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 .
Applicant's election with traverse of Group I (claims 1-11) in the reply filed on 4/8/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the grounds that the amended claim limitation and the instructions are stored in non-transitory computer memory medium. This is not found persuasive because the restriction was based off of the claims before the applicants amendments and the instruction could be stored in RAM (random access memory), cache memory, secondary storage (hard drives or SSD) or ROM. Therefore, the examiner maintains the restriction.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claims 1, 3-5, 7 and 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Calt (CN 113013510 as cited within IDS, see attached translation).
As to claim 1, Calt discloses a method for performing a formation process on a plurality of battery cells (page 1 and throughout), the method comprising: establishing a series connection through each of the plurality of battery cells (page 1 and throughout, figure 1, the batteries are in series and the batteries are in parallel with the auxiliary power) and a cycling device (page 2, charging and discharging is cycling, discussed throughout); coupling a respective monitoring device of a plurality of monitoring devices to each battery cell of the plurality of battery cells (page 1, battery monitoring unit is used to monitor the formation parameters of the lithium battery cell, discussed throughout), wherein each monitoring device is configured to monitor performance of each respective coupled battery cell (page 3, the battery monitoring unit feeds the information to the MCU which monitors voltage, current, temperature… discussed throughout); charging or discharging each of the plurality of battery cells using the cycling device (page 1, discussed throughout); receiving a first indication from a first monitoring device that a first battery cell of the plurality of battery cells coupled to the first monitoring device has experienced a status change (page 3 and 4, temperature, current, voltage or fully charged and status changes, discussed throughout); and based on receiving the first indication, providing instructions for synchronously modifying the series connection through the first battery cell and modifying a voltage amplitude at the cycling device (pages 3-4, when fully charges stops charging, also uses auxiliary when voltage is low, discussed throughout).
As to claim 3, Calt discloses wherein, modifying the series connection through the first battery cell comprises shorting the series connection around the first battery cell without modifying the series connection through battery cells of the plurality of battery cells other than the first battery cell (page 4, the battery is being cut of when fully charged, discussed throughout).
As to claim 4, Calt discloses wherein, the voltage amplitude is modified to maintain a constant current through each of the plurality of battery cells other than the first battery cell before and after modifying the series connection through the first battery cell (page 2, uniform and consistent current and voltage, discussed throughout).
As toc alim 5, Calt discloses wherein, the status change comprises one of: the first battery cell fully charging or discharging; the first battery cell completing the formation process; or the first battery cell failing to meet a quality threshold (page 4, discussed throughout).
As to claim 7, Calt discloses further comprising: receiving an indication that formation is complete for the plurality of battery cells; and based at least in part on determining that formation is complete for the plurality of battery cells, automatically disconnecting the plurality of battery cells from the cycling device (page 4, if when one is fully charges then once all are fully charges, they would be disconnected).
As to claim 10, Calt discloses wherein, the cycling device is powered by a single power source to charge or discharge each of the plurality of battery cells (page 1, discussed throughout).
As to claim 11, Calt discloses further comprising: inserting a second battery cell into the series connection for charging, wherein the second battery cell is interleaved in the series connection adjacent to at least one discharging battery cell (page 4, when the battery are charging before full charges they are discharged thus, the claim limitation is meet).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 6, 8, 9 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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN R OHARA whose telephone number is (571)272-0728. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30 AM-3:30 PM EST M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Miriam Stagg can be reached at 571-270-5256. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BRIAN R OHARA/Examiner, Art Unit 1724
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