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 . The instant application with Application Number 18/523,788 filed on 11/29/2023 is presented for examination. As per the remarks of 11/15/2023, claims 1-20 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statment
The Information Disclosure Statements dated 111/29/2023, 06/25/2024 and 01/08/2026 are acknowledged and the cited references have been considered in this examination.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
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 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 1-7, 9-14 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a1) as being anticipated by Jang et al. (US 2015/0069936).
With respect to claims 1, 12 and 13, Yang discloses an energy storage system (Fig. 1, 20), comprising: a DC bus having a positive bus and a negative bus (Fig. 2, 250-bus line to racks 210-1 to 210-n); an energy storage converter electrically connected to the DC bus (Fig. 1, 14), and configured to convert AC electric energy from an AC source into DC electric energy, or convert DC electric energy from the DC bus into AC electric energy (Para. # 0035: When the power generation system 2 generates alternating current (AC) electricity, the power conversion unit 11 may include a rectifier circuit configured to convert AC electricity into DC electricity.; Fig. 1, inverter 13 from DC-AC);
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n first battery racks (Fig. 2, rack 210-n), wherein n is a positive integer, and each of the n first battery racks is electrically connected between the positive bus and the negative bus directly (Para. # 0054: plurality of battery racks 210-1 to 210-N, one of the plurality of battery modules 220-1 to 220-N, one of the plurality of rack management units 211-1 to 211-N); and m energy storage units, wherein m is a positive integer, and each of the m energy storage units comprises a second battery rack and a DC/DC converter (Para. # 0054-0055), wherein the DC/DC converter is electrically connected between the corresponding second battery rack and the DC bus (see Fig. 2, rack 210-1 and bus 250), and configured to perform electric energy conversion between the corresponding second battery rack and the DC bus (Para. # 0040: a DC-DC converter that converts electricity stored in the battery system 20 into appropriate DC link voltage by DC-DC conversion and outputs the DC link voltage to the inverter 13).
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With respect to claims 2, 4, 10 and 20, Yang discloses the energy storage system as described above, wherein in each of the m energy storage units, the DC/DC converter comprises a first positive terminal, a first negative terminal, a second positive terminal and a second negative terminal, and the second battery rack comprises a positive conduction terminal and a negative conduction terminal (Para. # 0009, 0053, 0054: one of the plurality of battery racks 210-1 to 210-N, one of the plurality of battery modules 220-1 to 220-N, one of the plurality of rack management units 211-1 to 211-N, one of the plurality of rack protection circuits 217-1 to 217-N may be referred to as an Mth battery rack 210-M, an Mth battery module 220-M, an Mth rack management unit 211-M, and an Mth rack protection circuit 217-M where M is an integer ranging from 1 to N.).
With respect to claims 3, 5-6, 1-19, Yang discloses the energy storage system as described above, wherein the DC/DC converter is a bidirectional isolation converter; and wherein the first positive terminal is electrically connected with the positive bus, the first negative terminal is electrically connected with the positive conduction terminal, and the negative conduction terminal is electrically connected with the negative bus (Para. # 0059, 0060: The plurality of rack management units 211-1 to 211-N may provide data collected from the plurality of battery modules 220-1 to 220-N to the system management unit 200 through the bus line 250. The plurality of rack management units 211-1 to 211-N) .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 and 15 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. Claim 9 is dependent on the above objected claims of 5 and 11 above.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YALKEW FANTU whose telephone number is (571)272-8928. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:00AM-4:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, DREW A DUNN can be reached at 571-272-2312. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YALKEW FANTU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859
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