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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in Japan on 7/21/2021. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the JP2021-120373 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
An attempt by the Office to electronically retrieve, under the priority document exchange program, the foreign application 2021-120373 to which priority is claimed has FAILED on 02/07/2024. Useful information is provided at the Electronic Priority Document Exchange (PDX) Program Website (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/international-protection/electronic-priority-document-exchange-pdx), including practice tips for priority document exchange (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/international-protection/electronic-priority-document-exchange-pdx#Practice2tips).
For further questions or assistance, please contact the Patent Electronic Business Center (EBC): EBC Customer Support Center 1-866-217-9197; (toll-free) 571-272-4100 (local) M-F 6AM - Midnight (Eastern Time); PDX@uspto.gov(email).
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
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.
Claims 1, 8 and 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Japanese document JP2010130798A (‘798) in view of Japanese document JP2005165545A (‘545). (See machine translation on both documents).
Re claim 1, document ‘798 discloses an electronic device having, inter alia, a storage battery 1; a charging circuit that charges the storage battery (para 14, 16 and 20); a load device 4 that operates with a power of the storage battery (para 46); a voltage sensor 2 that detects a charge voltage and a discharge voltage of the storage battery (para 17 and 19); a current sensor 2 that detects a charge current and a discharge current of the storage battery (para 17-19); and a control circuit ECU2 wherein the control circuit: calculates an internal resistance Rc/Rd of the storage battery based on the charge voltage and the charge current (para 36-38), calculates an allowable power indicating a maximum power that is able to be acquired from the storage battery by the load device based on the discharge voltage, the discharge current, and the internal resistance (para 27-30 and 35-37), and sends a control signal to the load device to cause the load device to operate with a power less than or equal to the allowable power (Bolded text is not found in document ‘798). Document ‘545 teaches battery packs providing power information to optimize operation control. More specifically, operating a load device is based on the power calculated from the deterioration rate of the battery (para 67 and 71-73). Therefore, It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have incorporated the teachings of document ‘545 into the control circuit of document ‘798 to have calculated an allowable power for the battery based on the deterioration rate of the battery to ensure maximum power is available to the load.
Re claim 8, document ‘798 further discloses the temperature is a factor in determining the internal resistance (para 42).
Re claim 10, document ‘798 further discloses arithmetic circuit for calculating the performance state of the battery (para 32-44).
Re claim 11, both documents do not specifically disclose a plurality of power states. It would have been well within the skill of one versed in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have provided a plurality of power states for selective operation since it has been held that mere duplication of the essential working parts of a device involves only routine skill in the art.
Re claim 12, operating steps are performed from the components claimed in claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7 and 9 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to the Examiner at the below-listed number. The Examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Thu from 7:00am-5:00pm.
The Examiner’s SPE is Drew Dunn and he can be reached at 571.272.2312. The fax number for the organization where this application is assigned is 571.273.8300.
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/EDWARD TSO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 571.272.2087
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