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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 5 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
With respect to claim 5, line 4, “the direct-current” lacks antecedent basis. It appears the limitations should be changed to recite –a direct-current--.
With respect to claim 8, all the instances of “the source electrode”, “the drain electrode”, and “the grid electrode” for each power tube lack antecedent bases. The first time an element is introduced for each element, it should be referred to as --a/an—and then thereafter can be referred back to with “the”. Appropriate correction is required.
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, 4, and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tang et al. [US 2018/0351398].
With respect to claim 1, Tang discloses a battery charging current control device [Fig. 2], comprising: an H-bridge circuit [par. 0014], the H-bridge circuit being respectively connected with an external power supply and a battery [“battery” and “external power supply”] and used for transmitting current from the external power supply to the battery for supplying power for the battery [i.e. the “charging/discharging” operation]; a sampling circuit, the sampling circuit being connected with the H-bridge circuit and used for collecting an output current and an output voltage of the H-bridge circuit to obtain a current analog signal and a voltage analog signal [voltage and current “sampling circuit”]; a control circuit, the control circuit being connected with the sampling circuit and used for generating a control signal according to the current analog signal, the voltage analog signal and the capacity of the battery [“control chip”; further note that a battery voltage is equated to a battery capacity]; and a pulse width modulation circuit, the pulse width modulation circuit being respectively connected with the control circuit and the H-bridge circuit and used for performing pulse width modulation on the H-bridge circuit according to the control signal to control an output current of the H-bridge circuit [par. 0017; “pwm drive signal”, see also par. 0038-0044].
With respect to claim 4, Tang further discloses a power supply circuit, the power supply circuit being respectively connected with the external power supply, the sampling circuit, the control circuit and the pulse width modulation circuit and used for supplying power for the sampling circuit, the control circuit and the pulse width modulation circuit [as depicted in Fig. 2 the circuitry component are connected to the power supply/controller].
With respect to claim 6, Tang further discloses wherein the control circuit is further used for providing a reference voltage [i.e. ground/earth]; and the sampling circuit comprises: a current sampling sub-circuit, the current sampling sub-circuit being respectively connected with the negative electrode at the output end of the H-bridge circuit and the control circuit and used for collecting the output current of the H-bridge circuit and determining the current analog signal based on the reference voltage and the output current [see “current sampling circuit” which is connected to all the phases/wires]; and the voltage sampling sub-circuit, the voltage sampling sub-circuit being respectively connected with the positive electrode at the output end of the H-bridge circuit and the control circuit and used for collecting the output voltage of the H-bridge circuit to obtain the voltage analog signal [see either “voltage sampling circuit” connect to both the plus/minus leads].
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) 2-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tang et al. [US 2018/0351398] as applied above, and further in view of Carroll [US 12,148,938].
With respect to claim 2, Tang further discloses wherein the control circuit is further used for converting the current analog signal into a current value and converting the voltage analog signal into a voltage value [i.e. via the sampling circuit] but fails to explicitly disclose a communication circuit, the communication circuit being connected with the control circuit and used for sending the current value and the voltage value to an upper computer to be displayed.
However, displaying known data (i.e. measure current/voltage) is well-known in the art. For example, Carroll relates to power systems and teaches that output power, voltage, and currents are sent/communicated to a computer for display [Figs. 15a-c, see also col. 11 lines 20-45].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant invention to communicate the signals to a display as taught by Carroll for the benefit allowing a user to quickly and easily ascertain the power levels of the battery/system.
With respect to claim 3, Tang as applied above fails to explicitly disclose wherein the communication circuit is an MAX13487 chip. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing date of the instant invention to modify Tang to use the MAX13487 chip since it has been held that replacing with a known component is within the level of ordinary skill in the art. For example, there are only a finite number of chips and using the known MAX13487 chip does not present undue experimentation and the specification fails to point out any unexpected outcomes from using that particular chip. The benefit would be to utilize a known economically available chip with safety features such as fail-safe receiving and thermal shutdown.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 7-10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if canceled and incorporated into independent claim 1 including all of the limitations of the base claim and the intervening claims. Also the 112 issues above would have to be corrected.
With respect to claim 5, the prior art of record does not suggest or disclose the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the claimed, “wherein the power supply circuit comprises: a rectifier filter sub-circuit, the rectifier filter sub-circuit being connected with the external power supply and used for rectifying and filtering the direct-current voltage of the external power supply to obtain a filter current; a square wave oscillation sub-circuit, the square wave oscillation sub-circuit being connected with the rectifier filter circuit and used for outputting a square wave signal according to the filter current; and a transformer voltage conversion sub-circuit, the transformer voltage conversion sub-circuit being respectively connected with the square wave oscillation sub-circuit, the sampling circuit, the control circuit and the pulse width modulation circuit and used for respectively supplying power for the sampling circuit, the control circuit and the pulse width modulation circuit based on the square wave signal.”
With respect to claim 7, the prior art of record does not suggest or disclose the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the claimed, “wherein the current sampling sub-circuit comprises: a sampling resistor, one end of the sampling resistor being connected with the negative electrode at the output end of the H-bridge circuit and the other end of the sampling resistor being grounded, and the sampling resistor being used for collecting the output current of the H-bridge circuit; and an inverting amplifier, the inverting input end of the inverting amplifier being connected between the sampling resistor and the negative electrode at the output end of the H-bridge circuit, and the non-inverting input end and the non-inverting output end of the inverting amplifier being both connected with the control circuit, and the inverting amplifier being used for amplifying the voltage on the sampling resistor based on the reference voltage to obtain the current analog signal.”
With respect to claim 8, the prior art of record does not suggest or disclose the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the claimed, “wherein the H-bridge circuit comprises a first power tube, a second power tube, a third power tube, a fourth power tube and an inductor; the inductor is respectively connected with the source electrode of the first power tube, the source electrode of the second power tube, the drain electrode of the third power tube and the drain electrode of the fourth power tube; the drain electrode of the first power tube, the drain electrode of the second power tube, the source electrode of the third power tube and the drain electrode of the fourth power tube are all connected with the external power supply; and the grid electrode of the first power tube, the grid electrode of the second power tube, the grid electrode of the third power tube and the grid electrode of the fourth power tube are all connected with the pulse width modulation circuit.”
Claims 9-10 depend from claim 8 and are allowed for the same reasons.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATHANIEL R PELTON whose telephone number is (571)270-1761. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am to 5pm.
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/NATHANIEL R PELTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859
/JULIAN D HUFFMAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2859