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 IDS filed 3/19/24 has been considered and placed of record. The initialed copy is attached herewith.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because figures 1-11 are blurry and the circuit components are too small to make out the details. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The disclosure should be carefully reviewed to ensure that any and all grammatical, idiomatic, and spelling or other minor errors are corrected.
For example, in the claims and the spec, the word “a LLC” should be spelled as “an LLC,” the word “a HVDC” should be spelled as “an HVDC” and the word “a LVDC” should be spelled as “an LVDC.”
Claim Objections
Claims 4-14 are objected to under 37 CFR 1.75(c) as being in improper form because a multiple dependent claim cannot depend on another multiple dependent claim. See MPEP § 608.01(n). Accordingly, the claims 4-14 have not been further treated on the merits.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Dai et al. (US 2020/0412237).
Re claim 1, the reference discloses an electrical system (figs 1-4) of an electric vehicle or a hybrid electric vehicle, the electrical system being connected to a power factor correction (PFC) converter 102 (figs 2-4) and configured to charge and discharge a first battery 122 and a second battery 124 of the vehicle (para 44; figs 1-3); the first battery having a higher rated voltage than the second battery; the electrical system having, inter alia, a transformer 191 comprising primary windings NP, first secondary windings NS1 and tertiary windings NS2; the transformer being a multi-phase transformer (figs 2-4); a LLC primary circuit 104 comprising a first multi-phase H-bridge to control the primary windings; the LLC primary circuit being connected to the PFC converter (para 57 and 63; figs 3 and 4); an HVDC part 112 coupled to the LLC primary circuit, the first secondary windings and the first battery, so as to allow energy exchange with the first battery (figs 2-4); the HVDC part comprising a second multi-phase H-bridge configured to control the first secondary windings (figs 2-4); a LVDC part 114 coupled to the tertiary windings of the transformer and to the second battery so as to allow energy exchange with the second battery (figs 2-4); the LVDC part comprising a rectifier 141 configured to control the tertiary windings of the transformer (para 62).
Re claim 2, the reference further discloses first resonance circuit (part of 104) having resonance capacitors Cr, magnetized inductors Lm and first resonance inductors Lr coupled to the primary winding NP of the transformer. The resonance capacitors and resonance inductors are in series with the primary winding. These components formed the first resonant circuit. See figure 4.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3 is 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.
Art made of record fails to disclose or make obvious the specific claimed circuit connection with claimed components for the second resonant circuit.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication** should be directed to the Examiner at the below-listed number. The Examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Thu from 7:30am-7:00pm, EST.
The Examiner’s SPE is Drew Dunn, and he can be reached at 571.272.2312. The fax number for the organization where this application is assigned is 571.273.8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866.217.9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800.786.9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571.272.1000.
/EDWARD TSO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 571.272.2087
** ALL communications after 10/31/2026 should be directed to SPE Drew Dunn at his number above.
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