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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 15 June 2026, with respect to claims 7, 10 and 12-13 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Applicant’s arguments, filed 15 June 2026, with respect to claim 16 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 USC § 103 rejection of claim 16 and claims 17-19, which depend on claim 16, has been withdrawn.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 7, 10 and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2019/0299790 by Smith et al. (Smith hereinafter) in view of US 9,827,872 by Sloan et al. (Sloan hereinafter).
Regarding claim 7, Smith discloses a method of controlling a cooling of one or more battery cells [see at least Abstract, comprising:- determining a first voltage across a first set of one or more battery cells during a charging or discharging of the first set [see at least paragraph 0093, “by monitoring a voltage level of the battery”; paragraph 0094, “being drained beyond a desired threshold level (e.g.; voltage threshold)”; paragraph 0046, “charge controller 224 may regulate the addition of charge to at least one power source 208 of the vehicle 100 (e.g.; until the at least one power source 208 is full or at a capacity, etc.)”]; - obtaining at least one of a charging voltage threshold value and a discharging voltage threshold value for starting or increasing a battery cell cooling [see at least paragraph 0094, “drained beyond a desired threshold level (e.g.; voltage threshold)”]; -predicting an upcoming increase in heat generation of the first set by detecting or predicting [see at least paragraph 0094, “may initiate the charging operation and begin heating and colling the thermal mass in anticipation that the battery 208 will be charged”] that a) during a continued charging of the first set, the first voltage goes above the charging voltage threshold value, or b) during a continued discharging of the first set, the first voltage goes below the discharging voltage threshold value, [see at least paragraph 0094, “drained beyond a desired threshold level”].
Smith fails to explicitly disclose and- in response to predicting the upcoming increase in heat generation of the first set, starting or increasing a cooling of the first set during the continued charging or discharging of the first set. However, Sloan discloses a vehicle cell rebalancer/charging system [see at least Abstract] which utilizes multiple voltage thresholds [see at least column 13, lines 14-34, “charging the hybrid vehicle battery pack at a constant current until a first voltage threshold is reached 1010, charging the battery pack at a constant voltage until a second voltage threshold is reached 1014, charging the hybrid vehicle battery pack at a constant current until a third voltage threshold is reached 1016”] in conjunction with control of a cooling fan for the battery pack [see at least Figure 11, (1004)-(1024)] during charging. The cooling fan is also controlled during rebalancing (charging/discharging) [see at least Figure 12].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the Applicant's invention to modify the system of Smith to include battery pack cooling control through charging/discharging, as disclosed by Sloan, in order to ensure that the battery pack does not overheat. Thus, offering the benefit of preventing battery pack damage and extending battery pack life.
Regarding claim 10, Smith discloses a controller [see at least Figure 2, (224)] for a cooling system [see at least Figure 6, (605)] for one or more battery cells [see at least Figure 6, (208)], comprising processing circuitry configured to cause the controller to:- determine a first voltage V1 across a first set of one or more battery cells during a charging or discharging of the first set [see at least paragraph 0093, “by monitoring a voltage level of the battery”; paragraph 0094, “being drained beyond a desired threshold level (e.g.; voltage threshold)”; paragraph 0046, “charge controller 224 may regulate the addition of charge to at least one power source 208 of the vehicle 100 (e.g.; until the at least one power source 208 is full or at a capacity, etc.)”]; - obtain at least one of a charging voltage threshold value and a discharging voltage threshold value [see at least paragraph 0094, “drained beyond a desired threshold level (e.g.; voltage threshold)”]; - predict an upcoming increase in heat generation of the first set by detecting or predicting [see at least paragraph 0094, “may initiate the charging operation and begin heating and colling the thermal mass in anticipation that the battery 208 will be charged”] that a) during a continued charging of the first set, the first voltage goes above the charging voltage threshold value, or b) during a continued discharging of the first set, the first voltage goes below the discharging voltage threshold value [see at least paragraph 0094, “drained beyond a desired threshold level”].
Smith fails to explicitly disclose and- in response to predicting the upcoming increase in heat generation of the first set, control the cooling system to start or increase a cooling of the first set during the continued charging or discharging of the first set. However, Sloan discloses a vehicle cell rebalancer/charging system [see at least Abstract] which utilizes multiple voltage thresholds [see at least column 13, lines 14-34, “charging the hybrid vehicle battery pack at a constant current until a first voltage threshold is reached 1010, charging the battery pack at a constant voltage until a second voltage threshold is reached 1014, charging the hybrid vehicle battery pack at a constant current until a third voltage threshold is reached 1016”] in conjunction with control of a cooling fan for the battery pack [see at least Figure 11, (1004)-(1024)] during charging. The cooling fan is also controlled during rebalancing (charging/discharging) [see at least Figure 12].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the Applicant's invention to modify the system of Smith to include battery pack cooling control through charging/discharging, as disclosed by Sloan, in order to ensure that the battery pack does not overheat. Thus, offering the benefit of preventing battery pack damage and extending battery pack life.
