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
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.
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, 4, 7-9, 11, 14-16 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BHAGERIA (US 20130245843 A1, hereinafter as “BHAGERIA”) in view of Iwasaki (US 20150193706 A1, hereinafter as “Iwasaki”).
Regarding claim 1, BHAGERIA teaches:
A method for managing emissions in a facility, the method comprising:
identifying a set point at which each asset of a plurality of assets is operating in the facility ([0068]: “Based on the determination that the current greenhouse gas emission level exceeds the predetermined maximum, at step 440, the application 401 may transmit a setpoint and/or control condition to the SCADA 442. And, at step 445, the SCADA 442 may transmit a setpoint and/or control signal to the generating facility 70 that causes the generating facility 70 to change its operation, e.g., lower the greenhouse gas emission level by lowering the amount of electricity being produced at the generating facility 70”. This teaches the assets of facility 70 are controlled by a setpoint. To control the operation of facility 70, a setpoint is identified and transmitted to the facility 70);
determining an emission level associated with the each asset operating at the set point (FIG. 2 and [0037]: “The sensor device 60 may comprise any suitable device that measures levels of gaseous emissions and, in particular embodiments, comprises a device that measures levels of greenhouse gases in real time. Such sensors are conventional such that further explanation is not believed necessary. In embodiments, one or more sensors 60 are located at an electrical power generation facility 70 for which the greenhouse gas emissions are to be monitored and reported in accordance with aspects of the invention”);
correlating the emission level associated with each of the plurality of assets ([0042]: “The published messages may also be used (e.g., leveraged) within the generating facility 70 by internal subscribers 92 such as field plant mobile devices 85, plant management systems 90, and any other plant applications 95, e.g., to adjust the greenhouse gas emission level, e.g., by modifying at least one of the consumed fuel/fossil combustible and the configuration of the generation facility 70 to increase production by low-emission units and decrease production by high emission units”. This teaches to correlate the emission level associated with assets of facility 70, so modification can be made to adjust the emission level);
determining if the correlated emission level exceeds a predefined threshold ([0068]: “the processing at step 435 may comprise the application 400 comparing the greenhouse gas emission level data to a predetermined maximum, and determining the current greenhouse gas emission level exceeds the maximum”);
in response to determining that the correlated emission level exceeds the predefined threshold, identifying one or more corrective actions for at least one asset of the plurality of assets ([0068]: “Based on the determination that the current greenhouse gas emission level exceeds the predetermined maximum, at step 440, the application 401 may transmit a setpoint and/or control condition to the SCADA 442. And, at step 445, the SCADA 442 may transmit a setpoint and/or control signal to the generating facility 70 that causes the generating facility 70 to change its operation, e.g., lower the greenhouse gas emission level by lowering the amount of electricity being produced at the generating facility 70”; And ([0042]: “The published messages may also be used (e.g., leveraged) within the generating facility 70 by internal subscribers 92 such as field plant mobile devices 85, plant management systems 90, and any other plant applications 95, e.g., to adjust the greenhouse gas emission level, e.g., by modifying at least one of the consumed fuel/fossil combustible and the configuration of the generation facility 70 to increase production by low-emission units and decrease production by high emission units”);
operating the at least one asset at a first set point based on the corrective action, wherein the first set point is different from the set point ([0068]: “Based on the determination that the current greenhouse gas emission level exceeds the predetermined maximum, at step 440, the application 401 may transmit a setpoint and/or control condition to the SCADA 442. And, at step 445, the SCADA 442 may transmit a setpoint and/or control signal to the generating facility 70 that causes the generating facility 70 to change its operation, e.g., lower the greenhouse gas emission level by lowering the amount of electricity being produced at the generating facility 70”. The new setpoint, which is different from the old setpoint, is transmitted to the facility 70 to change its operation).
BHAGERIA teaches all the limitations except rendering, on a display, the one or more corrective actions for the at least one asset; receiving an input from an operator, via the display, wherein the input corresponds to a selection of a corrective action from amongst the one or more corrective actions.
However, Iwasaki teaches in an analogous art:
rendering, on a display, the one or more actions ([0043]: “Since the next action can be defined for each status, the user is only required to select a proper action in accordance with a situation. When transition of the status takes place by execution of the action, a list of preliminarily determined actions for the next status is displayed on the screen of the terminal computer of the user”);
receiving an input from an operator, via the display, wherein the input corresponds to a selection of a action from amongst the one or more actions ([0043]: “Since the next action can be defined for each status, the user is only required to select a proper action in accordance with a situation. When transition of the status takes place by execution of the action, a list of preliminarily determined actions for the next status is displayed on the screen of the terminal computer of the user”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified BHAGERIA based on the teaching of Iwasaki, to make the method to further comprise rendering, on a display, the one or more corrective actions for the at least one asset; receiving an input from an operator, via the display, wherein the input corresponds to a selection of a corrective action from amongst the one or more corrective actions. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification since it can help “managing, visualizing, and promoting efficiency” of workflow, as Iwasaki suggests in [0012].
