DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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 Amendment
2. The amendment made to the drawings filed on 07/20/2026 has been accepted and entered.
Response to Arguments
3. Applicant's arguments received 07/20/2026 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Regarding the 101 rejection, Applicant argues that:
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Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant is advised that, according to MPEP 2106 and the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (2019 PEG), the USPTO determines claim eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 using the Alice framework. The analysis under Step 2A - Prong 1 evaluates whether the claim recites a judicial exception. Step 2A - Prong 2 asks does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, and, if necessary, Step 2B further analyzes whether or not the claim provides an Inventive Concept. That is, the claim needs to be analyzed limitation by limitation, and/or element by element, following the MPEP/2019 PEG guidelines. Applicant is particularly advised that, under the 2019 PEG, when assessing subject matter eligibility for a patent, examples of “determining or calculating parameters" that might be considered a judicial exception include claims that simply involve basic data manipulation and/or mathematical calculations that can be performed in mind or the aid of a general-purpose computer, without any inventive application of that calculation to a specific technological problem.
In the instant case, focusing on what the inventors have invented exactly and giving the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) to the claims, Examiner asserts that the pending claims 1-12 are directed to an abstract idea of determining hysteresis polarization voltage characters in battery systems, but without reciting any additional elements that amount to “significantly more” than the judicial exception.
While arguing about the “controller”, Applicant fails to show a particular machine and/or enough detail of the “controller” that is beyond a general-purpose computer/microprocessor performing computing activities and inputting/outputting data via basic functions of the computer. A review of the specification finds that the corresponding structure for the “controller”, which may include the battery management units 190, encompasses hardware/software components of a general purpose computer, and its equivalents (see Applicant’s Specification, e.g., [0027]-[0029]). The claims, i.e. the limitations related to the “controller”, are accordingly interpreted as covering the corresponding structure described in the specification (see MPEP 2181). According to the MPEP 2106.04(a)(2), if a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers mental processes except for the mention of generic computer components performing computing activities via basic function of the computer, then the claim is likely considered to be directed to an ineligible abstract idea, as it essentially describes a mental process that could be performed by a human without the computer components adding any significant practical application beyond the abstract concept itself. Applicant’s arguments in this regard are therefore unpersuasive.
The rest of the Applicant’s arguments about the claim eligibility are reliant upon the issues discussed above or have been fully addressed by the analysis under the 2019 PEG as set forth in sections 4-5 below.
Applicant's arguments regarding the rejection under 35 USC 103 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. Detailed response is given in sections 6-9 as set forth below in this Office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
4. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 101 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
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.
5. Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Under the 2019 PEG (now been incorporated into MPEP 2106), the revised procedure for determining whether a claim is "directed to" a judicial exception requires a two-prong inquiry into whether the claim recites: (1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human interactions such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes); and (2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)-(c), (e)-(h)).
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical application, do we then look to whether the claim: (3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not "well-understood, routine, conventional" in the field (see MPEP § 2106.0S(d)); or (4) simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.
Claims 1-12 are directed to an abstract idea of determining hysteresis polarization voltage characters in battery systems.
Specifically, representative claim 1 recites:
An AC battery system configured for use with an energy management system, comprising a controller configured to:
(S1) after the AC battery system enters an idle mode, dynamically measure at low current operation that allows cells of a battery in the AC battery system to reach the maximum polarization an initial voltage during a first predetermined state at a predetermined state-of-charge percentage,
(S2) measure a subsequent voltage during a second predetermined state different from the first predetermined state,
(S3) calculate a new hysteresis maximum polarization value based on a difference between the initial voltage and the subsequent voltage, and
(S4) replace a previously stored hysteresis maximum polarization value with the new hysteresis maximum polarization value for performing at least one of a state-of-charge analysis or a state-of-health analysis.
The claim limitations in the abstract idea have been highlighted in bold above; the remaining limitations are “additional elements”.
The highlighted portion of the claim constitutes an abstract idea under the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance and the additional elements are NOT sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions, as analyzed below:
Step
Analysis
1. Statutory Category ?
Yes.