Regarding claim 12, Smith discloses a vehicle [see at least Figure 2, (100)], comprising: a first set of one or more battery cells [see at least Figure 2, (208)] configured to provide power to a propulsion system of the vehicle [see at least Figure 2, (212)]; a cooling system configured to provide a cooling of the first set [see at least Figure 6, (605)]; and a controller for the cooling system according to claim 10 [see the above rejection of claim 10].
Regarding claim 13, Smith discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium storing computer code for controlling a cooling of one or more battery cells, the computer code, when running on processing circuitry of a computer [see at least paragraph 0132; Abstract], causes the computer to: -_determine a first voltage across a first set of one or more battery cells during a charging or discharging of the first set [see at least paragraph 0093, “by monitoring a voltage level of the battery”; paragraph 0094, “being drained beyond a desired threshold level (e.g.; voltage threshold)”; paragraph 0046, “charge controller 224 may regulate the addition of charge to at least one power source 208 of the vehicle 100 (e.g.; until the at least one power source 208 is full or at a capacity, etc.)”]; - obtain at least one of a charging voltage threshold value and a discharging voltage threshold value for starting or increasing a battery cell cooling predict an upcoming increase in heat generation of the first set by detecting or predicting [see at least paragraph 0094, “drained beyond a desired threshold level (e.g.; voltage threshold)”] that a) during a continued charging of the first set, the first voltage goes above the charging voltage threshold value, or b) during a continued discharging of the first set, the first voltage goes below the discharging voltage threshold value [see at least paragraph 0094, “drained beyond a desired threshold level”].
Smith fails to explicitly disclose and- in response to predicting the upcoming increase in heat generation of the first set, starting or increasing a cooling of the first set during the continued charging or discharging of the first set. However, Sloan discloses a vehicle cell rebalancer/charging system [see at least Abstract] which utilizes multiple voltage thresholds [see at least column 13, lines 14-34, “charging the hybrid vehicle battery pack at a constant current until a first voltage threshold is reached 1010, charging the battery pack at a constant voltage until a second voltage threshold is reached 1014, charging the hybrid vehicle battery pack at a constant current until a third voltage threshold is reached 1016”] in conjunction with control of a cooling fan for the battery pack [see at least Figure 11, (1004)-(1024)] during charging. The cooling fan is also controlled during rebalancing (charging/discharging) [see at least Figure 12].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the Applicant's invention to modify the system of Smith to include battery pack cooling control through charging/discharging, as disclosed by Sloan, in order to ensure that the battery pack does not overheat. Thus, offering the benefit of preventing battery pack damage and extending battery pack life.
Claims 9 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2019/0299790 by Smith et al. (Smith hereinafter) in view of US 9,827,872 by Sloan et al. (Sloan hereinafter) in further view of US 2018/0105058 by Symanow et al. (Symanow hereinafter).
Regarding claim 9, Smith in view of Sloan teaches the method according to claim 7.
Smith in view of Sloan fails to teach wherein the method further includes determining, during charging or discharging of the first set, a first ambient temperature of the first set, and obtaining the at least one of the charging voltage threshold value and the discharging voltage threshold value based on the first ambient temperature. However, Symanow discloses a battery charging system [see at least Abstract] which factors ambient temperature when charging a battery [see at least paragraph 0048, “This threshold for halting charging varies with ambient temperature”].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the Applicant's invention to modify the system of Smith in view of Sloan to factor the ambient temperature in the charging/discharging threshold, as disclosed by Symanow, in order to avoid overcharging or discharging at an extreme temperature. Thus, offering the benefit of preventing damage to the storage device by, for instance, not continuing to charge and add thermal energy to a storage device that is already at a high temperature.
Regarding claim 11, Smith in view of Sloan teaches the controller according to claim 10.
Smith in view of Sloan fails to teach wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to cause the controller to determine, during charging or discharging of the first set, a first ambient temperature of the first set, and obtaining the at least one of the charging voltage threshold value and the discharging voltage threshold value based on the first ambient temperature. However, Symanow discloses a battery charging system [see at least Abstract] which factors ambient temperature when charging a battery [see at least paragraph 0048, “This threshold for halting charging varies with ambient temperature”].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the Applicant's invention to modify the system of Smith in view of Sloan to factor the ambient temperature in the charging/discharging threshold, as disclosed by Symanow, in order to avoid overcharging or discharging at an extreme temperature. Thus, offering the benefit of preventing damage to the storage device by, for instance, not continuing to charge and add thermal energy to a storage device that is already at a high temperature.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16-19 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
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 Joel Barnett whose telephone number is (571)272-2879. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Regis Betsch can be reached at 571-270-7101. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOEL BARNETT/Examiner, Art Unit 2836
/REGIS J BETSCH/SPE, Art Unit 2836
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