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 18/560,017 filed on 11/09/2023 is presented for examination. As per the remarks of 11/09/20203, claims 1-13 were cancelled. Claims 14-33 are newly added. Claims 14-33 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statment
The Information Disclosure Statements dated 11/09/2023, 02/07/2024 and 11/13/2024 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.
Drawings
The subject matter of this application admits illustration by a drawing to facilitate understanding of the invention. Applicant is required to furnish a drawing under 37 CFR 1.81(c). No new matter may be introduced in the required drawing. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d).
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 14-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hatakeyama et al. (US 2015/0217623) (Hereinafter, Hatakeyama) in view of Ghebru et al. (US 2017/0240058).
With respect to claims 14, 22, 25 and 33, Hatakeyama discloses a system/method for electrically charging a drive battery for a vehicle at a charging station (Fig. 1, 100: Para. # 0057: controller 70 receives a sensing signal of a charging state sensor 71 that senses that the vehicle is in a charging state), comprising: a refrigerant compressor for cooling the drive battery by way of a refrigerant (Para. # 0008: an air conditioner that includes a compressing unit for compressing a refrigerant for the air conditioner, a condensing unit for condensing the refrigerant for the air conditioner) and a fan for cooling a refrigerant (Fig. 1, 2/3; Para. # 0043, 0080, 0111: the evaporator 14, from air supplied to the cabin, the excess heat of the low water temperature loop 50 is absorbed in the chiller 17, and heat is radiated, in the condenser 12, from the refrigerant) a processing apparatus, operatively coupled to the refrigerant compressor (Para. # 0093: the controller 70 drives the compressor 11 in such a manner that the compressor 11 rotates with a minimum rotation speed and opens the chiller solenoid valve 23); and operatively coupled to the processing apparatus, wherein the processing apparatus is configured to cool a drive battery via a refrigerant compressor during charging of the drive battery (Para. # 0064: at the time of charging the battery, charging heat of the battery 1 and a heat loss of the inverter 53 and the DC/DC converter 52 are absorbed in the cooling water in the low water temperature loop 50, and the cooling water is heated by the hot water heater 54 as necessary. Excess heat of the cooling water is transferred, in the chiller 17, to the refrigerant in the air conditioner loop 10); and cool the refrigerant via the fan during the charging of the drive battery receive an upper charging loudness limit value (Para. # 0064, 0065 and 0088: at the time of charging the battery, charging heat of the battery 1; and steps S4 or S5 is set to be an upper limit value or a lower limit value of the temperature that is preferable for the operation, based on battery 1); adjust a mode
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of operation of the refrigerant adjust a mode of operation of the refrigerant compressor (Para. # 147: adjusted appropriately by adjusting operation status of the evaporator 25 and the hot water heater 54); and adjusting a mode of operation of the fan based on the received upper charging loudness limit value (Para. # 124, 132: gradually increases by the charging heat, and the compressor 11 and the condenser fan 2 are operated again. Thus, the compressor 11 and the condenser fan 2, operated together with the compressor 11, are turned on/off so that the target temperature is attained).
Hatakeyama, does not expressly disclose a processor, operatively coupled to the processing apparatus, wherein the processing apparatus is configured to cool a drive battery.
Ghebru, on the other hand, discloses a processor, operatively coupled to the processing apparatus, wherein the processing apparatus is configured to cool a drive battery (See Para. # 0018 and 0023: a high cooling power is provided because a maximum value for the noise emission is also high in such a case. In particular, the maximum cooling power can be made available; the position of the motor vehicle, in particular during the charging, makes it possible to further improve the adjustment of the cooling power. With a low external temperature, the cooling power is increased because as a rule, the cooling device outputs the heat into the ambient air).
HATAKEYAMA and Ghebru are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, namely thermal management system and charging method for electrically drivable motor vehicle.
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 modified the processor of Hatakeyama in view of Ghebru to control the cooling elements so as to help the drive battery adjust the heat or temperature to keep properly running and prolong the battery life.
With respect to claims 15, 26 and 28, the combined references of Hatakeyama and Ghebru disclose the system for electrically charging the drive battery as described above, further Hatakeyama discloses wherein the processing apparatus and memory are configured to: determine a refrigerant pressure upstream from the refrigerant compressor and/or downstream from the refrigerant compressor; and adjust the mode of operation of the refrigerant compressor and/or the mode of operation of the fan as a function of the ascertained refrigerant pressure upstream from the refrigerant compressor and/or as a function of the determined refrigerant pressure downstream from the refrigerant compressor (Para. # 0033-0035 and 0051).
With respect to claims 16, 19, 20 and 27, the combined references of Hatakeyama and Ghebru disclose the system for electrically charging the drive battery as described above, further Hatakeyama discloses wherein the processing apparatus and memory are configured to adjust the mode of operation of the refrigerant compressor by (i) adjusting the mode of operation via a rotational speed of the refrigerant compressor and/or (i) adjusting the mode of operation of the fan via a rotational speed of the fan (Para. # 0053, 0058, 147: the controller 70 processes the received various signals and controls the air quantity of the blower fan 3, the opening degrees of the respective doors, a rotation speed of the compressor 11, the operation of the condenser fan 2, etc).
With respect to claims 17, 21, 29 and 32, the combined references of Hatakeyama and Ghebru disclose the system for electrically charging the drive battery as described above, further Ghebru discloses wherein the processing apparatus and memory are configured to determine an outside temperature in a surrounding area of the vehicle, and adjust the mode of operation of the refrigerant compressor and/or the fan as a function of the ascertained outside temperature (Para. # 0034: The adjustment of the cooling power is carried out in step 18 based on the characteristic curve field while taking into account an external temperature in the area of the position of the motor vehicle).
With respect to claims 18, 23, 30 and 31, the combined references of Hatakeyama and Ghebru disclose the system for electrically charging the drive battery as described above, further Hatakeyama discloses wherein the processing apparatus and memory are configured to determine a suction pressure at the refrigerant compressor, and adjust the mode of operation of the refrigerant compressor and/or the mode of operation of the fan as a function of the determined suction pressure (Para. # 147: adjusted appropriately by adjusting operation status of the evaporator 25 and the hot water heater 54. In addition, a cooling system of the battery 1 can be simplified).
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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/YALKEW FANTU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859
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