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 18/525,002 filed on 11/30/2023 is presented for examination. Claims 1-20 ae pending.
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.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zenner et al. (US 2017/0043670) in view of Valois et al. (US 2014/0139122), (Hereinafter, Valois).
With respect to claims 1, 8, 14 and 20, Zenner discloses an electric power control apparatus/method (Fig. 2, 58) comprising: a power switch (Fig. 2, 76,78/88/90) configured to supply or cut off power to an electric load (Para. # 53: or 22 by way of a first contactor 72. The first contactor 72 includes an actuator 74 and first and second switches 76, 78. The first and second switches 76, 78 are selectively opened and closed by the actuator 74. The actuator 74 is responsive to commands from the control system 58); a switch connected to the power (Fig. 2, switches 78/80 are connected to power 56 or motor power 22)
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and supply or cut off the power to the electric load (Para. # 0357: switch SW1 1702 opens to cut off power from the secondary battery 610); and a controller operatively connected and the bidirectional switch (Fig. 6, 630: the battery management system (BMS) 702 may further have an I2C slave controller integrated circuit that interfaces with the battery cells and other monitoring hardware) and configured to turn on or turn off at least one of the power switch or the bidirectional switch (Para. # 323: circuitry and components such as diodes, solid-state switches, or
ZENNER, however, does not expressly disclose controller operatively connected to the power switch and the bidirectional switch.
Valois discloses, on the other hand, controller operatively connected to the power switch and the bidirectional switch (see Para. # 0058, 0065: the switch 120 may comprise any components that facilitate the flow of electricity and the provide the ability to break the flow of electricity, including, toggle switches, electronic switches, relays, MOSFET transistors; charging module comprises a charging FET (field effect transistor) designed and configured to perform power control tasks).
ZENNER and Valois are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor namely system for power electric vehicle and system for multi-state power management.
At the time of the invention, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have added bidirectional switch, such as MOSFET transistor to the system of Zenner in view of Valois for the benefit of avoiding delay when power is swiftly required to continue operation as FOSFETs ae good for high-power application because of their fast switching properties that help switching off to cut power to avoid any damage to power components.
With respect to claims 2, 9 and 15, the combined references of Zenner and Valois discloses the electric power control apparatus as described above, further Valois discloses wherein the bidirectional switch includes first, and second field effect transistors connected back-to-back (Para. # 101: MOSFETs may be used to switch 230 VDC 20 A power to an oven bake/broil heating element in some embodiments. MOSFETs may have increased switching life over other switching elements).
With respect to claims 3-4, 10 and 16, the combined references of Zenner and Valois discloses the electric power control apparatus as described above, further Valois discloses wherein the controller is configured to turn off the bidirectional switch to cut off the power supplied to the electric load in response that the controller concludes that the power switch is not turned off in a state that the controller generates a control signal to turn off the power switch (Para. # 0053: power 110a may be coupled to an inline switch to break the flow of electricity to the first power supply 115 and/or to turn the device 160 on/off).
With respect to claims 5, 11 and 17, the combined references of Zenner and Valois discloses the electric power control apparatus as described above, further Valois discloses, wherein the electric load is a heater for heating a battery; and wherein the controller is configured to conclude that the power switch is not turned off when the heater continues to generate heat in the state that the controller generates the control signal to turn off the power switch (Para. # 0081: the temperature of system 100 when one or more components are turned off (e.g., when LED 165 is turned off or on or more other heat producing components are turned off).
With respect to claims 6, 12 and 18, the combined references of Zenner and Valois discloses the electric power control apparatus as described above, further Valois discloses, wherein the controller is further configured to generate a control signal to turn off the power switch in response that the controller concludes that a temperature of the heater reaches a preset temperature (Para. # 0094: the device may further monitor a temperature. The device may include at least one temperature sensor to monitor the temperature).
With respect to claims 7, 13 and 19, the combined references of Zenner and Valois discloses the electric power control apparatus as described above, further Valois discloses, wherein the controller is configured to conclude that the power switch is not turned off when an output voltage of the power switch is detected by the controller in the state that the controller generates the control signal to turn off the power switch (Paa. # 0088: ne the health and/or status of the battery 150 or other component based on historic voltage measurements. For example, the controller 170 may determine, based on historical logged voltage measurements, a maximum voltage, minimum voltage, and an average voltage at the voltage input. The controller 170 may further identify that the maximum voltage corresponds to the output voltage level).
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.
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, 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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