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 .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because Figure 2 delete “abd” and replace it with “and”; delete the second “200” and replace it with –204--. Figure 4 delete “noe” and replace it with –note--. Figure 8 delete “batter” and replace it with –battery-. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-10, 12, 15-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nakamura et al. (US 2007/0029986).
With respect to claim 1, Nakamura discloses a system for power management, the system comprising: a plurality of power packs including at least one supercapacitor and at least one electrochemical battery (power packs B1 and B2 include electrochemical batteries and high power capacitors); a pair of terminals operable to be selectively coupled to at least one power pack of the plurality of power packs (figure 1 discloses terminals for connecting the battery packs), wherein the pair of terminals is operable to provide for discharging and charging of the at least one power pack to be selectively coupled to the pair of terminals; a switch operable to selectively couple the pair of terminals to the at least one power pack of the plurality of power packs (selection switch RYO selectively couples the terminals of one of the plurality of power packs); and a controller (control device 60) configured to: store energy in the at least one supercapacitor and in the at least one electrochemical battery; determine a charge status associated with the pair of terminals, wherein the charge status is indicative of a direction of a flow of charge relative to the pair of terminals; and send a signal to the switch to cause the switch to change, based on the charge status, which of the plurality of power packs is coupled to the pair of terminals (abstract discloses that based on a state of charge of the power packs the switch selects one of the power packs).
With respect to claims 2, 3, 16, 17, Nakamura discloses the system of one of the claims, the controller configured to: identify that a charge is being supplied to the pair of terminals by a charger; and identify the at least one power pack of the plurality of power packs to selectively coupled to the pair of terminals to receive the charge based on the at least one power pack of the plurality of power packs having a charge below a predetermined charge threshold. Paragraph 0102-0105, abstract and figure 1 discloses that based on an AC input/charger and SOC of the batteries B1 and B2 being lower than a prescribed level a charging operation is permitted for the battery pack.
With respect to claim 4, Nakamura discloses the system of claim 3, the controller configured to retrieve the predetermined charge threshold for the at least one power pack of the plurality of power packs from a database. Figure 7, paragraphs 0131-0136 disclose a running a program relating determination as to the start of charging based on a threshold value.
With respect to claims 5, 6, 7 Nakamura discloses the system of claim 3, the controller configured to maintain a connection between the at least one power pack and the pair of terminals at least until a predetermined waiting period has passed from initiation of the connection. Paragraph 0131 discloses that when the program/process is run for a certain time, or a prescribed condition is established/full charge.
With respect to claim 8, Nakamura discloses the system of claim 1, further comprising; an external housing that is operable to house the at least one supercapacitor, the at least one electrochemical battery, pair of terminals and energy controller, wherein a size of the external housing is substantially similar to a size of a vehicle electrochemical battery for a vehicle and respective ends of the pair of terminals are exposed for connection purposes. Figures 1, and 11 disclose that the supercapacitor and the electrochemical battery are provided in a housing of a battery unit BU.
With respect to claim 9, 18, Nakamura discloses the system of one of the claims, the controller configured to identify the charge status to be in a discharge state based on a current draw at the pair of terminals; and determine which of the plurality of power packs to couple to and to discharge to a load that is coupled to the pair of terminals based on which of the plurality of power packs has a charge that is above a predetermined charge. Paragraphs 0065-0071, 013 disclose sensor and selection switch RY0 for selecting one of the batteries to be connected to the motor regenerator based on the state of charge of the storage devices.
With respect to claims 10,12, 19, Nakamura discloses the system of one of the claims, the controller configured to change a discharge profile of the at least one supercapacitor to have a discharge profile that shares at least one attribute with a pattern of discharge for an electrochemical batter profile associated with the at least one electrochemical battery. Figure 1, paragraphs 0168 disclose that the voltages and capacities of the batteries B1 and B2 overlap.
With respect to claim 15, Nakamura discloses the apparatus necessary to complete the recited method steps, as discussed above in the rejection of claim 1.
With respect to claim 20, Nakamura discloses a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, wherein the program is executable by a processor to perform a method for power management (figure 1, figure 7 disclose a control device for executing a program), the method comprising: storing energy in at least one supercapacitor and in at least one electrochemical battery, wherein a plurality of power packs includes the at least one supercapacitor and the at least one electrochemical battery (power packs B1 and B2 include electrochemical batteries and high power capacitors); determining a charge status associated with a pair of terminals, wherein the charge status is indicative of a direction of a flow of charge relative to the pair of terminals (selection switch RYO selectively couples the terminals of one of the plurality of power packs); and sending a signal to a switch to cause the switch to change, based on the charge status, which of the plurality of power packs is coupled to the pair of terminals, wherein the switch is operable to selectively couple the pair of terminals to at least one power pack of the plurality of power packs (abstract discloses that based on a state of charge of the power packs the switch selects one of the power packs).
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) 11, 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura et al. (US 2007/0029986) in view of Srinivasan et al. (US 2021/0349155).
With respect to claim 11, Nakamura discloses the system of claim 10; except for, the controller configured to retrieve the electrochemical battery profile from a database that stores electrochemical battery profile.
Srinivasan discloses a processor for obtaining data related to a battery from a processor or a remote computing system.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention, to have modify Nakamura and store and retrieve data related to the energy storage systems from a computing system/database as disclosed by Srinivasan, for the purpose of increasing the longevity and economic value of battery systems, for example (paragraph 0003).
With respect to claim 14, Nakamura discloses the system of claim 1; except for, the controller configured to input a charging and discharging profile into a trained machine learning model to identify that the charging and discharging profile for the at least one supercapacitor shares at least one attribute with an electrochemical battery profile associated with the at least one electrochemical battery.
Srinivasan discloses a battery model to input data to train the machine learning mode and thus determine one or more states of the battery.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention, to have modify Nakamura and upload data to a machine learning model as disclosed by Srinivasan, for the purpose of obtaining data profile related to the battery that is similar to the supercapacitor, for example.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Varigonda et al. (US 2022/0190629) discloses a hybrid energy storage system with an electrochemical battery and supercapacitors.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CARLOS AMAYA whose telephone number is (571)272-8941. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00AM-4:00PM.
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/CARLOS AMAYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836