System
2A - Prong 1: Judicial Exception Recited?
Yes.
See the bolded portion as listed above.
Under its broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), the limitation S3 recited in the bolded portion encompasses mathematical concepts (e.g., an arithmetic subtraction operation), namely a series of calculations leading to one or more numerical results or answers, which also encompasses mental processes, i.e. data manipulation and evaluation, that can be performed in the human mind or by a human using a pen and paper.
Nothing in the bolded portion precludes the limitation S3 from practically being performed in the mind and/or with the aid of pen/paper. Therefore, the bolded portion of instant claim 1 amounts to an abstract idea falling within a combination of the “Mental Process” and “Mathematical Concepts” groupings of Abstract Ideas defined by the 2019 PEG.
2A - Prong 2: Integrated into a Practical Application?
No.
Claim 1 recites “AC battery system configured for use with an energy management system” broadly in the preamble. A preamble is generally not accorded any patentable weight where it merely recites the purpose of a process or the intended use of a structure, and where the body of the claim does not depend on the preamble for completeness but, instead, the process steps or structural limitations are able to stand alone.
Claim 1 recites the limitation of “a controller” at a high level of generality. Under the BRI, it reads on a general-purpose computer processor performing a generic computer function of processing data. The generic processor limitation is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Using the guidelines set forth in MPEP 2106, it is held that performing an abstract idea using a general-purpose computer system would not amount to significantly more than the abstract algorithm itself. See also, for example, Whitserve LLC v. Dropbox, Inc. and MPEP 2106.05(f).
Under the BRI, each of the limitations S1 and S2 encompasses a step of gathering, at a preferably selected time point, the time dependent data/information necessary for performing the abstract idea. It is necessary to acquire the data in order to use the recited judicial exception to perform the statistical (math) calculations. See MPEP 2106.05(g)(3): … that were described as mere data gathering in conjunction with a law of nature or abstract idea. See also Mayo, 566 U.S. at 79, 101 USPQ2d at 1968; OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 13863, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1092-93 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (presenting offers and gathering statistics amounted to mere data gathering).
The claim does not require any particular devices or sensors to sample the voltage data and/or to perform the “measure”. It could just as simply relate to the acquisition of the data from, e.g., look-up tables as opposed to the generation of actual measurement data in real-time. Thus claim 1 would monopolize the abstract idea across a wide range of applications.
Under the BRI, the limitation S4 encompasses a step of gathering the data/information necessary for outputting the results of the identified abstract idea, which is considered an insignificant post-solution activity (i.e., storing, transmitting or displaying the algorithm results). See MPEP 2106.05(f).
None of the additional elements of claim 1 is considered to be qualified for a “significantly more” or meaningful limitation to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. At most, they only generally link the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. See MPEP 2106.04(d)(2).
The claim as a whole does not meet any of the following criteria to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application:
An additional element reflects an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field;
an additional element that applies or uses a judicial exception to affect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition;
an additional element implements a judicial exception with, or uses a judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim;
an additional element effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; and
an additional element applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
Various considerations are used to determine whether the additional elements are sufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. However, in all of these respects, the claim fails to recite additional elements which might possibly integrate the claim into a particular practical application. Instead, based on the above considerations, the claim would tend to monopolize the algorithm across a wide range of applications.
2B: Claim provides an Inventive Concept?
No.
Focusing on what the inventors have invented exactly, it is considered that the “core” of representative claim 1 is directed to an algorithm of calculating hysteresis maximum polarization voltage value in battery systems which falls within a combination of the “Mental Process” and “Mathematical Concepts” groupings of abstract ideas.
As discussed in Step 2A Prong Two above, each or the combination of the additional limitations in the claim amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components and/or generally links the use of the identified abstract idea to the relevant technological environment or field of use.
