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 Status
Claims 18-35 are currently pending and are presented for examination on the merits.
Priority
Applicant's claim for the benefit of foreign patent application EP21187918, filed 7/27/2021, under 35 U.S.C. 119(a-d) is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 1/26/2024 was filed before the filing of a first office action on the merits. As such, the submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Objections
Specification
The following guidelines illustrate the preferred layout for the specification of a utility application. These guidelines are suggested for the applicant’s use.
Arrangement of the Specification
As provided in 37 CFR 1.77(b), the specification of a utility application should include the specified sections (where applicable) in order. Each of the lettered items should appear in upper case, without underlining or bold type, as a section heading, including . . .
(b) CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS.
. . .
(f) BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION.
(1) Technical Field
(2) Description of Related Art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98 (or “Background Art”)
(g) BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION.
(h) BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING(S).
(i) DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION.
Id. (emphasis added).
The background and summary is longer than the detailed description of the drawings). Please rename the latter “Detail Description of The Invention.” Please separate what is background under a section entitled “Background of The Invention,” delete the title “and Summary” and move the rest of that section to the Detail Description of the Invention, thereby moving the Brief Description of The Drawing section up. No new matter may be added.
Each application (whether pending, patented or abandoned) should be included in a Cross Reference to Related Applications, at the beginning of the specification, needs to be identified by the appropriate application number (consisting of the series code and serial number) or international application number. See 37 CFR 1.78(a)(2)(i).
Claim Objections
Claim 31 is objected to, because “at least one of at least the at least one energy input switching unit . . .” is unnecessarily unclear. Please change to “said at least one energy input switching unit . . .”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 18-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101, because they recite non-patentable subject matter under MPEP § 2106, e.g., the 2019 PEG, October update. More particularly, the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (e.g., an abstract idea, etc.) without practical application or significantly more.
More particularly, when considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101, it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract idea), and if so, it must additionally be determined whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception. If an abstract idea is present in the claim, any element or combination of elements in the claim must be sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Broad categories of abstract ideas include fundamental economic practices, certain methods of organizing human activities, an idea itself, and mathematical relationships/formulas. See, generally, MPEP § 2106; Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., 573 U.S. __ (2014) (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc.,132 S. Ct. 1289, 1294, 1297-98 (2012)); Federal Register notice titled 2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility (79 FR 74618), which is found at: http:// www. gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-12-16/pdf/2014-29414.pdf; 2015 Update to the Interim Guidance; the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, Fed. Reg., Vol. 84, No. 4, January 7, 2019; and associated Office memoranda.
Under MPEP § 2106, Step 1, the claimed invention, taking the broadest reasonable interpretation, recites a process (i.e., a method), machine (e.g., apparatus, system, etc.), article of manufacture (e.g., a non-transitory computer readable medium) or composition of matter, and as such, is patent eligible.
Under MPEP § 2106, Step 2a-prong 1, Claims 18-35 recite a judicial exception(s), including a method of organizing human activity (e.g. fundamental economic principle). More particularly, the entirety of the method steps is directed towards selectively disconnecting an energy supply line (of a vehicle) from an energy storage unit. This is a long-standing commercial practice previously performed by humans (e.g., electrical vehicle consumers, electricians, etc.) manually and via generic computing. As such, the inventions include an abstract idea under § 2106, and Alice Corporation.
Under step 2a-prong 2, the claims fail to recite a practical application of the exception, because the extraneous limitations (e.g., the structure—a module, at least one energy output terminal, at least one energy storage unit, at least one output energy supply line, at least one energy storage switching unit, etc.) merely add insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception (MPEP 2106.05(g), generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (MPEP 2106.05(h)) and/or generally instruct an artisan to apply it (the method) across generic computing technology (wherein the switch is a digital switch).
