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 statement (IDS) submitted on 09/25/2023, 06/02/2025, 05/22/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claim(s) 1-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kondo (US 2020/0107405) in view of Fujiwara (US Patent 6,563,292).
Regarding claim 1, Kondo discloses a power supply apparatus for an aerosol generation device (Claim 1 and ¶ 0001; a control circuit adapted to control a heating element powered by a battery), comprising:
a power supply (claim 1 and fig. 1, element 105; battery);
an electric connector (the connection between the heater (120) and the battery 105; see fig. 2) to which a heater (fig. 1, element 120; heating element) configured to heat an aerosol source (¶ 0001; the battery powers a heating element that is used to heat a liquid to form a vapor) by consuming power supplied from the power supply is connected (¶ 0017; a heating element 120 powered by a rechargeable battery
105 and a control circuit 110 to control the amount of power supplied to heating element 120);
a control circuit configured to control supply of the power from the power supply to the heater (¶ 0017);
a power supply monitoring circuit configured to monitor a state of the power supply (¶ 0030; the fuel gauge circuit 205 may be configured to receive various inputs, monitor and/or measure various battery characteristics, such as the voltage, the current, the battery capacity (which may also be expressed as a state of charge (SOC) or relative state of charge (RSOC) as a percentage), operation mode (e.g., charging and discharging) of the battery, a state of health (SOH));
a discharge cutoff switch including a second control terminal and configured to cut off discharge from the power supply based on an input to the second control terminal (¶ 0023; the control circuit 110 may comprise a switch 200 positioned between a terminal of the battery 105 and the heating element 120 that operates to electrically connect and disconnect the battery 105 to/from the heating element 120); and
a protection circuit configured to supply a control signal to at least one of the first control terminal and the second control terminal based on the state of the power supply, wherein in a case where the state of the power supply satisfies a condition of a first condition set including a condition concerning a first physical quantity of the power supply (¶¶ 0045-0050; The control circuit 110 may then operate the switch 200 according to the PWM signal (720). The control circuit 110 may periodically adjust the heating element resistance value R2 used to calculate the maximum power 'Power1' (725). For example, after a predetermined period of time, such as 100 ms, the logic circuit 215 may retrieve a new resistance value R2 that corresponds to the elapsed
time and compute a new maximum power. Since, the heating element resistance R2 increases with time, the new maximum power value will be less than the value computed at time 0. The signal generator circuit 220 may then use the new maximum power value to update the PWM ratio and the signal generator circuit 220 will operate the switch 200),
the power supply monitoring circuit performs an operation for at least temporarily restricting at least one of the charge of the power supply and the supply of the power from the power supply to the heater (¶ 0037, 0043; when the PWM signal is LOW, the switch 200 responds by opening (switch is OFF), thereby disconnecting the battery 105 from the heating element 120. If the PWM signal is 50%, then for 1 duty cycle, the switch 200 is closed for half of the time and open the other half),
in a case where the state of the power supply satisfies a condition of a second condition set including a condition concerning the first physical quantity of the power supply, the protection circuit turns off at least one of the discharge cutoff switch and the charge cutoff switch (¶¶ 0037, 0042; The control circuit 110 may then compute the PWM signal (615), where the PWM signal is defined as the predetermined power divided by the maximum power (i.e., Power2/Power1). For example, the signal generator circuit 220 may receive the calculated maximum power 'Power1' from the logic circuit 215 and may retrieve the predetermined target power value 'Power2' from the memory; when the PWM signal is LOW, the switch 200 responds by opening (switch
is OFF), thereby disconnecting the battery 105 from the heating element 120).
Kondo fails to teach the power supply apparatus includes a charge cutoff switch including a first control terminal and configured to cut off charge to the power supply based on an input to the first control terminal.
However, Fujiwara discloses the power supply apparatus includes a charge cutoff switch (Fig. 2, element 104) including a first control terminal (a gate of the charge control FET 104) and configured to cut off charge to the power supply based on an input to the first control terminal (Col. 2, lines 1-5 and Col. 4, lines 48-56; The output of the latch circuit 103 is supplied through the inverter 112 to a gate of the charge control FET 104 as a low-level signal "L").
