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 .
The amendment filed on October 8, 2025 has been considered.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wan et al. (CN 107037311) in view of Liang et al. (CN 107607836).
Regarding claims 1, 19, and 20, Wan et al. discloses a method and apparatus (fault diagnosis of a transformer, Abstract) comprising
determining fault using a fault detection model for a power transformer type, the fault detection model executed by the processor (page 11, paragraph 6, lines 1-4);
determining the feature indicators of a given power transformer of the power transformer type (calculating fault characteristic reflected traveling waves during fault diagnosis of a transformer, Abstract);
determining whether the feature indicators in the transition region satisfy a fault
condition (fault diagnosis of a transformer, Abstract);
predicting an inter-turn short fault for the given power transformer in response to satisfying the fault condition (predicting turn-to-turn short circuit fault location based on turn-to-turn short circuit fault location, Abstract, lines 10-11) or the feature indicators being in the fault region; and
in response to predicting the inter-turn short fault, automatically mitigating the inter-turn short fault (prompting protective measures, Abstract, lines 11-12).
It is noted that predicting an inter-turn short fault for the given power transformer in response to the feature indicators being in the fault region is an alternative limitation since it is recited in the alternative form.
Wan et al. does not disclose generating, by use of a processor, a transition region that separates a health region and a fault region in a two-dimensional feature space of two feature indicators for a plurality of operation conditions.
Liang et al. discloses generating, by use of a processor (processor of network fault region locating method, Abstract), a transition region (failure transition area, Abstract, lines 7-8) that separates a health region (non-fault region, Abstract) and a fault region (fault area, Abstract) in a two-dimensional feature space of two feature indicators for a plurality of operation conditions (multidimensional data, e.g., time domain, frequency domain, Abstract) using a fault detection model (Abstract).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to provide Liang at al. with a transition region for separating a fault region from a health region as disclosed by Liang et al. for the purpose of distinctly defining a fault region for determining a fault.
Regarding claim 2, Laing et al. discloses determining a fault phase from a fault region of a fault localization map of the inter-turn short fault (the IEEE-57 system is provided with first phase or second phase or third phase fault short circuits for identifying test results, page 6, paragraph 3) and/or a fault severity of the inter-turn short fault as a distance from a health region.
It is noted that determining a fault severity of the inter-turn short fault as a distance from a health region is an alternative limitation since it is recited in the alternative form.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wan et al. in view of Liang et al. as applied to claim 1, and further in view of Li et al. (CN 115758247).
Regarding claim 3, Wan et al. as modified by Liang et al. discloses the claimed limitations as discussed above, except the fault detection model is generated from training data comprising the feature indicators.
Li et al. discloses a fault detection model (Abstract, line 11) is generated from training data comprising the feature indicators (multidimensional data, Abstract, lines 4-11).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed provide Wan et al. as modified with training data comprising the feature indicators as disclosed by Li et al. for the purpose of training the fault detection model.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-18 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.
Reasons For Allowance
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The combination as claimed wherein a method comprising the transition region is based on a Mahalanobis distance from a distribution of healthy feature indicators (claim 4) or the health region, the transition region, and the fault region as half planes bounded by sloped lines defined from a distribution of healthy feature indicators (claim 14) is not disclosed, suggested, or made obvious by the prior art of record.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on October 8, 2025 have been fully considered.
Applicant’s arguments and amendments with respect to the drawing objections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The drawing objections have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments and amendments with respect to the rejections under 35 USC 112(b) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections under 35 USC 112(b) have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments and amendments with respect to the rejections under 35 USC 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections under 35 USC 101 have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments and amendments with respect to the rejections under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejections under 35 USC 103 have been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of Wan et al., as discussed above.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael Nghiem whose telephone number is (571) 272-2277. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Schechter can be reached at (571) 272-2302. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/MICHAEL P NGHIEM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857 January 11, 2026