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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 01/24/2024 and 03/30/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yokoyama et al. [US 2019/0288347] in view of Ozawa et al. [WO 2019/230783]*.
*A duplicate copy of the above cited foreign reference is not provided with this action since a copy is provided of record with the IDS filed on 03/30/2026.
With respect to claims 1 and 5, Yokoyama discloses a charging and discharging management system that is used in a vehicle including a power storage device [Figs 2 and 4], a charging and discharging device configured to execute charging of the power storage device [125] with electric power from an electric power grid and discharging of the power storage device to the electric power grid and that manages charging and discharging of the power storage device [14], wherein adjustment control is executed to control the charging and discharging device such that the power storage device performs charging and discharging in order to adjust a supply and demand balance of the electric power grid [Fig 4; i.e. based on SOC limits and frequency control], based on a first deterioration amount that is a deterioration amount of the power storage device when the power storage device is managed in a first state [par. 0079-0081; deterioration influence degree], but fails to explicitly disclose a second deterioration amount that is an actual deterioration amount of the power storage device.
Ozawa relates to managing deterioration in a power storage devices and teaches managing the storage based on target deterioration rate and an actual deterioration rate [page 1].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the instant invention to modify Yokoyama such that the deterioration calculations include both the target and actual deterioration as taught by Ozawa for the benefit of improving the accuracy of the measurements and ensuring the product life of each storage device is prolonged as stated by Ozawa.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if canceled and incorporated into the independent claims including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
With respect to claim 2, the prior art of record does not suggest or disclose the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the claimed, “wherein the adjustment control is executed when a deterioration suppression amount, obtained by subtracting a first maintenance rate that is a capacity maintenance rate of the power storage device calculated from the first deterioration amount from a second maintenance rate that is the capacity maintenance rate calculated from the second deterioration amount, exceeds a threshold value during execution of deterioration suppression control in which the charging and discharging device is controlled such that the power storage device is placed in a second state in which deterioration of the power storage device is suppressed as compared to the first state.”
Claims 3-4 depend from claim 2 and are objected to for the same reasons.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATHANIEL R PELTON whose telephone number is (571)270-1761. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am to 5pm.
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/NATHANIEL R PELTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859
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