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It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Kondo to incorporate with the teaching of Fujiwara by including the charge control FET in the system, because it would be advantageous to avoid overcharging the battery pack and further prolong the service life of the whole system.
Regarding claim 2, Kondo discloses wherein the condition concerning the first physical quantity included in the first condition set is narrower than and within the condition concerning the first physical quantity included in the second condition set (¶¶ 0021, 0030, 0034, 0037, 0052; the control circuit 110 is connected to the battery 105 and may measure various battery characteristics, such as voltage, current, temperature; The control circuit 110 may then calculate the maximum power 'Power1' according to the measured actual voltage, the battery resistance value R1, and a heating element resistance value R2 (610)).
Regarding claim 3, Kondo discloses wherein the condition concerning the first physical quantity included in the first condition set is satisfied before the condition concerning the first physical quantity included in the second condition set (¶¶ 0021, 0030, 0034, 0037, 0052; the logic circuit 215 may select the appropriate resistance value based on the length of time the heating element 120 has been operating. The logic circuit has to determine the length of time the heating element has been operating, then it is able to select the correct resistance value).
Regarding claim 4, Kondo discloses wherein the first condition set includes a condition concerning comparison between the first physical quantity and a first threshold (¶ 0037; the duty cycle of the PWM signal is a ratio of the predetermined target power), and
a condition concerning comparison between the first physical quantity and a second threshold different from the first threshold, the second condition set includes a condition concerning comparison between the first physical quantity and a third threshold (¶ 0042; the signal generator circuit 220 may receive the calculated maximum power 'Power1' from the logic circuit 215 and may retrieve the predetermined target power value 'Power2' from the memory 210).
The prior art does not disclose a difference between the first threshold and the second threshold is smaller than a difference between the first threshold and the third threshold and smaller than a difference between the second threshold and the third threshold. However, to choose a difference between the first threshold and the second threshold is smaller than a difference between the first threshold and the third threshold and smaller than a difference between the second threshold and the third threshold, absent any criticality, is only considered to be the “optimum” value of the difference between two predetermined power values, as stated above, that a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been able to determine using routine experimentation based, among other things, on the desired accuracy and since it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art to provide a optimal operation using minimal circuitry . See In re Boesch, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980) and MPEP 2144.04 and 2144.05.
Regarding claim 5, Kondo discloses wherein the third threshold is larger than the second threshold, and the second threshold is larger than the first threshold (¶¶ 0021-0022, 0025-0027, 0034, 0037, 0052; it is in the profile-based calculations and dynamic limiting values).
Regarding claim 6, Kondo discloses wherein the power supply monitoring circuit includes a first output terminal and a second output terminal (¶ 0022 and see fig. 2; the control circuit 110 comprises a fuel gauge circuit 205, a logic circuit 215, a memory 210, a signal generator circuit 220),
in a case where the state of the power supply satisfies the condition concerning the comparison between the first physical quantity and the first threshold (¶¶ 0028, 0037), a first error signal is output from the first output terminal, and in a case where the state of the power supply satisfies the condition concerning the comparison between the first physical quantity and the second threshold, a second error signal is output from the second output terminal (¶ 0050; the heating element resistance R2 increases with time, the new maximum power value will be less than the value computed at time 0. The signal generator circuit 220 may then use the new maximum power value to update the PWM ratio and the signal generator circuit 220 will operate the switch 200).
Regarding claim 7, Kondo discloses wherein in a case where the state of the power supply does not satisfy the condition of the first condition set or the condition of the second condition set the power supply monitoring circuit does not change the power supply to a failure state in which charge and discharge of the power supply are permanently inhibited (¶¶ 0022, 0030, 0034-0037, 0049, 0052; adjust the PWM rate to 0%).