The concept of measuring an open-circuit voltage OCV of an AC battery at low current operation that allows cells of the battery to reach the maximum polarization during a first predetermined state at a predetermined SOC percentage after the AC battery system enters an idle mode and measuring a subsequent voltage during a second predetermined state different from the first predetermined state to assess the relationship between SOC and hysteresis behavior of the battery’s voltage is deemed well-understood, routine, conventional in the art. Storing and maintaining records of hysteresis maximum polarization related data variation for performing systematic SOC analysis or SOH analysis are also widely prevalent or in common use in the relevant industry. The claim does not recite any additional element that can be treated as “significantly more” or an “inventive concept”. See MPEP 2106.05.
The claim is therefore ineligible under 35 USC 101.
The dependent claims 2-4 inherit attributes of the independent claim 1, but does not add anything which would render the claimed invention a patent eligible application of the abstract idea. The claim merely extends (or narrows) the abstract idea which does not amount for "significant more" because it merely adds details to the algorithm which forms the abstract idea as discussed above.
As to the additional elements of “the first predetermined state” and “the second predetermined state” (claim 2), “an average of initial voltage measurements and an average of subsequent voltage measurements” (claim 3), and “a diffusion voltage” (claim 4)”, etc., under the BRI, they encompass merely data characterization which can be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to generally link the use of the judicial exception to the relevant technological environment and/or field of use but do not amount to be meaningful to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claims 5-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for the same reason as for claims 1-4 set forth above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
6. 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; or
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
7. Claims 1-2, 5-6 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Arai et al. (JP 3869666 B2, machine translation).
Regarding claims 1, 5 and 9, Arai discloses an AC battery system configured for use with an energy management system (para. 0002, 0016, 0032), comprising a controller (see discussion of Figs. 1 and 2) configured to:
after the AC battery system enters an idle mode (para. 0100: “if IGSW and ACCSW are turned off (Y in step S9), the timer T is cleared (step S10), and the actual data acquisition process in step S2 is continued”), dynamically (i.e., in real-time) measure at low current operation that allows cells of a battery in the AC battery system to reach the maximum polarization (para. 0099, 0100: “Timer T, …, is used to measure the time since the IGSW and ACCSW were turned off. It takes into account that the maximum polarization generated by charging and discharging is resolved after a predetermined time Th of, for example, 24 hours has elapsed”; para. 0101: “when the battery is in a balanced state and discharges to the starter motor under a constant load …”) an initial voltage (e.g., the OCV, which is the battery terminal voltage immediately before the STSW switches from off to on) during a first predetermined state at a predetermined state-of-charge percentage (para. 0101: “the open-circuit voltage OCV, which is the battery terminal voltage immediately before the STSW switches from off to on, is extracted from the actual data collected in step S2…”; see also para. 0090: “The NVM25 stores and remembers the terminal voltage V of the battery 13 as the open-circuit voltage OCV, which is the state in which the battery 13 is in equilibrium according to the change in charge capacity”);
measure a subsequent voltage during a second predetermined state different from the first predetermined state (para. 0093, 0122: “the open-circuit voltage OCV of the battery 13 stored in the NVM 25 is updated to the terminal voltage V of the battery 13 detected at this point …”; para. 0123);
calculate a new hysteresis maximum polarization value (e.g., the remaining voltage drop value) based on a difference between the initial voltage and the subsequent voltage (para. 0122-0124: “the remaining voltage drop value e0 of the battery 13 … is updated to the latest remaining voltage drop value e0, which is obtained by subtracting the estimated voltage Vn estimated after discharge from the open-circuit voltage OCV of the NVM 25 which was updated before the start of discharge”); and
replace a previously stored hysteresis maximum polarization value with the new hysteresis maximum polarization value for performing at least one of a state-of-charge analysis or a state-of-health analysis (para. 0124-0125).
Regarding claims 2, 6 and 10, Arai discloses: wherein the first predetermined state is a charging state of the battery (para. 0099: “in the current integration process of step S8, an integrated charge state measurement is performed to measure the battery's charge state by adding the measured charging current to the battery's current charge state ….”; para. 0101: “If the time measured by the timer T has elapsed to the predetermined time Th (Y in step S11), the open-circuit voltage OCV, which is the battery terminal voltage immediately before the STSW switches from off to on, is extracted from the actual data collected in step S2…”), and wherein the second predetermined state is a discharging state of the battery (para. 0122: “when the starter switch is turned on … the open-circuit voltage OCV of the battery 13 stored in the NVM 25 is updated to the terminal voltage V of the battery 13 detected at this point”).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
8. 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.
