DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. The specification, the abstract and the drawings are all acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
4. Claims 1-3, 9-11, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPN 6,571,769 to Uemura, and in view of USPN 10,988,030 to Gentile.
As to claim 1, Uemura teaches an aircraft piston engine magneto having a magnetic rotor (col. 4: line 33) and an ignition circuit that includes a charging coil inductively coupled to magnetic poles of the rotor(col. 8: lines 42-47 wherein the charging coil is equivalent to the exciter coil “6” which is inductively coupled to magnetic poles of the rotor “4” in fig. 4A).
Uemura does not teach an apparatus wherein the charging coil comprises a plurality of power coils that are electronically reconfigurable between series and parallel connections of the power coils.
Gentile teaches an apparatus wherein the charging coil comprises a plurality of power coils that are electronically reconfigurable between series and parallel connections of the power coils(fig. 12, col. 2: lines 12-14).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Gentile into Uemura since Uemura suggests a motor control system and Gentile suggests the beneficial use of motor power coil configuration in the analogous art of motor control technology.
The motivation for this comes from the fact that Gentile teaches an apparatus of motor power coil configuration which can be used to improve the motor control system disclosed by Uemura.
As to claim 2, Uemura in view of Gentile teaches the magneto of claim 1 wherein the magneto comprises a fully electronic magneto that generates and outputs ignition pulses using an ignition circuit that contains only non-mechanically actuated electrical components(Uemura col. 8: lines 42-47).
As to claim 3, Uemura in view of Gentile teaches the magneto of claim 2, wherein the ignition circuit includes a position sensor (Uemura col. 20: lines 8-14) located adjacent at least one magnet carried by the rotor, and wherein the ignition circuit obtains electrical power and data only from rotating magnetic fields produced by the rotor during rotation(Uemura col. 8: lines 42-47).
As to claim 9, it is rejected as the same reason as claim 1 and also because Uemura in view of Gentile teaches a magneto system which its power coils, ignition circuit, charging, discharging circuits and series/parallel power coil connection configuration. It would be obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Uemura in view of Gentile in order to produce the invention as claimed in claim 9.
As to claim 10, Uemura in view of Gentile teaches the magneto of claim 9, wherein the ignition circuit is a fully electronic ignition circuit that generates and distributes ignition pulses to the output terminals using only non-mechanically actuated electrical components within the magneto(Uemura col. 8: lines 42-47).
As to claim 11, Uemura in view of Gentile teaches the magneto of claim 9, wherein the ignition circuit comprises a plurality of power coils that are electronically reconfigurable by the ignition circuit between series and parallel connections of the power coils(Gentile fig. 12, col. 2: lines 12-14).
As to claim 20, it is rejected as the same reason as claim 1 and also because Uemura in view of Gentile teaches a magneto system which its power coils, ignition circuit, charging, discharging circuits and series/parallel power coil connection configuration. It would be obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Uemura in view of Gentile in order to produce the invention as claimed in claim 20.
5. Claims 4, 7-8, 12, 19, rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPN 6,571,769 to Uemura, and in view of USPN 11,004,592 to Bellur.
As to claim 4, Uemura teaches an aircraft piston engine magneto having a magnetic rotor (col. 4: line 33) and an ignition circuit that includes a reconfigurable charging coil inductively coupled to magnetic poles of the rotor, wherein the reconfigurable charging coil comprises multiple coils that are inductively powered off the magnetic rotor (col. 8: lines 42-47 wherein the charging coil is equivalent to the exciter coil “6” which is inductively coupled to magnetic poles of the rotor “4” in fig. 4A).
Uemura does not teach the windings which are electronically reconfigurable from a higher turn, lower amperage power coil for use and a lower turn, higher amperage power coil for use.
Bellur teaches the windings which are electronically reconfigurable from a higher turn, lower amperage power coil for use and a lower turn, higher amperage power coil for use(col. 1: lines 65 – col. 2: lines 3)
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Bellur into Uemura since Uemura suggests a motor control system and Bellur suggests the beneficial use of winding configuration having a higher turn, lower amperage power coil for use and a lower turn, higher amperage power coil for use in the analogous art of motor control technology.
The motivation for this comes from the fact that Bellur teaches the winding configuration having a higher turn, lower amperage power coil for use and a lower turn, higher amperage power coil for use which can be used to improve the motor control system disclosed by Uemura.
As to claim 7, Uemura in view of Bellur teaches the magneto of claim 4, wherein the ignition circuit contains only non-mechanically actuated electrical components, whereby the magneto comprises a fully electronic magneto(Uemura col. 8: lines 42-47).