A claim does not cease to be abstract for section 101 purposes simply because the claim confines the abstract idea to a particular technological environment in order to effectuate a real-world benefit. See Alice, 573 U.S. at 222; BSG Tech LLC v. BuySeasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281, 1287 (Fed. Cir. 2018); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2014). That is to say, the claims are not directed to a new software or computer, but rather employs pre-existing software to do what’s been previously done, albeit less efficiently or slower. “[I]t is not enough, however, to merely improve a fundamental practice or abstract process by invoking a computer merely as a tool.” Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Network Corp., 951 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (citations omitted). More particularly, the claims fail to recite an improvement to the functioning of a computer or technology (under MPEP § 2106.05(a)), the use of a particular machine (under § 2106.05(b)), effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article (§ 2106.05(c)), or apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment (§ 2106.05(e)).
Under part 2b, the additional elements offered by the dependent claims either further delineate the abstract idea, add further abstract idea(s), adds insignificant extra-solution activity, or further instruct the artisan to apply it (the abstract idea(s)) across generic computing technology. The claims as a whole, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. This is because no one claim effects an improvement to another technology or technical field, an improvement to the functioning of a computer itself, or move beyond a general link of the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Viewing the limitations as an ordered combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. Under Alice, merely applying structure or executing the abstract idea on one or more generic computer system (e.g., a computer system comprising a generic database; a generic element (NIC) for providing website access, etc.; a generic element for receiving user input; and a generic display on the computer, in any of their forms) to carry out the abstract idea more efficiently fails to cure patent ineligibility. See, e.g., Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1347 (claims reciting a “scanner” are nevertheless directed to an abstract idea); Mortg. Grader, Inc. v. First Choice Loan Serv. Inc., 811 F.3d 1314, 1324–25 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (claims reciting an “interface,” “network,” and a “database” are nevertheless directed to an abstract idea). Moreover, merely reciting steps that can be performed in the human mind is not patent eligible (see, e.g., Classen Immunotherapies, Inc. v. Biogen IDEC, 659 F.3d 1057, 1067 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (collecting and comparing data are mental steps); Braemar Mfg. LLC v. ScottCare Corp., 816 F. App’x 465, 470 (“Claims that “merely collect, classify, or otherwise filter data” are ineligible for patent under § 101.”); CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1372-72 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (comparing a collected list of credit card numbers to transactions to identify different cards and user names used from the same IP address to detect fraud can be performed entirely in the human mind including the logical reasoning.)) “The requirements that the machine learning model be “iteratively trained’ or dynamically adjusted in Machine Learning Training patents do[es] not represent a technological improvement.” Recentive Analytics, 134 F 4th at 1212. Claim language reciting the machine learning model at a high level of generality without any specificity of how the machine learning model is trained or processes the data. The machine learning model is merely used as a tool to implement the abstract idea. Id. at 1213 (claims recite ineligible subject matter where “the only thing the claims disclose about the use of machine learning is that machine learning is used in a new environment”).
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.
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 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.
Claims 18-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 2020/0298722 to Smolenaers.
With respect to Claim 18, Smolen teaches an energy supply module for a vehicle (Abstract, “onboard charging system of an electric vehicle”), comprising: at least one energy output terminal (FIG. 2A, from 58); at least one energy storage unit (FIG. 2A, 3); at least one output energy supply line to connect the at least one energy storage unit to the at least one energy output terminal (FIG. 2A); and at least one energy storage switching unit arranged in or connected to the output energy supply line between the at least one energy storage unit and the at least one energy output terminal ([0065];FIG. 2A, 75 (90,92), 64, 48) and configured to at least disconnect the at least one energy storage unit from the at least one energy output terminal ([0065];FIG. 2A, 75, 64, 48).
With respect to Claim 19, Smolen teaches wherein the at least one energy storage switching unit is located closer to the at least one energy storage unit than to the at least one energy output terminal (FIG. 2A, 48).
With respect to Claim 20, Smolen teaches at least one energy output switching unit (FIG. 2A) arranged in or connected to the at least one output energy supply line between the at least one energy storage switching unit and the at least one energy output terminal (FIG. 2A) and configured to at least disconnect the at least one energy output terminal from the at least one energy storage unit (FIG. 2A).
With respect to Claim 21, Smolen teaches wherein the at least one energy output switching unit is located closer to the at least one energy output terminal than to the at least one energy storage switching unit (FIG. 2A, 75).
