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 .
Applicant’s response dated 8/27/26 is acknowledged and entered. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kersten (“Online and On-Board Battery Impedance Estimation of Battery Cells, Modules or Packs in a Reconfigurable Battery System or Multilevel Inverter”, published in IECON 2020 The 46th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, October 18-21, 2020, previously cited).1 2 Regarding claims 1 and 11, Kersten teaches a reconfigurable battery system and method, comprising: one or more battery clusters each having one or more switching devices and one or more battery cells (Section II: battery packs); and an integrated controller (Section V-B: controller) configured to: transmit, from the integrated controller to the one or more switching devices associated with the one or more battery cells, one or more signals (Section IV-B: the voltage signals)3 to generate a time-varying output current having a waveform (Section IV-A); measure a time-varying voltage in response to the time-varying output current being applied to a load (Section IV-A); and calculate an impedance based on the time-varying output current and the time-varying voltage at the frequency (Section V-A).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-10 and 12-20 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/27/28 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the cited art fails to disclose all limitations of the claims. Applicant’s Remarks, pages 5-7. In particular, Applicant argues that Kersten fails to disclose “transmit, from the integrated controller to the one or more switching devices associated with the one or more battery cells, one or more signals to generate a time-varying output current having a waveform” as recited in claim 1. Id. at 5-6. However, Section IV-B of Kersten discloses a voltage signal which serves as the signal from the controller as recited in the claims. As a result, Kersten teaches this limitation and anticipates the claims.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW MIKELS whose telephone number is (571)270-5470. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Thursday 7:30 AM ET - 5:00 PM ET, Friday 7:30 AM ET - 9:30 AM ET, the Examiner is on central time.4
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas K Pham can be reached at 571-272-3689. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MATTHEW MIKELS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
1 See Non-patent literature dated 5/28/26.
2 In addition to the cited portions, please see also the associated figures.
3 See also additional discussion below.
4 The Examiner can also be reached at matthew.mikels@uspto.gov.
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