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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-10 in the reply filed on 03/17/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 11-12 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 03/17/2026.
Claims 1-10 are now pending in the application for prosecution in a first action on the merits.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 10/03/2024 has been considered and placed of record. An initialed copy is attached herewith.
Claim Objections
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities: In claim 4, the expressions “Creal-time., C0, C0 x 80% and Vactivation” are offset from the lines and must be aligned with the remaining of the sentences.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Fuji et al., (Fuji) US 2012/0212186 A1.
Regarding claim 1: Fuji at least discloses and shows in Figs. 2-4: A method for recovering activity of a battery(10/(10a…10n)([0009]-[0010][0063])(see Fig. 1), comprising: obtaining a battery state-of-health value(as detected in step S1 in Fig. 3 by controller 22; see [0048],[0064]) of the battery during a charging process(note- the charging apparatus includes a charging device 21 serving as a part of the battery capacity recovering unit or charging unit, a charging controller 22 including therein a remaining part of the battery capacity recovering unit as a logic, and an ammeter 24. The combination of the controller 22 and the charging device 21 exhibits the effect of the battery capacity recovering unit; see [0045],[0063]); in response to the battery state-of-health value(construed as battery capacity determined in step S2 of Fig. 3) being less than or equal to a first preset threshold(VTH)(see Step S2 in Fig. 3), applying an activation voltage(construed as the charging voltage that is greater than normal preset value; see step S3 in Fig. 3; see [0039]-[0040]) to the battery(10), such that lithium ions at a lithium supplement agent(construed as oxidizable agent; see Fig. 4) of the battery(10) are released to an electrolyte solution([0027]-[0028],[0074]-[0076]), wherein the activation voltage is higher than a normal charging voltage of the battery(see step S3 of Fig. 3; see [0039]-[0040]); and in response to the battery state-of-health value(value of determined battery capacity) increasing to be greater than or equal to a second preset threshold(NO at step S2 and performing step S5 in Fig. 3, stopping application of the activation voltage, and continuing a normal charge-discharge cycle(see step S5, Fig. 3; [0066]).
Regarding claim 2, Fuji discloses all the claimed invention as set forth and discussed above in claim 1. Fuji further discloses, wherein the lithium supplement agent is at a positive electrode of the battery((construed as oxidizable agent; see Fig. 4; [0026],[0032]).
Regarding claim 3, Fuji discloses all the claimed invention as set forth and discussed above in claim 1. Fuji further discloses, wherein the battery state-of-health value is selected from at least one of following parameters: a battery capacity(as detected in step S1 in Fig. 3 by controller 22; see [0045],[0048],[0064]), a remaining capacity, an energy density, a power density, an electromotive force, an open-circuit voltage, an operating voltage, an end-of-discharge voltage, and an operating current.
Regarding claim 8, Fuji discloses all the claimed invention as set forth and discussed above in claim 1. Fuji further discloses, wherein the normal charging voltage and the activation voltage are applied using a same charging device(21)([0066]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fuji et al., (Fuji) US 2012/0212186 A1 in view of Bulur et al., (Bulur) USPAT 9,557,387
Regarding claim 9, Fuji discloses all the claimed invention as set forth and discussed above in claim 1. Fuji does not expressly disclose, non-transitory readable storage medium storing a computer program that, when executed, causes the battery activation method of claim 1 to be performed.
Bulur teaches factual evidence of, a controller(104) embodying a non-transitory readable storage medium storing a computer program that, when executed, causes the battery activation method of claim 1 to be performed(col. 4, lines 18-38; col. 10, lines 42-49)
Fuji and Bulur are battery applications analogous art. Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to avail of the teachings of Bulur by having the controller of Fuji having embodied a non-transitory readable storage medium storing a computer program that, when executed, causes the battery activation method of claim 1 to be performed, as recited, in order to improve cell maintenance in a multi-cell battery while providing accurate battery pack testing since such accuracy is crucial to indicate the health of a battery pack and predict life performance of the battery.
Accordingly claim 1 would have been obvious.
Claim(s) 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fuji et al., (Fuji) US 2012/0212186 A1 in view of Bulur et al., (Bulur) USPAT 9,557,387 and in further view of Joe et al., (Joe) USPAT 10,283,819
Regarding claim 10, Fuji in view of Bulur discloses all the claimed invention as set forth and discussed above in claim 9 but fail to expressly states the limitations of, wherein the computer program is a battery management system program.
Joe teaches factual evidence of, wherein the computer program is a battery management system program (note-control unit may be a battery management system (BMS) which may be electrically coupled to a secondary battery, or a control element included in the BMS. The sensor 120 and the control unit 130 configure a battery management system (BMS), and the BMS may be included in the secondary battery managing apparatus 100; see col. 35, lines 6-24; col. 38, lines 39-41).
Fuji, Bulur and Joe are battery systems analogous art. Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have included in the method of Fuji as modified by Bulur, wherein the computer program is a battery management system program, as recited, since it was known in the art that control unit may selectively include processors well known in the art, ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), other chipsets, logic circuits, registers, communication modems, data processing devices or the like in order to execute various control logics and furthermore, Joe discloses that the control unit may be a battery management system (BMS) which may be electrically coupled to a secondary battery, or a control element included in the battery management system (BMS). It would have been to modify Fuji in view of Bulur with Joe to minimize the number of parts and lower the manufacturing cost by integrating the control unit and its computer program in a battery management system program as a single module.
Accordingly claim 10 would have been obvious.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 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.
Regarding claim 4, although Fuji discusses([0066],[0068]) the activation voltage being applied to the battery in response to the remaining capacity being lower than a threshold and Fuji further discusses repeating the operations of returning to the normal charging if the detected capacity is greater than a threshold and repeating the steps, Fuji does not expressly teach, inter alia, wherein the activation voltage is applied to the battery in response to decreasing to be lower than or equal to C0×80%; after the first charge-discharge operation, the activation voltage is not applied to the battery, and subsequent second to Nth charge-discharge operations are performed directly, wherein N is an integer from 2 to 500,000, and the second to Nth charge-discharge operations are performed at the normal charging voltage; and during the second to Nth charge-discharge operations, each time in response to Creal-time becoming lower than C0×80%, the activation voltage Vactivation is applied to the battery for activity recovery, and in response to the battery state-of-health value increasing to be greater than or equal to the second preset threshold, the activation voltage is returned to the normal charging voltage, and the charge-discharge operations are continued, as recited.
Claims 5-7 depend either directly or indirectly from claim 1 and therefore are also allowable for the same reasons.
Citation of Prior art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
USPAT 9,106,090 B2 to Taniyama et al., (Taniyama) discloses a method for recovering capacity of lithium ion battery.
USPAT 8,765,306 to Amiruddin et al., (Amiruddin) discloses a high voltage battery formation protocols and control of charging and discharging for desirable long term cycling performance.
USPAT 8,663,825 B2 to Miller et al., (Miller) discloses an end of life indication system and method for non-aqueous cell having amorphous or semi-crystalline copper manganese oxide cathode material.
USPAT 6,469,512 B2 to Singh et al., (Singh) discloses a system and method for accurate and in real time determination of factors relating to battery state-of-health.
EP 2573859 B1 to Takahashi et al., (Takahashi) discloses the general state of the art regarding a device and method for calculating a value of a rechargeable battery.
Conclusion
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M'BAYE DIAO
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2859
/M BAYE DIAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 April 14, 2026
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