DETAILED ACTION
Application 18/521086, “BATTERY PACK”, was filed with the USPTO on 11/28/23 and claims priority from a provisional application filed on 12/6/22.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action on the merits is in response to communication filed on 8/25/26.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of 10-16 in the reply filed on 8/25/26 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-9 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected battery pack, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submission filed on 2/11/25 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Although a concise explanation of the relevance of the information is not required for English language information, applicants are encouraged to provide a concise explanation of why the English-language information is being submitted and how it is understood to be relevant. Concise explanations (especially those which point out the relevant pages and lines) are helpful to the Office, particularly where documents are lengthy and complex and applicant is aware of a section that is highly relevant to patentability or where a large number of documents are submitted and applicant is aware that one or more are highly relevant to patentability (MPEP 609.04(a)).
Since the 2/11/25 IDS includes a large number of references, a concise explanation and identification of any references within the IDS known to applicant to be highly relevant to patentability, other than those cited in this Office Action, is requested.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Murakami (US 2020/0161609) and Lepiorz (US 2021/0218072).
Regarding claim 10, Murakami teaches a battery pack (Figs. 4, 14) comprising: a battery housing having an upper battery housing portion (item 110) and a lower battery housing portion (item 101); a core housing (cee battery container of Figure 4 including at least item 445) disposed within the battery housing, the core housing include at least one printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) alignment tab (items 461a, 463z, 466a, 476a) extending therefrom; at least one battery cell disposed within the core housing (paragraph [0065]; see also Fig. 5); and at least one PCBA (item 150) disposed on the core housing, wherein the PCBA includes at least one alignment slot that fits around the PCBA alignment tab on the core housing (Fig. 14 illustrates the alignment tabs extending through slots of the PCBA 150).
Murakami further teaches that the battery cell may be of various types and forms such as cylindrical or rectangular parallelepiped (paragraph [0073]), but does not appear to teach wherein the battery cells are pouch cells.
In the battery art, Lepiorz teaches that pouch type battery cells have advantages over cylindrical type battery cells in terms of weight, compactness, internal resistance, discharge current, and mechanical flexibility (paragraph [0005]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to use pouch type cells for the battery cells in order to achieve an improvement in weight, compactness, internal resistance, discharge current, and/or mechanical flexibility as taught by Lepiorz.
Claims 11 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Murakami (US 2020/0161609), Lepiorz (US 2021/0218072) and Huang (US 2023/0103699; CN 115088123).
Regarding claim 11-12, the cited art remains as applied to claim 10. Murakami further teaches wherein the core housing further comprises an additional PCBA attachment means (items 447a, 447b) extending from the core housing in the same direction as the PCBA alignment tab and wherein the PCBA includes at least one attachment slot (see holes in item 150 which align with the items 447a and 447b; see also 145a of Fig. 14) formed in an edge of the PCBA wherein the additional PCBA attachment means engages the attachment slot to maintain the PCBA on the core housing (fastening is achieved via a screw as described in paragraph [0107]).
However, Murakami does not appear to teach the additional PCBA attachment means comprising a retainer clip which engages with the attachment slot.
In the battery art, Huang teaches that a housing component may be attached to an adjacent circuit board by means of a press-down portion [a retainer clip] which engages with an attachment slot disposed within the circuit board (paragraph [0115]; see also Figs. 3, 9 and 11 which illustrate retainer clips [136, 138, unnumbered in Fig. 11], CN 115088123 includes clearer pictures).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to replace the screw-hole additional attachment means of Murakami with a clip-slot attachment means as taught by Huang since such a modification is merely a matter of simple substitution of one attachment means for another to yield the predictable result of suitable attachment between the core housing and the PCBA.
Claims 13-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Murakami (US 2020/0161609), Lepiorz (US 2021/0218072) and Huang (US 2023/0103699; CN 115088123) and Davey (US 2022/0115714).
Regarding claim 13-16, the cited art remains as applied to claim 1. Murakami does not appear to teach wherein the battery pack further comprises a front endplate disposed on an end of the core housing, and endplate retainer clip and alignment tab which is perpendicular to the PCBA alignment tab, with the endplate including slots corresponding to the endplate retainer clip and alignment tab.
In the battery art, Davey teaches a battery pack comprising a first printed circuit board disposed on the top of a battery pack core and a second printed circuit board disposed on the different perpendicular side of the battery pack core (Fig. 11A and paragraph [0150] for example, noting that elsewhere in the disclosure other types and locations of circuit boards are included; see also for example, Fig. 31 and paragraphs [0197, 0207-0216]). Davey further teaches that the different circuit boards may serve different purposes for the battery pack (abstract). Davey further teaches that the battery pack core may include an endplate for attaching one of the circuit boards thereto (for example, “front wall” at Figs. 62, 70). Davey appears to teach the battery pack core having alignment tabs and/or retainer clips extending therefrom for engagement with the plural circuit boards (e.g. Figs. 17-20, 22-26, 28-31, 53-54, 57, 62, 70).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to modify the battery pack of Murakami to additional printed circuit boards on the other faces of the battery pack core for the benefit of providing the additional functions afforded by the different types of circuit boards as taught by Davey.
It follows as obvious to include a front endplate disposed on an end of the core housing, and endplate retainer clip and alignment tab which is perpendicular to the PCBA alignment tab, with the endplate including slots corresponding to the endplate retainer clip and alignment tab, since this structure facilitates attachment of the additional circuit board.
It is noted that Davey appears to include both retainer clips and alignment tabs for facilitating connection to the additional printed circuit boards such as shown in the Figures, though the drawings are somewhat grainy. However, these features are also taught by Murakami and Huang as previously described, thus the combined embodiment may include these features as the combination of elements known in the art to yield predictable results (MPEP 2141).
Relevant or Related Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, though not necessarily pertinent to applicant’s invention as claimed.
Nagahama (USP 11677116) battery pack comprising core housing and printed circuit board;
Nakatani (US 2022/0029214) battery pack comprising core housing and printed circuit board with alignment tabs and PCBA slots;
Yang (US 2022/0190393) battery pack comprising core housing and printed circuit board with clip connections;
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEREMIAH R SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-7005. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9 AM-5 PM (EST).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tiffany Legette-Thompson can be reached on (571)270-7078. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JEREMIAH R SMITH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1723
Prosecution Insights