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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 05/18/2023 and 01/16/2024 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment
Acknowledgement is made of the preliminary amendment filed on 03/30/2023 in which claims 1-16 were amended. No claims were added or canceled, therefore claims 1-16 are pending for examination below.
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) 1-2, 7-8, and 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Jacobs [US 2019/0009756].
With respect to claims 1 and 7, Jacobs discloses a method, wherein the method comprises: obtaining a status of a first battery pack in a first mobile charging facility [par. 0066; i.e. fully charged determination; further note controllers/processors are equated to having memory with instructions to perform the functions]; in response to determining that the first battery pack is in a charging state or a fully charged state, obtaining a second state of energy sent by a second mobile charging facility, wherein the second mobile charging facility is charging a first vehicle, and the second state of energy is a state of energy of a second battery pack in the second mobile charging facility [par. 0067-0074; i.e. a replacement request identifies vehicle in need of replacement/charging/swap-out wherein the request includes being received from another autonomous vehicle]; and sending a first indication signal to the first mobile charging facility in response to at least that a first state of energy and the second state of energy meet a first preset condition, wherein the first indication signal indicates the first mobile charging facility to charge the first vehicle, and the first state of energy is a state of energy of the first battery pack in the charging state or the fully charged state [par. 0075-0077; i.e. autonomous battery determines whether an amount of charge remaining is within a recharge window and in response sending a replacement request, see also Figs 5-6].
With respect to claims 2, 8, and 14, Jacobs further discloses wherein the method further comprises: sending a second indication signal to the second mobile charging facility, wherein the second indication signal indicates the second mobile charging facility to return to be charged [Fig. 6; steps 610,612, and 614].
With respect to claim 13, Jacobs discloses an apparatus comprises at least one processor and at least one memory coupled to the at least one processor and storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processor to cause the apparatus to perform operation of obtaining a status of a first battery pack in a first mobile charging facility [par. 0066; i.e. fully charged determination; further note controllers/processors are equated to having memory with instructions to perform the functions]; in response to determining that the status of the third mobile charging facility is a return status after a charging task is executed, [Fig. 6; steps 610,612, and 614 where the autonomous vehicle is decouple and returned] in response to determining that a battery pack is in a charging state or a fully charged state, obtaining a second state of energy sent by a second mobile charging facility, wherein the second mobile charging facility is charging a first vehicle, and the second state of energy is a state of energy of a second battery pack in the second mobile charging facility and the third state of energy of a third battery pack of the third mobile charging facility in the return status [par. 0067-0074; i.e. a replacement request identifies vehicle in need of replacement/charging/swap-out wherein the request includes being received from another autonomous vehicle; further note there are a plurality of vehicles and autonomous chargers comprises first, second, third, etc. facilities]; and sending a fourth indication signal to the first mobile charging facility in response to at least that a first state of energy and the second state of energy meet a first preset condition, wherein the fourth indication signal indicates the first mobile charging facility to charge the first vehicle, and the first state of energy is a state of energy of the first battery pack in the charging state or the fully charged state [par. 0075-0077; i.e. autonomous battery determines whether an amount of charge remaining is within a recharge window and in response sending a replacement request, see also Figs 5-6; further note that a “fourth” signal in merely an identifier since the claim does not previously introduce all of first, second, third signals with the same reasoning applying to a “third mobile”, i.e. claim 13 is not dependent from claims 1 or 7].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6, 9-12, and 15-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if canceled and incorporated into their respective independent claims including all of the limitations of the base claim and the intervening claims.
With respect to claims 3, 9, and 15, 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 first preset condition comprises: a first ratio is greater than or equal to a first threshold; and the first ratio is a percentage of a difference between the first state of energy and the second state of energy in the first state of energy.”
Specifically, while ratios within a single battery are known, for example SOC determination, the above claim connects the ratio between states of two different batteries and sets the ratio as a threshold for determining when to send the indication signal (which determines when to send out another mobile charging facility to the vehicle).
Claims 4-6, 10-12, and 16 depend from the claims above and are objected to 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