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 .
Status of Application
Claims 1-19 are pending and have been examined in this application. This communication is the first action on the merits. The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) filed on 03/09/2023 & 07/30/2024 has been 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7, 11-14 & 17-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Number 11,053,010 B2 to Bruno in view of US Patent Number 6,199,387 B1 to Sauterleute.
A) As per Claim 1, Bruno teaches an environmental control system (Bruno: Figure 1) for conditioning a cabin of a vehicle positioned in an enclosed air-evacuated environment, the environmental control system comprising:
a first inlet for receiving a first medium (Bruno: Figure 1, one of Item 22 or 24);
a second inlet for receiving a second medium (Bruno: Figure 1, other of Item 22 or 24);
a thermodynamic device (Bruno: Figure 1, one of Item 40 or 52) including at least one turbine (Bruno: Figure 1, Item 44 & 46 OR 54) operably with a shaft (Bruno: Figure 1, Item 50 OR 58); and
a first mixing point (Bruno: Figure 1, mixture point just upstream of Item 25) fluidly coupled to the second inlet and an outlet of the at least one turbine.
Bruno does not explicitly teach an electric generator coupled to the turbine by the shaft.
However, Sauterleute teaches an electric generator coupled to the turbine by the shaft (Sauterleute: Col. 6, lines 37-42).
At the time the invention was effectively filed, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the teachings of Bruno by adding an electric generator to the shaft, as taught by Sauterleute, with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. At the time the invention was effectively filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Bruno with these aforementioned teachings of Sauterleute with the motivation of extract excess energy in the form of electrical power to make the system more efficient.
B) As per Claim 2, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that the thermodynamic device is absent a compressor (Bruno: Figure 1, Item 52 does not have a compressor).
C) As per Claim 3, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that the at least one turbine further comprises a first turbine and a second turbine operably coupled by the shaft (Bruno: Figure 1, Items 44 & 46).
D) As per Claim 4, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that an outlet of the first turbine is fluidly coupled to an inlet of the second turbine such that the first turbine and the second turbine are arranged in series relative to a flow of the first medium (Bruno: Figure 1, Items 44 & 46).
E) As per Claim 5, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that the second medium is mixed with a medium output from a cooling system to form a third medium at a location upstream from the first mixing point (Bruno: Figure 1, mixing point downstream of Item V2).
F) As per Claim 7, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that the third medium is mixed with the first medium provided from an outlet of the at least one turbine at the first mixing point to form a fourth medium (Bruno: Figure 1, mixing point just upstream of Item 62 toward Item T1 and V2).
G) As per Claim 11, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that the vehicle is a train (The Examiner notes that the vehicle is not part of the ECS and therefore the ECS of Bruno must merely be capable of use in a train, which in this case it is).
H) As per Claim 12, Bruno teaches a method of operating an environmental control system (Bruno: Figure 1) to condition a cabin of a vehicle positioned in an enclosed, air-evacuated tube, the method comprising:
extracting energy from a first medium at at least one turbine of a thermodynamic device to form an expanded first medium (Bruno: Figure 1, Item 44);
extracting energy from the expanded first medium at the at least one turbine to form a further expanded first medium (Bruno: Figure 1, Item 46); and
forming a conditioned medium including the further expanded first medium and a second medium (Bruno: Figure 1, mix point just upstream of Item 25).
Bruno does not teach that the extracted energy from the turbines being used to generate power at a generator.
However, Sauterleute teaches extracted energy from the turbines being used to generate power at a generator (Sauterleute: Col. 6, lines 37-42).
At the time the invention was effectively filed, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the teachings of Bruno by adding an electric generator to the shaft, as taught by Sauterleute, with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. At the time the invention was effectively filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Bruno with these aforementioned teachings of Sauterleute with the motivation of extract excess energy in the form of electrical power to make the system more efficient.
I) As per Claim 13, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that the at least one turbine further comprises a first turbine and a second turbine and energy is extracted from the first medium at the first turbine to form the expanded first medium and energy is extracted from the expanded first medium at the second turbine to form the further expanded first medium (Bruno: Figure 1, Items 44 & 46).
J) As per Claim 14, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches that mixing the second medium and a medium from a cooling system to form a third medium (Bruno: Figure 1, mixing point downstream of Item V2).
K) As per Claim 17, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches providing a first portion of the conditioned medium to the cabin (Bruno: Figure 1, Item 25); and
providing a second portion of the conditioned medium to the cooling system (Bruno: Figure 1, air from Item V6; Col. 8, lines 57-59).
L) As per Claim 18, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches providing the second portion of the conditioned medium to the cooling system further comprises removing heat from the cooling system (Bruno: Figure 1, air from Item V6; Col. 8, lines 57-59).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bruno in view of Sauterleute as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of CN108583602A to Li.
A) As per Claim 10, Bruno in view of Sauterleute teaches all the limitations except at least one vessel of the first medium located on board the vehicle.
However, Li teaches at least one vessel of the first medium located on board the vehicle (Li: Figure 1, Item 20).
At the time the invention was effectively filed, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the teachings of Bruno in view of Sauterleute by having air tanks, as taught by Li, with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. At the time the invention was effectively filed, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Bruno in view of Sauterleute with these aforementioned teachings of Li with the motivation of providing an additional air source if needed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 8-9, 15-16 & 19 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 or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALLEN SCHULT whose telephone number is (571)272-8511. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-5PM.
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/Allen R. B. Schult/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3762