DETAILED ACTION
This non-final rejection is responsive to the RCE filed 06 March 2026. Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1 and 15 are independent claims. Claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 11, 13-15, 19, and 20 are amended.
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 .
Response to Remarks
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. 103Applicant’s prior art arguments have been fully considered but they are partially persuasive.
Applicant argues that Chen and Brey do not teach the newly amended claim 1. In particular, they do not teach a plurality of load device and also a plurality of flow control valves.
However, upon further examination of Chen, ¶[0050] further teaches a plurality of load devices. Examiner agrees that that the newly amended independent claims necessitate new grounds of rejection. Accordingly, Tachibana is introduced.
Applicant further argues that Tachibana fails to teach the last three limitations of claim 1. However, most of the functionality is taught by the other references, Chen and Brey. Tachibana is only used to teach the additional functionality of the plurality of flow control valves. In particular, Chen does teach control flow rates via a valve. Brey further teaches a control device and controlling the flow rate based on power consumption. Lastly, Tachibana is used to show plurality of valves which may be adjusted to control the flow rates of coolant.
Applicant also notes that Tachiaban teaches that the valves and the abnormal electronic unit located in the abnormal route will be shutdown when the temperature of the electronic unit becomes abnormal; and thus, a person of ordinary skill in the art cannot combine the teaching of Chen and Brey with the valves taught in Tachibana. However, the temperature regulation in Tachibana does not pertain to the functionality recited in the claims.
The foregoing applies to all independent claims and their dependent claims.
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 1-3, 8-13, 15-17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen (US 2022/0248570 A1) hereinafter known as Chen in view of Brey (US 2013/0073096 A1) hereinafter known as Brey in view of Tachibana (US 2022/0117117 A1) hereinafter known as Tachibana.
Regarding independent claim 1, Chen teaches:
A liquid cooling cabinet equipment, comprising: a plurality of load devices; (Chen: Fig. 7 (740) and ¶[0034]; Chen teaches a server device. ¶[0050] further teaches that element 740 may refer to a plurality of server devices 740.)
...
a liquid cooling system, comprising: a liquid storage tank configured to store a coolant; (Chen: Fig. 7 (132) and ¶[0034]; Chen teaches a liquid storage unit.)
a primary fluid loop pipeline connected to an external cooling device; (Chen: Fig. 7 and ¶[0034]; Chen teaches an internal circulation path communicating with the cooling tower 730.)
a secondary fluid loop pipeline communicating with the liquid storage tank and being in thermal contact with the plurality of load devices; (Chen: Fig. 7 and ¶[0034]; Chen teaches an external circulation path which communicates with the liquid storage unit 132 and devices 740.)
a heat exchanger, a primary side of the heat exchanger communicating with the primary fluid loop pipeline, and a secondary side of the heat exchanger communicating with the secondary fluid loop pipeline; (Chen: Fig. 7 (131) and ¶[0034]; Chen teaches a heat exchanger 131 which communicates with both circulation paths.)
a circulation motor configured to drive the coolant in the liquid storage tank to circulate in the secondary fluid loop pipeline, wherein after exchanging heat with the plurality of load devices, the coolant in the secondary fluid loop pipeline exchanges heat with another coolant in the primary fluid loop pipeline through the heat exchanger; (Chen: Fig. 7 (140) and ¶[0034]-¶[0036] and ¶[0048]; Chen teaches a fluid driving module 140 that transports the fluid. The heat exchange 131 provides a heat exchange area for the low temperature working fluid from the internal circulation path and the high temperature working fluid from the external circulation path.)
...
a power sensor configured to sense an output power provided by the power supply device to the plurality of load devices; and (Chen: ¶[0030]; Chen teaches a control module 110 which controls the power supply module 120 to output a corresponding electrical power.)
...
