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 .
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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yunoue et al. (US 2013/0071212) in view of Takeo et al. (12,195,944).
Regarding claim 1, Yunoue discloses an electric work machine comprising:
an electric motor (18);
a battery unit (31) configured to store electric power for driving the electric motor;
an electric component (e.g., inverter 19) configured to be supplied with the electric power from the battery unit; and
a fan (30);
wherein the electric component (19), viewed from above (see Figs. 4 and 12), is positioned between the fan (30) and the battery unit (31),
the electric component (19) is positioned above the electric motor (18; see Figs. 3 and 12);
the first electric component (19), viewed from above, is positioned so as not to overlap the battery unit (31; see Fig. 12 showing the electric components 19 offset laterally from the battery).
Yunoue does not disclose that its electric component is comprised of two devices that convert electric power.
Takeo teaches another electric excavator including an inverter (18) that is comprised of two devices that convert electric power supplied from the battery into a predetermined power specification (inverter 18A and inverter 18B; see Fig. 3 and Col. 8, lines 25-27).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the present application to have modified the inverter of Ito with the multiple inverters as taught by Takeo to arrive at the claimed device with a reasonable expectation of success. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine them at least because doing so constitutes a simple substitution of one known element (an inverter formed from multiple inverters) for another (a single generic inverter) to obtain predictable results (e.g., easier to repair/replace smaller electrical components).
Regarding claim 2, Yunoue further discloses that the electric motor (18) is positioned on a side including the fan with respect to the battery unit (31; as shown in Fig. 4, fan is to the front and right side of the excavator while battery is more toward the left and the rear; the motor is located more forward and to the right).
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ito et al. (US 2025/0019929) in view of Takeo et al. (12,195,944) and Yunoue.
Regarding claim 20, Ito discloses an electric work machine, comprising:
an electric motor (91) configured to be driven by electric power supplied from a battery unit (90),
a hydraulic pump (P) configured to be driven by the electric motor thereby to discharge a hydraulic oil;
a first heat exchanger (94) configured to cool a refrigerant which passes through the electrical components (92);
a second heat exchanger (97) configured to cool the hydraulic oil and opposes a fan (FU see ¶0127 describing the composition of the fan FU which is formed from two smaller fans 94a, 97a, the composite fan FU reads upon a reasonably broad interpretation of the term “fan”) that has a rotary shaft (e.g., implicit to each of the fans 94a and 97a being a conventional fan is that that each fan has a rotary shaft that is along the direction of the fan’s airflow output, therefore the fan FU reads upon the term “has a rotary shaft”); and
an electric component (inverter 92) configured to receive the power supplied from the battery unit,
wherein the electric work machine is, as viewed from above (see Fig. 4), positioned so that the electric component (92) cooled by an air blown by the fan (FU) is displaced from the heat exchanger (97, see Figs. 7 and 9),
wherein an entirety of the fan (FU) is positioned above the entirety of the electric motor (91, see Figs. 9, 10, and 14 showing the entirety of the fan unit above the entirely of the motor), and
wherein the first heat exchanger (94) and the second heat exchanger (97), in a direction aligned with the rotary shaft (e.g., in the direction of the airflow), are displaced from each other (see e.g., Fig. 15).
Ito does not disclose that the first heat exchanger’s refrigerant passes through the battery or that the two heat exchangers are positioned displaced from each other in a direction aligned with the fan’s rotary shaft.
Takeo teaches another electric work vehicle uses a radiator (62) cooled refrigerant to cool a battery (19, see e.g., Fig 3 and Col. 20, lines 29-37) along with other electrical components (inverters 18, converter 44).
Yunoue teaches that an electric work machine having its oil cooler heat exchanger (22) and electronics cooling heat exchanger (23) overlapping a fan (30) and displaced from each other in a direction aligned with the rotary shaft the fan (see Figs. 4 and 15).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the present application to have modified the work vehicle of Ito to also cool the battery with the electrical cooling line as taught by Takeo and to arrange the electrical equipment radiator and oil cooler in a stacked arrangement as taught by Yunoue to arrive at the claimed device with a reasonable expectation of success. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine them at least because doing so constitutes applying known techniques (e.g., using liquid cooling of a battery in an electric vehicle; and arranging radiators to accommodate different packaging/footprint constraints) to known devices (e.g., electrically powered work vehicle’s having separate oil coolers and electric component liquid cooling) ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10-19 are allowed.
Claims 4-9 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.
The prior art does not disclose or fairly suggest (in combination with all the other recited elements and limitations) the recited intersection of the fan’s rotary shaft/axis with a first wall that holds the first electric component along with a second wall unit that is positioned along the rotary shaft/axis and holds the second electric components; nor that an electric work machines pair of heat exchangers for its battery and hydraulic oil are positioned relative to a fan, wherein a partition plate is positioned between the two heat exchangers and the battery with the partition plate positioned across a direction that the two heat exchangers are displaced from each other.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 and 20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. Independent claims 1 and 20 has been amended to include limitations that required additional searching and review of the prior art which teach the newly added structural arrangements. Particularly, claim 1 has been amended to recite that the electric components are both power conversion equipment. The Takeo secondary reference was introduced to teach that the inverter of an electric vehicle can be formed from separate inverters (which can share the same space 18) rather than a single inverter. Further, claim 20 has been amended to provide for two heat exchangers and that these heat exchangers overlap with a fan and are spaced along the direction of the fan. The examiner notes that the base Ito reference provides for a fan (FU) that has a rotary shaft, the fan (FU) opposes the oil cooler, and the two heat exchangers overlap the fan (FU). The secondary Takeo reference teaching that the battery of a work machine can also be cooled via the same refrigerant line as the rest of the electric components. The Yunoue reference teaching that the oil cooler and electric component radiator can be stacked serially to receive the cooling air from an overlapped fan.
Examiner notes that while the applicant likely intended to claim the single fan configuration to differentiate the instant invention from the Ito reference’s dual fan arrangement. As discussed in greater detail above, Ito still reads upon the current claimed fan language as the composite fan (FU) of Ito includes each of the recited structural relationships except for the shaft-aligned displacement of the heat exchangers. Lastly, even if the claims were interpreted to provide for only a single fan, both Takeo and Yunoue teach the use of single cooling fan to blow across the vehicle’s heat exchangers.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEVE CLEMMONS whose telephone number is (313)446-4842. The examiner can normally be reached on 8-4:30 EST Monday-Friday.
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/STEVE CLEMMONS/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3618
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