Regarding claim 2, BHAGERIA-Iwasaki teach(es) all the limitations of its base claim from which the claim depends on.
BHAGERIA further teaches:
receiving telemetry data from one or more sensors associated with each of the plurality of assets ([0017]: “Implementations of the invention may be used to: extend the existing capabilities of sensing greenhouse gas emissions to potentially reduce the impacts on the environment of generating electricity; enable enhanced real-time control and management of power generation to meet the environmental mandates associated with energy production; increase the situational awareness on greenhouse gas emissions of plant and grid operators and energy consumers in general; promote a communication standard to enable power plants to provide greenhouse gas emissions real-time measurement data to different types of monitoring systems; and/or support large amounts of telemetered measurements and controllable assets through the use of well-proven, high-performing and low latency communication protocols”);
processing the telemetry data received from the one or more sensors ([0068]: “Upon receiving the greenhouse gas emission level data, the application 400 may process the data at step 435 in any desired manner”); and
determining the set point and the emission level associated with each of the plurality of assets ([0068]: “the processing at step 435 may comprise the application 400 comparing the greenhouse gas emission level data to a predetermined maximum, and determining the current greenhouse gas emission level exceeds the maximum. Based on the determination that the current greenhouse gas emission level exceeds the predetermined maximum, at step 440, the application 401 may transmit a setpoint and/or control condition to the SCADA 442. And, at step 445, the SCADA 442 may transmit a setpoint and/or control signal to the generating facility 70 that causes the generating facility 70 to change its operation, e.g., lower the greenhouse gas emission level by lowering the amount of electricity being produced at the generating facility 70”).
Regarding claim 4, BHAGERIA-Iwasaki teach(es) all the limitations of its base claim from which the claim depends on.
BHAGERIA further teaches:
identifying the one or more corrective actions for the at least one asset of the plurality of assets is based on the correlated emission level and historic emission data associated with the plurality of assets ([0088]: “At step 820, the predicted greenhouse gas emissions level of the at least the one power generating facility is determined, e.g., by using a combination of predicted power generation for the upcoming time period and historic greenhouse gas emission level data”).
Regarding claim 7, BHAGERIA-Iwasaki teach(es) all the limitations of its base claim from which the claim depends on.
Iwasaki further teaches:
receiving a feedback from the operator corresponding to the one or more actions, wherein the feedback corresponds a modification to the one or more actions based on the operator's knowledge ([0030]: “the action element includes an administration user interface for the system administrator, a runtime user interface for the user, an unique execution program for the action element, the administration user interface is used for setting a set value for changing a behavior of the action element, and includes a setting screen to be displayed on the terminal computer of the system administrator and a set value storage section that stores the set value received from the terminal computer of the system administrator, the runtime user interface includes an input screen part for each action element, the input screen part that receives an input value from the terminal computer of the user at the time of executing the action, and according to need, also includes a confirmation screen part for each action element, the confirmation screen part that displays the input value on the terminal computer of the user for confirmation at the time of executing the action, and the execution program changes the behavior based on the set value and executes the action element by using the input value”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified BHAGERIA based on the teaching of Iwasaki, to make the method to further comprise receiving a feedback from the operator corresponding to the one or more corrective actions, wherein the feedback corresponds a modification to the one or more corrective actions based on the operator's knowledge. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification since it can help “managing, visualizing, and promoting efficiency” of workflow, as Iwasaki suggests in [0012].
Claim 8 recites a system conducting operational steps of the method in claim 1 with patentably the same limitations. Therefore claim 8 is rejected for the same reason recited in the rejection of claim 1.
Claims 9, 11 and 14 recite a system conducting operational steps of the method in claims 2, 4 and 7 respectively with patentably the same limitations. Therefore claims 9, 11 and 14 are rejected for the same reason recited in the rejection of claims 2, 4 and 7, respectively.
Claim 15 recites a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored instructions to implement the method in claim 1 with patentably the same limitations. Therefore claim 15 is rejected for the same reason recited in the rejection of claim 1.
Claim 16 recites a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored instructions to implement the method in claim 2 with patentably the same limitations. Therefore claim 16 is rejected for the same reason recited in the rejection of claim 2.
Claim 18 recites a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored instructions to implement the method in claims 4 and 7 with patentably the same limitations. Therefore claim 18 is rejected for the same reason recited in the rejection of claims 4 and 7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 17, 19 and 20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHARLES CAI whose telephone number is (571)272-7192. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8-5 EST.
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/CHARLES CAI/Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2115