Regarding claim 8, Kondo discloses wherein in a case where it is determined that a residual quantity of the power supply is smaller than a first lower limit value (¶¶ 0035, 0039, 0045; profile-based calculation),
the power supply monitoring circuit performs an operation for restricting the discharge from the power supply, in a case where it is determined that the residual quantity of the power supply is smaller than a second lower limit value lower than the first lower limit value (¶ 0037; PWM control signal adjusts dynamically to restrict power delivery),
the protection circuit turns off the discharge cutoff switch, and in a case where it is determined that the residual quantity of the power supply is smaller than a third lower limit value lower than the second lower limit value, the control circuit performs an operation for changing the power supply to a failure state in which charge and discharge of the power supply are permanently inhibited (¶¶ 0022, 0030, 0034-0037, 0049, 0052; adjust the PWM rate to 0%).
Regarding claim 9, Kondo discloses wherein the control circuit is configured to determine whether the residual quantity of the power supply is smaller than the third lower limit value without using information acquired from the power supply monitoring circuit (¶¶ 0021- 0022, 0030; The fuel gauge circuit 205 may also generate various types of control signals in response to received input signals and/or the battery characteristics, such as control signals to control charging and discharging).
Regarding claim 10, Kondo discloses wherein a condition for returning, to an ON state (¶ 0037; based on the PWM signal), the discharge cutoff switch that is turned off by determining that the residual quantity of the power supply is smaller than the second lower limit value includes the control circuit determining that the residual quantity of the power supply is larger than the third lower limit value (¶¶ 0037, 0052; continuously adjustment).
Regarding claim 11, Kondo discloses wherein the first condition set includes a condition concerning a second physical quantity of the power supply, the second physical quantity being different from the first physical quantity of the power supply, and the second condition set does not include a condition concerning the second physical quantity of the power supply (¶¶ 0021-0022, 0030, 0034, 0037, 0052; The fuel gauge circuit 205 may also generate various types of control signals in response to received input signals and/or the battery characteristics, such as control signals to control charging and discharging).
Regarding claim 12, Kondo discloses wherein the condition concerning the second physical quantity included in the first condition set includes a condition for changing the power supply to a failure state in which charge and discharge of the power supply are permanently inhibited (¶¶ 0022, 0030, 0034-0037, 0049, 0052; adjust the PWM rate to 0%).
Regarding claim 13, Kondo discloses wherein the first condition set includes a condition concerning a temperature of the power supply being higher than an upper limit temperature (¶¶ 0001, 0021, 0038; cannot exceed the predetermined timer value), the second condition set does not include a condition concerning the temperature of the power supply, and in a case where the condition concerning the temperature of the power supply being higher than the upper limit temperature is satisfied, the control circuit changes the power supply to a failure state in which charge and discharge of the power supply are permanently inhibited (¶¶ 0022, 0030, 0034-0037, 0049, 0052; adjust the PWM rate to 0%).
Regarding claim 14, Kondo discloses wherein the condition concerning the second physical quantity included in the first condition set includes a condition for changing the power supply to a state in which an operation by a user is not required to cancel restriction of the charge of the power supply or the supply of the power from the power supply to the heater (¶¶ 0021-0022, 0028, 0037, 0052; dynamic adjustment without user input until conditions improve).
Regarding claim 15, Kondo discloses herein the first condition set includes a condition concerning the temperature of the power supply being lower than a lower limit temperature (¶¶ 0001, 0021, 0038; cannot exceed the predetermined timer value), the second condition set does not include a condition concerning the temperature of the power supply, and in a case the condition concerning the temperature of the power supply being lower than the lower limit temperature is satisfied, the control circuit changes the power supply to the state in which the operation by the user is not required to cancel restriction of the discharge or the charge of the power supply (¶¶ 0021-0022, 0028, 0037, 0052; dynamic adjustment without user input until conditions improve).
Regarding claim 16, Kondo discloses wherein in a case where the state of the power supply does not satisfy the condition concerning the comparison between the first physical quantity and the first threshold (¶¶ 0028, 0037), the power supply monitoring circuit does not change the power supply to a failure state in which charge and discharge of the power supply are permanently inhibited (¶¶ 0022, 0030, 0034-0037, 0049, 0052; adjust the PWM rate to 0%).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZIXUAN ZHOU whose telephone number is (571)272-6739. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
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/ZIXUAN ZHOU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 06/18/2026
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