9. Claims 3-4, 7-8 and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Arai et al. in view of He et al. (Modeling of Dynamic Hysteresis Characters for the Lithium-Ion Battery, Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2020, 167 090532).
Regarding claims 3, 7 and 11, Arai is silent on: wherein the controller is further configured to calculate the new hysteresis maximum polarization value based on a difference between an average of initial voltage measurements and an average of subsequent voltage measurements.
He discloses a system and method of determining dynamic hysteresis characters for a battery including considering dynamic hysteresis behavior of OCV (Page 3, left column, 2nd paragraph: “Considering the influence of ambient temperature, current rate, short-term history and aging state, the hysteresis behavior of OCV in LFP cells in different aging states deserve to be studied including the minor hysteresis loops test methods”), comprising: obtaining an initial voltage (e.g., the terminal voltage in the charging process in Fig. 2) during a first predetermined state (i.e., a charging state) at a predetermined state-of-charge percentage (e.g., 26%); obtaining a subsequent voltage (e.g., the terminal voltage in the discharging process in Fig. 2) during a second predetermined state (i.e., a discharging state) different from the first predetermined state (see Fig. 2 and related discission); calculating a hysteresis maximum polarization value (e.g., “MAX 0.74V”) based on a difference between said initial voltage and said subsequent voltage (Fig. 2; see also page 2, left column, last paragraph: “With careful consideration in the experiments, maximum hysteresis was observed typically near low SOC …”) for performing at least one of a state-of-charge analysis or a state-of-health analysis (Abstract). The teaching of He further includes: calculating a new hysteresis maximum polarization value based on a difference between an average of initial voltage measurements and an average of subsequent voltage measurements (Page 2, left column, 2nd to the last paragraph: “One concise methodology in battery hysteresis modeling is to average the charging and discharging curves. The deviation between the averaged curve and the charge-discharge curve is taken as the hysteresis voltage that changes with SOC during charge and discharge process”).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to conceive and incorporate He’s methodology of calculating a new hysteresis maximum polarization value into Arai’s system/method to arrive the claimed invention. The skilled person would practice such modification without needing inventive skill but depending on practical considerations and according to the dictates of the circumstances with predictable results for analyzing time-dependent hysteresis behavior of the target battery. It has been held that the mere application of a known technique to a specific instance by those skilled in the art would have been obvious.
Regarding claims 4, 8 and 12, Arai does not but He teaches: calculate a diffusion voltage and deduct a calculated diffusion voltage from the subsequent voltage (Page 1, right column, last paragraph to Page 2, left column, 1st paragraph: “the steady-state voltage value after charging or discharging is taken as OCV of the battery which represents the stable electromotive force of the battery in a certain SOC. … due to the different time scales of internal chemical reactions and the diffusion process, it always takes a long time for the OCV of the battery to reach the stable value as shown in Fig. 1”).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate He’s teaching of the diffusion voltage into Arai’s system/method to arrive the claimed invention. It has been held that the mere application of a known technique to a specific instance by those skilled in the art would have been obvious. Further, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of such a modification were predictable for analyzing time-dependent hysteresis behavior of the target battery since the use of that known technique provides the rationale to arrive at a conclusion of obviousness.
Conclusion
10. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Citation of Relevant Prior Art
11. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 20200403420 A1 -- MANAGEMENT DEVICE, POWER STORAGE SYSTEM
Yang et al., the improved open-circuit voltage characterization test using active polarization voltage reduction method, Applied Energy 237 (2019) 682–694
Contact Information
12. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to XIUQIN SUN whose telephone number is (571)272-2280. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30am-6:00pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Shelby A. Turner can be reached on (571) 272-6334. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/X.S/Examiner, Art Unit 2857
/SHELBY A TURNER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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