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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 01/17/2024 and 07/12/2024 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-8, 11-17, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Becker et al. [US 6,271,643] in view of Luo et al. [US 2015/0291050] and Menzel et al. [US 2022/0319304].
With respect to claims 1 and 19-20, Becker discloses a method, for performing a monitored charge or discharge of a cell [claims 1 and 13], the method comprising: controllably adjusting a current through the cell to charge or discharge the cell [“determining a charging current”]; at each respective time step of a plurality of time steps as the current is controllably adjusted: measuring a respective voltage across the cell [claims 9 and 12];and storing a respective data point comprising the respective values at the respective time step [“memory means”; further memory and controller are equated to CRM with instructions to perform the processes]. Becker fails to explicitly disclose integrating the voltage and mapping the data points.
Integrating data is well-known in the art, i.e. in the field of batteries current and voltage are routinely integrated to collect data on the total amounts. For example, Luo relates to a battery control device/program wherein a voltage is integrated over time [par. 0039] and mapping data point over time [Fig. 2]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Becker to include voltage integration as taught by Luo for the benefit of providing additionally data relating to the state of the battery over time/during charging events.
Furthermore, Menzel relates to a system for monitoring electrical behaviors and teaches utilizing a EPM to process and map received data [par. 0010-0013, par. 0237]. Therefore, taking known data as collected in the prior arts above and applying it across an analyzer (EPM) to process and output data is known in the art. it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Becker to include an EPM for the benefit of processing the data and outputting the information in quick to understand/see format for the use thereby enabling a user to rapidly ascertain the state of the batteries.
With respect to claims 2-4, Becker discloses integrating current [40-18] but fails to disclose integrating temperature and pressure. However, as detailed above, the process of integrating known variables, i.e. voltage/current/temperature/pressure/etc. is known in the art and would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill. The benefit of providing additional data points/measurements of integrating current/temperature/pressures enables the system to evaluate more data about the battery and thereby obtaining a complete overall picture of the entire/multiple health points.
With respect to claims 5-7 and 11-13, Menzel as applied above further discloses displaying a 3-dimensional plot of the EPM on a display [par. 001], providing a quality assessment [par. 0045], and efficiency [par. 0151]. Further, Coulomb efficiency in particular is equated to the SOH of a battery, which is also detail by Luo in paragraph 0038 as cited above. The benefit to providing/predicting/improving quality data/metrics using the known data is to increase the life of the battery cells.
With respect to claim 8, Becker further discloses wherein the current through the cell is controllably adjusted as an oscillatory function; and wherein a frequency of the oscillatory function is selected based at least in part on an interval between the plurality of time steps to measure distinct currents at the time steps during subsequent periods of oscillation of the oscillatory function [Fig. 43, col. 42].
With respect to claim 14, Becker further discloses selecting a distance between subsequent time steps of the plurality of time steps and a pattern for adjusting the current through the cell to obtain a respective predetermined average distance in each of current, voltage and voltage-hours between adjacent data points in the EPM [col. 3 line 56 to col. 4 line 7; “distance” is equated to a time for discharge, i.e. a difference in time periods (as opposed to a linear space constraint)].
With respect to claim 15, Becker further discloses wherein the cell comprises a battery cell composed of one of: lithium; sodium-ions lithium-sulfur; lithium-air; lithium-oxygen; lithium-metal; metal-flouride; carbon nanotubes; carbon nanowires, nickel cadmium (NiCd); nickel metal hydride (NiMH); lead acid; lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2); lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4); lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (LiNiMnCoO2); lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4); lithium titanate (Li2TiO3); or an organic compound [col. 22 line 61].
With respect to claim 16, Becker as applied above fails to explicitly disclose wherein the measured voltage and current through the cell are each stored in the data points as respective complex values that contain respective amplitude and phase information related to the voltage and current. However, official notice is taken that complex values are known in the art. The benefit of using complex values enables more accurate and efficient battery data to improve safety and lifespan.
Claim(s) is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Becker et al. [US 6,271,643], Luo et al. [US 2015/0291050], and Menzel et al. [US 2022/0319304] as applied above, and further in view of Grunwald et al. [US 11,152,602].
With respect to claim 17, Becker fails to disclose the data manipulation includes using derivatives. Grunwalk relates to battery data collection and manipulation and teaches utilizing derivative of current and voltage in the monitoring of battery in order to determine the health [col. 4 lines25-50]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Becker to utilize the known methods of derivatives for the benefit of providing additional data to analyze the battery thereby accurately verifying the health/state of the cells.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-10 and 18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if canceled and incorporated into their respective independent claim including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
With respect to claim 9, the prior art of record does not suggest or disclose the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the claimed, “wherein the oscillatory function comprises a bias toward charging or discharging the cell.”
With respect to claim 10, the prior art of record does not suggest or disclose the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the claimed, “modifying the oscillatory function to obtain a constant current through the cell for at least one period of the oscillatory function to determine a battery equivalent circuit model of the cell.”
With respect to claim 18, the prior art of record does not suggest or disclose the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the claimed, “controllably adjusting a temperature of the cell and a pressure applied to the cell concurrently with said controllably adjusting the current through the cell, wherein controllably adjusting the current, temperature and pressure is performed in an oscillatory manner with a single common frequency.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NATHANIEL R PELTON whose telephone number is (571)270-1761. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am to 5pm.
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/NATHANIEL R PELTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859
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