As to claim 8, Uemura in view of Bellur teaches the magneto of claim 7, wherein the ignition circuit includes a position sensor located adjacent at least one magnet carried by the rotor, and wherein the ignition circuit obtains electrical power and data only from rotating magnetic fields produced by the rotor during rotation(Uemura col. 8: lines 42-47).
As to claim 12, it is rejected as the same reason as claims 3 and 4.
As to claim 19, it is rejected as the same reason as claim 11.
6. Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPN 6,571,769 to Uemura in view of USPN 11,004,592 to Bellur and further in view of USPN 10,988,030 to Gentile.
As to claim 5, Uemura in view of Bellur teaches the magneto of claim 4.
Uemura in view of Bellur teaches the windings which are electronically reconfigurable from a higher turn, lower amperage power coil for use and a lower turn, higher amperage power coil for use(Bellur col. 1: lines 65 – col. 2: lines 3)
Uemura in view of Bellur does not teach a winding configuration in series and in parallel.
Gentile teaches a winding configuration in series and in parallel(fig. 12, col. 2: lines 12-14).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Gentile into Uemura in view of Bellur since Uemura in view of Bellur suggests a motor control system and Gentile suggests the beneficial use of a winding configuration in series and in parallel in the analogous art of motor control technology.
The motivation for this comes from the fact that Gentile teachers a winding configuration in series and in parallel which can be used to improve the motor control system disclosed by Uemura in view of Bellur.
Allowable Subject Matter
7. Claims 6, 13-18 are objected to as being dependent upon the rejected base claims 4, 12, but could be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claims and any intervening claims for the following reasons: No prior art of record discloses the features as claimed in the noted claims.
8. Claims 21-23 are allowed.
9. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter. The non-obvious features are:
In comparison with the closest prior art as cited in this Office action and any previous Office actions, no prior art of record discloses the following features as claimed in the following claim limitations:
As per claim 6: The ignition circuit configures the multiple coils into the series connection when the speed detector indicates that the engine speed is below the speed threshold, and configures the charging coil into the parallel connection when the speed detector indicates that the engine speed is above the speed threshold.
As per claim 13: A speed detector that causes a change in ignition timing of the ignition pulses depending on whether the rotor speed is above or below a predetermined speed.
As per claim 17: Outputs the rotational angle data as quadrature sinusoidal waveforms indicative of the rotational angle of the magnetic rotor, and wherein the control circuit includes logic circuitry that, using the sinusoidal waveforms, enables firing of the ignition pulses only during particular rotational angles of the rotor.
As per claim 18: A plurality of power coils located adjacent the magnetic rotor at a first angular location such that the power coils supply the electrical power that operates the ignition circuit, and wherein the position sensor is located adjacent the magnetic rotor at a second angular location such that the position sensor senses the magnetic field lines of the magnetic rotor as the rotor rotates.
As per independent claim 21: An ignition circuit that inductively extracts power from the changing magnetic field lines, wherein the ignition circuit includes: a power circuit having a plurality of power coils that are wound about the core and that supply induced electrical power to one or more output nodes of the power circuit; a capacitive discharge ignition (CDI) discharge circuit having at least one ignition storage capacitor charged via the one or more output nodes, at least one ignition coil configured as a step up transformer having a primary and an inductively coupled secondary connected to one or more outputs of the CDI discharge circuit, and at least one controllable solid state switch, wherein the solid state switch and primary are series connected in circuit across the ignition storage capacitor such that, upon activation of the solid state switch, charge from the ignition storage capacitor flows through the switch and primary thereby establishing a magnetic field that remains until the solid state switch is deactivated, at which time current flow through the primary is interrupted so as to induce a high voltage pulse across the secondary; and a control circuit comprising at least one operating power storage capacitor, a position sensor located adjacent the magnetic rotor to detect magnetic field lines emanating from the rotor as it rotates, and a timing circuit that controls operation of the solid state switch based on rotor angular position sensed by the position sensor, wherein the operating power storage capacitor of the control circuit is connected to the ignition storage capacitor via a diode that permits charging of the operating power storage capacitor and prevents it from discharging by reverse current flow to the ignition storage capacitor, whereby the power coils provide operating power for both the ignition circuit and control circuit.
Conclusion
10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
USPN 4,911,126 to Notaras discloses an engine ignition circuit.
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID S LUO whose telephone number is (571)270-5251. The examiner can normally be reached 8AM-5PM.
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/DAVID LUO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2846