Chen does not explicitly teach but Brey teaches:
a power supply device configured to supply power to the plurality of load devices; and (Brey: Fig. 5 and ¶[0041]; Brey teaches monitoring power of a device and increasing the flow rate based on the power consumption by communicating with the cooling rate selector. Brey: Fig. 1 and ¶[0016]; Brey teaches heat-generating components which may be multiple servers. Fig. 2 and ¶[0030] teaches that each server has each own power supply. Fig. 5 and ¶[0041] further teach monitoring multiple components. ¶[0025] teaches monitoring the power supply to the motherboard, instead of each individual component.)
a control device connected to the circulation motor ..., and comprising a processor to receive power load information from the power sensor, and control a rotation speed of the circulation motor ... based on the power load information to adjust a flow of the coolant in the secondary fluid loop pipeline, wherein the power load information comprises the output power. (Brey: Fig. 5 and ¶[0041]; Brey teaches monitoring power of a device and increasing the flow rate based on the power consumption by communicating with the cooling rate selector. Fig. 2 and ¶[0025] and ¶[0030] further teach that the power supply, as described in Fig. 5 and ¶[0041], provides power to the CPU or the motherboard or other components. Accordingly, Brey teaches determining the power supply output and controlling the flow of the coolant, based on the output.)
Chen and Brey are in the same field of endeavor as the present invention, as the references are directed to modulating the flow rate of a liquid cooling system. It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person of ordinary skill in the art, to combine a liquid cooling system that modulates the flow rate of a cooling liquid as taught in Chen with modulating in response to power consumption of a device as taught in Brey. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Chen to include teachings of Brey, because the combination would allow to manage overheating, as suggested by Brey: ¶[0015].
Chen in view of Brey does not explicitly teach but Tachibana teaches:
a plurality of flow control valves coupled to the plurality of load devices respectively; (Tachibana: Fig. 1 and ¶[0031]; Tachibana teaches a plurality of valves for adjusting the flow rates of coolant to each electronic unit.)
... and each flow control valve ... (Tachibana: Fig. 1 and ¶[0031]; Tachibana teaches a plurality of valves for adjusting the flow rates of coolant to each electronic unit.)
Tachibana is in the same field of endeavor as the present invention, since it is directed to modulating the flow rate of a liquid cooling system. It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person of ordinary skill in the art, to combine a liquid cooling system that modulates the flow rate of a cooling liquid to multiple devices as taught in Chen in view of Brey with the devices having their own corresponding valves as taught in Tachibana. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Chen and Brey to include teachings of Tachibana, because the combination would allow to efficiently manage the cooling.
Regarding claim 2, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Brey further teaches:
wherein the control device is further configured to control the rotation speed of the circulation motor based on the power load information and a look-up table. (Brey: Fig. 3 and ¶[0034]; Brey teaches controlling the flow rate speed based on power consumption and a cooling response chart 66.)
Regarding claim 3, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Brey further teaches:
wherein the control device is further configured to control the rotation speed of the circulation motor based on the power load information, and a rotation speed upper limit value and a rotation speed lower limit value of the circulation motor. (Brey: Fig. 3 and ¶[0034]; Brey teaches controlling the flow rate speed based on power consumption and a cooling response chart 66, which defines upper and lower limits.)
Regarding claim 8, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Brey further teaches:
wherein, the power sensor transmits the power load information to the control device through a wired transmission interface and/or a wireless transmission interface. (Brey: Figs. 1 and 5 and ¶[0041] and ¶[0045]; Brey teaches monitoring power of a device and increasing the flow rate based on the power consumption by communicating with the power sensor and the cooling rate selector.)
Regarding claim 9, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Brey further teaches:
wherein the power sensor is integrated into the power supply device. (Brey: Figs. 1 and 5 and ¶[0041] and ¶[0045]; Brey teaches the power sensor being integrate into the power-based cooling control circuit.)
