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 .
This is the initial office action for US Patent Application No. 18/214743 by Goto et al.
Claims 1-8 are currently pending and have been fully considered.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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.
Claims 1, 2 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Routtenberg et al. (US 2004/0205032 A1), herein referred to as Routtenberg, in view of Nanba (US 2020/0331353 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Routtenberg teaches [0053, 0069, 0071, 0102, 0150 and 0158] a vehicle comprising a rechargeable battery (power storage device), a regenerative fuel cell including a PEM electrolyzer (water electrolysis device) and a fuel cell, and an electric motor drive train that consumes power generated by the fuel cell (motor generator configured to be driven using electric power of at least one of the power storage device and the fuel cell). Routtenberg further teaches [0083] the vehicle is capable of performing regenerative braking to produce electricity that can power the PEM electrolyzer to produce hydrogen fuel via electrolysis.
Routtenberg does not appear to explicitly teach the limitations of claim 1 including a driving wheel configured to be driven by the motor generator and a control device configured to perform regeneration control of generating regenerative electric power by the motor generator at a time of braking of the vehicle, wherein the control device is configured to supply the regenerative electric power to the water electrolysis device when an SOC of the power storage device is equal to or greater than a predetermined value at a time of performing the regeneration control.
However, from the same field of technology, Nanba discloses a fuel cell vehicle and a control method for a fuel cell vehicle.
In view of claim 1, Nanba teaches [0021 and 0033] a fuel cell vehicle that comprises a fuel cell system, an electric storage device, a drive motor and a control unit configured to control regenerative braking of the fuel cell vehicle so that the electric storage device is able to be charged sufficiently. Nanba further teaches [0030] the electric power stored in the electric storage device is able to be used to operate the drive motor, fuel cell auxiliary devices (an electrolyzer would be a known example to one of ordinary skill in the art) and other vehicle accessories (a steering/driving wheel would be a known example to one of ordinary skill in the art).
Therefore, at the time of the filing date of the instant application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the vehicle taught by Routtenberg to include the control system taught by Nanba in order to devise a vehicle that provided improved power generation during operation while also having greater control over power distribution within the vehicle.
In view of claim 2, the combination of Routtenberg and Nanba teaches (Nanba [0030]) fuel cell auxiliary devices (such as the hydrogen tank and oxygen tank) can be controlled by regulating the amount of power that is discharged from the electric storage device such that the supply amount of hydrogen and oxygen to the respective hydrogen and oxygen tanks is does not exceed the storage limitations of the respective tanks.
In view of claim 8, the combination of the combination of Routtenberg and Nanba teaches (Nanba [0030]) fuel cell auxiliary devices (such as a photovoltaic generation device) can be controlled by regulating the amount of power that is discharged from the electric storage device such that power generated by the photovoltaic generation device can be controlled and distributed more efficiently in the vehicle.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-7 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.
The prior art of record does not teach or suggest the limitations of claim 3 including the power storage device includes a lithium-ion battery; and the control device is configured to charge the power storage device by supplying the regenerative electric power to the power storage device in a range of a charging current and to supply a remaining regenerative electric power to the water electrolysis device when the SOC of the power storage device is less than the predetermined value, the range of the charging current being a range in which lithium is not deposited in the lithium-ion battery due to charging with the regenerative electric power, the remaining regenerative electric power being the regenerative electric power which is not supplied to the power storage device.
Claims 4-7 depend for claim 3 and are objected to concurrently.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEWART A FRASER whose telephone number is (571)270-5126. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 7am-4pm, EST.
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/STEWART A FRASER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1724