DETAILED ACTION
This is a first Non-Final Office Action on the merits in response to the application filed 11/22/23. The request for foreign priority to a corresponding JP application filed 11/29/22 has been received and is proper. Claims 1-5 are currently pending yet all are rejected as detailed below. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1-5 are rejected because claim 1 recites that “the first valve closing transient characteristic is set stepper than a second valve closing transient characteristic to close the solenoid valve from the point of occurrence of the boosting request when the braking load upon the boosting request is in the steady range.” See claim 1, lines 19-21. First, this limitation is, as a whole, is convoluted and unclear. The limitation concerning “from the point of occurrence of the boosting request when the braking load upon the boosting request is in the steady range” makes it unclear if this “characteristic” is actually “set” or whether it only occurs during the steady range, or not. Second, what does it mean for the “first…characteristic” to be “steeper” than the “second…characteristic.” Is Applicant referring to a degree of closing of the solenoid valve? What is meant by “steeper” here? This last limitation needs to be clarified in order for the claims to be properly evaluated/examined.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Ummer
Claim(s) 1-3 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ummer et al. (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2011/0270500). Ummer is directed to a method for supporting a brake system in case of reduced effectiveness of the vehicle brake system. See Abstract.
Claim 1: Ummer discloses a vehicle braking system [Fig. 1] for applying braking force to an own vehicle [see Abstract], comprising: a master cylinder device (3) that generates a primary hydraulic pressure according to a braking operation by a driver (1); a motor cylinder device (9, 10) that generates a secondary hydraulic pressure according to a target braking force by activating an electric actuator (9) in response to a required boosting request; a normally-open solenoid valve (7) which is provided in a hydraulic pressure passage that communicates between the master cylinder device and the motor cylinder device, and operates to open or close the hydraulic pressure passages; and a controller [see para. 0041] that performs driving control to close the solenoid valve based on the required boosting request, the vehicle braking system further comprising: a determination unit [para. 0048-53, 0058-73] that determines whether or not a braking load upon a boosting request is in a steady range, wherein when the braking load upon the boosting request exceeds a predetermined first load threshold (pAT or pAT,red), the determination unit determines that the braking load is in a caution range above the steady range, when the braking load upon the boosting request is in the caution range, the controller executes braking control using a first valve closing transient characteristic to close the solenoid valve from the point of occurrence of the boosting request [see para. 0048-53], and the first valve closing transient characteristic is set steeper than a second valve closing transient characteristic to close the solenoid valve from the point of occurrence of the boosting request when the braking load upon the boosting request is in the steady range [see para. 0058-73]. See Fig. 2; see also 112 rejection above.
Claim 2: Ummer discloses that the boosting request is a boosting request based on the target braking force generated regardless of a braking operation by a driver. See para. 0037.
Claim 3: Ummer discloses that the determination unit further determines whether or not the braking load upon the boosting request exceeds a predetermined second load threshold, the second load threshold is set higher than the first load threshold, and when the braking load upon the boosting request exceeds the second load threshold, the determination unit determines that the braking load is in a warning range above the caution range. See para. 0058-73 (pAT and pAT,red).
Claim 5: Ummer discloses that the determination unit further determines whether or not the braking load upon a boosting request when the braking load is in the caution range is less than a predetermined third load threshold, the third load threshold is set lower than the first load threshold, and when the braking load upon the boosting request when the braking load is in the caution range is less than the third load threshold, the determination unit determines that the braking load has transitioned from the caution range to the steady range. See para. 0058-73 (“bottom threshold value”).
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.
Ummer
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ummer.
Claim 4: Ummer is relied upon as in claim 1 but does not explicitly state that the braking load is tied to “brake pad temperature.” It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill n the art at the effective filing date of the invention to correlate braking load to brake pad temperature because Ummer’s concern with braking load leads stems from a discussion about brake pads becoming “soft” at high temperatures, which can result in a low coefficient of friction between the pads and the brake disc [see para. 0013, 0055], and that continuous or downhill braking without interruption can generate high temperatures in the brake system [see para. 0054]. Given this explicit mention of brake pad temperature volatility correlating with braking pressure amounts, it would be obvious to correlate the “braking load” to the “brake pad temperature.”
Conclusion
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VISHAL SAHNI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3657
/VISHAL R SAHNI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3616 January 27, 2026