Regarding claim 10, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Brey further teaches:
wherein the power sensor is further configured to periodically transmit the power load information to the control device, and the control device is further configured to determine whether a variation of the output power is greater than a threshold; when the control device determines that the variation of the output power is greater than the threshold, the control device performs calculation based on the variation of the output power to obtain a flow compensation value, and controls the rotation speed of the circulation motor based on the flow compensation value. (Brey: Fig. 3 and ¶[0031]-¶[0033]; Brey teaches the value of the ITE power consumption trend as a moving average over a target time and changing the flow rate accordingly. Since the variation in the cooling response is based on percentages, the foregoing is interpreted as thresholds.)
Regarding claim 11, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Brey further teaches:
wherein the power sensor is configured to obtain the output power based on a supply voltage and/or a supply current provided by the power supply device to the plurality of load devices. (Brey: Fig. 3 and ¶[0031]-¶[0033]; Brey teaches determining the wattage, which is calculated through the determination of voltage and current.)
Regarding claim 12, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Chen further teaches:
wherein the liquid cooling system further comprises a liquid temperature sensor, and the liquid temperature sensor is configured to sense a temperature of the coolant flowing into the heat exchanger in the secondary fluid loop pipeline to output liquid temperature information to the control device, so that the control device controls the rotation speed of the circulation motor based on the power load information and the liquid temperature information. (Chen: ¶[0050]; Chen teaches sensing the temperature of the fluid and adjusting the pump speed.)
Regarding claim 13, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Chen further teaches:
wherein the liquid cooling system further comprises a plurality of load temperature sensors, and the plurality of load temperature sensors are configured to sense temperatures of the plurality of load devices to output load temperature information to the control device, so that the control device controls the rotation speed of the circulation motor based on the power load information and the load temperature information. (Chen: Fig. 7 and ¶[0051]; Chen teaches a temperature sensor 742 of the server devices, which is used to adjust the fluid driving module.)
Regarding claims 15-17 and 19, these claims recite a method that performs the function of the liquid cooling cabinet equipment of claims 1-3 and 10; therefore, the same rationale for rejection applies.
Claims 4 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana in view of Heydari (US 2022/0117121 A1) hereinafter known as Heydari.
Regarding claim 4, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Brey further teaches:
... the power sensor is further configured to sense a total output power provided by the power supply device to the load devices, and the power load information comprises the total output power. (Brey: Fig. 1 and ¶[0016]; Brey teaches heat-generating components which may be multiple servers. Fig. 2 and ¶[0030] teaches that each server has each own power supply. Fig. 5 and ¶[0041] further teach monitoring multiple components. ¶[0025] teaches monitoring the power supply to the motherboard, instead of each individual component.)
Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana does not explicitly teach but Heydari teaches:
wherein the plurality of load devices are arranged in parallel through the secondary fluid loop pipeline, ... (Heydari: Fig. 1; Heydari teaches a cooling system for multiple racks which is designed in parallel.)
Heydari is in the same field of endeavor as the present invention, since it is directed to modulating the flow rate of a liquid cooling system. It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person of ordinary skill in the art, to combine a liquid cooling system that modulates the flow rate of a cooling liquid to multiple devices as taught in Chen with those devices arranged in parallel as taught in Heydari. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Chen and Brey to include teachings of Heydari, because the combination would allow to efficiently manage the cooling.
Regarding claim 7, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana in view of Heydari further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 4.
Brey further teaches:
the power supply device comprises a plurality of power supply units; the plurality of power supply units, the plurality of flow control valves, and the plurality of load devices are arranged in one-to-one correspondence. (Brey: Fig. 1 and ¶[0016]; Brey teaches heat-generating components which may be multiple servers. Fig. 2 and ¶[0030] teaches that each server has each own power supply. Fig. 5 and ¶[0041] further teach monitoring multiple components. ¶[0025] teaches monitoring the power supply to the motherboard, instead of each individual component. Fig. 5 and ¶[0041] further teach monitoring power of a device and increasing the flow rate based on the power consumption.)