With respect to Claim 22, Smolen teaches at least one energy input terminal (FIG. 2A: 13, 14) and at least one input energy supply line to connect the at least one energy storage unit to the at least one energy input terminal (FIG. 2A).
With respect to Claim 23, Smolen teaches wherein the at least one input energy supply line is connected to the at least one output energy supply line (FIG. 2A).
With respect to Claim 24, Smolen teaches at least one charge management unit ([0065]; FIG. 2A: 17,20) for the at least one energy storage unit arranged in or connected to the input energy supply line between the at least one energy input terminal and the at least one energy storage unit (FIG. 2A).
With respect to Claim 25, Smolen teaches wherein the at least one charge management unit comprises or is configured as a converter unit. [0070]
With respect to Claim 26, Smolen teaches wherein the converter unit is a DC/DC converter unit ([0070]).
With respect to Claim 27, Smolen teaches at least one energy input switching unit (FIG. 2A: 75, 64) arranged in or connected to the at least one input energy supply line between the at least one energy input terminal and the at least one energy storage switching unit (FIG. 2A: 48) and configured to at least disconnect the at least one charge management unit, the at least one energy storage unit and/or the output energy supply line from the energy input terminal (FIG. 2A).
With respect to Claim 28, Smolen teaches wherein the at least one energy input switching unit, the at least one energy output switching unit and/or the at least one energy storage switching unit is/are configured to also connect the respective one of the at least one charge management unit, the at least one energy storage unit and/or the output energy supply line to the energy input terminal (FIG. 2A), the at least one energy output terminal to the at least one energy storage unit and/or the at least one energy storage unit to the at least one energy output terminal, respectively (FIG. 2A).
With respect to Claim 29, Smolen teaches wherein at least one of the at least one energy input switching unit and the at least one energy storage switching unit comprises or is configured as a normally open switch ([0066]; FIG. 2A).
With respect to Claim 30, Smolen teaches wherein the at least one energy storage switching unit comprises or is configured as a normally closed switch. [0081]
With respect to Claim 32, Smolen teaches wherein at least one of at least the at least one energy input switching unit, the at least one energy output switching unit and the at least one energy storage switching unit comprises at least one switch and at least one fuse. [0130]
With respect to Claim 33, Smolen teaches an enclosure having the at least one energy output terminal or the at least one energy output terminal and the at least one energy input terminal, as an interface for the at least one energy storage unit enclosed by the enclosure. (FIGS. 1, 2A)
With respect to Claim 34, Smolen teaches at least one energy supply module according to claim 18, wherein the energy supply management system comprises at least one consumer unit configured to be connectable to the at least one energy output terminal of the at least one energy supply module. (FIGS. 1, 2A)
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
a. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
b. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
c. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
d. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a), the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(c) and potential pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a).
Claim 31 is rejected under § 103, as being unpatentable over Smolenaers, in view of US 2024/0326600 to Koehler.
With respect to Claim 31, Smolen fails to expressly teach, but Koehler teaches wherein at least one of at least the at least one energy input switching unit, the at least one energy output switching unit and the at least one energy storage switching unit comprises or is configured as a smart switch. [0004];[0048] Koehler discusses the desire to increase reliability and availability of power supplies. [0003-06]. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Smolen, to include smart switches, in order to increase reliability and availability in the power supply.
Claim 35 is rejected under § 103, as being unpatentable over Smolenaers, alone.
With respect to Claim 35, Smolen teaches wherein the energy supply management system comprises at least two energy supply modules, and the consumer unit comprises at least two consumers each of which is configured to be connectable to one of the at least two energy supply modules. In so far as Claim 35 recites a plurality of energy supply modules and consumer units connectable thereto, it is noted that mere redundancy, duplicity, or repetition of existing structure or steps has been deemed obvious under § 103 analysis. St. Regis Paper Co. v. Bemis Co., 193 USPQ 8. See also, MPEP § 2144.05 which states: In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669, 124 USPQ 378 (CCPA 1960) As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Smolen to include these limitations, because it merely recites duplicity of structure.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM J JACOB whose telephone number is (571)270-3082. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00-5:00, alternating Fri. off.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Gart can be reached on 5712723955. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WILLIAM J JACOB/ Examiner, Art Unit 3696
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