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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 12-13 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 05/26/2026.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 5 and 14-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by EP 2999302 to Viroli.
A cooktop (1) a user input (3) and An induction heating system (Fig. 2), comprising: an induction heating element (21) operable to inductively heat a load with a magnetic field (definitional to “induction heating”);a power supply circuit (13 and inverter shown in portion 10) coupled to an alternating current power supply (i.e. “mains supply network”) configured to supply a power signal to the induction heating system (Fig. 2), the power supply circuit comprising an inverter (20); a conditioning circuit (25) configured to output a derived voltage signal based at least in part on a voltage across a resonant capacitor of the induction heating system (at sensing point 24); and a controller operably coupled to the conditioning circuit and the power supply circuit, the controller configured to determine one or more operating parameters of the induction heating system based at least in part on the derived voltage signal generated by the conditioning circuit (“The further voltage monitoring unit 16 may be included in the control unit 11 or may form a self-contained entity. The further voltage monitoring unit 16 may provide a modified voltage signal derived from the voltage Vdc measured at the second monitoring point 24 to the pot detection entity 12. The pot detection entity 12 may compare said modified voltage signal with a voltage threshold value Vth in order to determine whether the modified voltage signal is above said voltage threshold value Vth”). Wherein the operating parameter includes a total power/whether a load is present (to detect if a pot/load is present or not and thus if power is being delivered and controls based on that) and is indicative of a current (Voltage is indicative of potential current”). And a phase detection circuit of the induction heating system has a voltage signal representative of a phase of the current through the induction heating element (in that case the number of oscillations derived by the voltage).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 6-11 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. Viroli is considered the closest prior art (Fig. 2 is most illustrative), but fails to teach the specific circuitry as required in claims 3 and 6-11.
Conclusion
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/WOODY A LEE JR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3761
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