, the reference discloses a measurement circuit having, inter alia, a plurality of battery cells included in a battery stack (fig 1); a device 2 that measured battery cell voltage (fig 2); a protection circuit 30 connected in parallel to each terminal of the device 2 (fig 3); and an external power supply 5 configured to apply power to the protection circuit 30 (fig 16).
Re claim 2, protection circuit having switch circuit, Zener diode and resistor as shown in fig 20.
Re claim 5, the cathode of the lowest battery cell of the battery stack is connected to the cathode of the external power supply and ground of the device. See fig 16.
Re claim 8, terminal of the battery cell is connected in series through a resistor and capacitor is connected in parallel is disclosed in background art.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 4, 6 and 7 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 should be directed to the Examiner at the below-listed number. The Examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Thu from 7:00am-5:00pm.
The Examiner’s SPE is Drew Dunn and he can be reached at 571.272.2312. The fax number for the organization where this application is assigned is 571.273.8300.
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/EDWARD TSO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 571.272.2087
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