Chen in view of Brey in view of Heydari does not explicitly teach but Tachibana teaches:
... the plurality of flow control valves ... (Tachibana: Fig. 1 and ¶[0031]; Tachibana teaches a plurality of valves for adjusting the flow rates of coolant to each electronic unit.)
Claims 5, 6, 18, and 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana in view of Heydari in view of Matsuo (US 2014/0360714 A1) hereinafter known as Matsuo.
Regarding claim 5, Chen in view of Brey in view of Heydari further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 4.
Brey further teaches:
wherein the power supply device comprises a plurality of power supply units, ... ; the power supply units, ... each power supply unit is configured to supply power to the corresponding load device, ... . (Brey: Fig. 1 and ¶[0016]; Brey teaches heat-generating components which may be multiple servers. Fig. 2 and ¶[0030] teaches that each server has each own power supply. Fig. 5 and ¶[0041] further teach monitoring multiple components. ¶[0025] teaches monitoring the power supply to the motherboard, instead of each individual component.)
Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana in view of Heydari does not explicitly teach but Matsuo teaches:
... the number of the circulation motors is plural; ... the circulation motors and the plurality of load devices are arranged in one-to-one correspondence, .... and each circulation motor is configured to drive the flow of the coolant for heat exchange with the corresponding load device. (Matsuo: Fig. 1 and ¶[0028]; Matsuo teaches a pump for each of the devices.)
Matsuo is in the same field of endeavor as the present invention, since it is directed to modulating the flow rate of a liquid cooling system. It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person of ordinary skill in the art, to combine a liquid cooling system that modulates the flow rate of a cooling liquid to multiple devices arranged in parallel as taught in Chen in view of Brey with the devices having their own corresponding pump as taught in Matsuo. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Chen and Brey to include teachings of Matsuo, because the combination would allow to efficiently manage the cooling.
Regarding claim 6, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana in view of Heydari in view of Matsuo further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 5.
Brey further teaches:
wherein the power sensor is further configured to sense an output power provided by each power supply unit to the corresponding load device, the power load information comprises the output power provided by each power supply unit to the corresponding load device, and the control device controls a rotation speed of ... circulation motor based on the power load information to adjust a flow of the coolant flowing through the corresponding load device. (Brey: Fig. 1 and ¶[0016]; Brey teaches heat-generating components which may be multiple servers. Fig. 2 and ¶[0030] teaches that each server has each own power supply. Fig. 5 and ¶[0041] further teach monitoring multiple components. ¶[0025] teaches monitoring the power supply to the motherboard, instead of each individual component. Fig. 5 and ¶[0041] further teach monitoring power of a device and increasing the flow rate based on the power consumption.)
Matsuo further teaches controlling multiple pumps. (Matsuo: Fig. 1 and ¶[0028]; Matsuo teaches a pump for each of the devices.)
Regarding claims 18 and 20, these claims recite a method that performs the function of the liquid cooling cabinet equipment of claims 4-6; therefore, the same rationale for rejection applies.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana in view of Yuan (US 2022/0210954 A1) hereinafter known as Yuan.
Regarding claim 14, Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana further teaches the liquid cooling cabinet equipment according to claim 1.
Chen in view of Brey in view of Tachibana does not explicitly teach but Yuan further teaches:
further comprising a cabinet body, wherein the plurality of load devices, the power supply device and the liquid cooling system are integrated into an interior of the cabinet body. (Yuan: Fig. 5 and ¶[0078]; Yan teaches a cabinet which contains the liquid storage tank, pump, piping, heat exchanger, and servers.)
Yuan is in the same field of endeavor as the present invention, since it is directed to modulating the flow rate of a liquid cooling system. It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person of ordinary skill in the art, to combine a liquid cooling system for load devices as taught in Chen in view of Brey with the system integrated in a cabinet as taught in Yuan. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Chen and Brey to include teachings of Yuan, because the combination would allow to efficiently manage the cooling.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEX OLSHANNIKOV whose telephone number is (571)270-0667. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-6.
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/ALEKSEY OLSHANNIKOV/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2118