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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/14/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 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) 1-2, 4-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maji (WO2019141565A1) in view of Lee (US 2023/0246459).
Regarding claims 1 and 7-8, Maji teaches a battery pack control apparatus for controlling a method of extracting power from a battery pack (fig. 4, elements 14E, 14F, 14G, 14H) that is composed of a combination of a plurality of battery cells (page 16, lines 24-25; the supercapacitors can be replaced by any other type of capacitors or by batteries) and supplies high-voltage power (page 16, lines 27-28; 14E-14H are used for storing electrical energy and DC electric motor 12A is powered) to a vehicle (page 16, line 18; an electric car),
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the battery pack control apparatus comprising:
a plurality of selection switches (E3, E4, F3, F4, G3, G4, H3, H4) respectively connected to a lowest voltage node and a highest voltage node (positive and negative terminals) of each of a plurality of battery cell groups set for each successive predetermined number of battery cell among the plurality of battery cells (see fig. 4 above);
a battery selection control unit configured to control on and off of the plurality of selection switches (page 6, lines 5-6; able to receive control signals of the control unit) so as to select the battery cell group including the battery cell whose characteristic variation is large compared to those of other battery cells (page 7, lines 5-7, 18-21); and
a low-voltage output unit configured to use the battery cell group selected by the battery selection control unit to output low-voltage power with a voltage value lower than that of the high-voltage power (page 9, line 7-11; the low-voltage load of an electric car includes a lighting unit, an actuation unit, a user interface, a heating unit, cooling unit, or a temperature regulating unit…).
Maji fails to disclose each battery cell group comprise a plurality of battery cells.
Lee further discloses a battery apparatus includes a plurality of battery cell groups (fig. 4, elements G1 to G3), and each battery cell group includes a plurality of battery cells (C1 to C6).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Maji to incorporate with the teaching of Lee by including at least two battery cells in the battery group as suggested by Lee, because it would be advantageous to dissipate heat more efficiently and reduce the chance of systemic failure.
Regarding claim 2, Maji teaches the battery pack control apparatus further comprising:
a battery characteristic acquisition unit configured to acquire individual characteristic information of the plurality of battery cells (page 7, lines 5-7, 10-17; the control unit is configured to determine a state of charge of the energy storage units),
wherein the battery selection control unit is configured to determine the battery cell group to be selected based on the characteristic information acquired by the battery characteristic acquisition unit (page 7, lines 18-21, 33-34 and page 8, lines 1-2).
Regarding claim 4, Maji teaches wherein the battery selection control unit is configured to select, among the plurality of battery cells, the battery cell group including at least one of the battery cell with low degradation, the battery cell with a high state of charge (page 7, lines 33-34 and page 8, lines 1-2), and the battery cell with low-temperature startability.
Regarding claim 5, Maji teaches wherein the battery selection control unit is configured to determine the battery cell group to be selected according to a preset schedule (page 16, lines 10-11; the charging set and the discharging set can be discharged in time intervals) when there is no battery cell with low degradation, no battery cell with a high state of charge (page 7, lines 18-21; when energy storage units with a lower SOC can be preferred to be included into the charging set over energy storage units), or no battery cell with low-temperature startability among the plurality of battery cells.
Regarding claim 6, Maji teaches wherein the number of battery cells included in the battery cell group is configured such that a total value of output voltages of the battery cells when the battery cells included in one battery cell group are connected in series is a preset voltage value that is closest to a voltage value of the low-voltage power output by the low-voltage output unit (page 7, lines 5-7; the control unit can be configured to form the discharging set with a number of energy storage units such that the output voltage of the discharging set is above and as close as possible to the functional unit input voltage).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maji in view of Lee as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Ohta (US Pub 2016/0146901).
Regarding claim 3, Maji in view of Lee fails to teach wherein the battery selection control unit is configured to turn off the selection switch that has been turned on in response to receiving a notification from the vehicle that activation of a low-voltage system utilizing the low-voltage power has been completed.
However, Ohta further discloses wherein the battery selection control unit is configured to turn off the selection switch that has been turned on in response to receiving a notification from the vehicle that activation of a low-voltage system utilizing the low-voltage power has been completed (¶¶ 0148, 0176; when the contactor controller outputs a control signal for switching the pre-charge contactor to an open state, the travel/charge system of the EV is activated and the process of activating the EV is completed).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Maji in view of Lee to incorporate with the teaching of Ohta by turning off the pre-charge switch, because it would be advantageous to prevent internal components failure and further improve system efficiency.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZIXUAN ZHOU whose telephone number is (571)272-6739. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
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/ZIXUAN ZHOU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 11/12/2025