DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 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.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hunsaker et al. (U.S. Publication 2017/0185559), hereinafter Hunsaker in view of Yang (U.S. Publication 2014/0226708), hereinafter Yang.
Referring to claim 19, Hunsaker teaches, as claimed, an embedded system, comprising:
a first system (see Fig. 2, Operating System) and a processor (see Fig. 2, Processor 210), wherein the first system runs on the processor;
the first system, configured to acquire a request command (a PECI command, see Paragraph 78), determine multiple pieces of logical bit information (see Fig. 4, I/O [n:0]) corresponding to the request command; and generate a hardware interface signal (executable instruction, see Paragraph 77 and Fig. 4, 410)
Hunsaker does not disclose expressly a command based on the multiple pieces of logical bit information and a timer.
Yang does disclose a command (command, see Paragraph 52 and Fig. 6) based on the multiple pieces of logical bit (see Fig. 2A, 203) information and a timer (counter with clock, see Paragraph 35; and Fig. 3A, Counter 301).
At the time of the invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Yang’s lower power to generate pulse modulated (PWM) signals into Hunsaker interface signals (i.e. PECI-Over-eSPI).
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to broaden the market potential that fully utilize PECI features (i.e. serial data on single wire control of cooling device or power control) of Hunsaker (see Yang Paragraph 3; Note, in the context of PECI, Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) is the core mechanism used at the physical layer to encode digital data into a single-wire signal).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 4-16, and 43 are allowed.
Claims 28-29 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 2/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not deemed to be persuasive.
Applicant argues, “Applicant therefore respectfully requests the withdrawal of the rejections of claims 1-2, 13-15, 19, and 43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as allegedly being unpatentable over Hunsaker in view of Yang.”
Examiner disagrees with applicant. The claim 19 is not a dependent claim. No amendment has been made to claim 19 and previous rejection is maintained.
Applicant argues, Applicant respectfully submits that dependent claims 4-12, 16, and 28-29 are now allowable.
Examiner disagrees with applicant. Dependent claims 28-29 are dependent claims of claim 19. Previous objections are maintained.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hyun Nam whose telephone number is (571) 270-1725 and fax number is (571) 270-2725. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jyoti Mehta can be reached on (571) 270-3995. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/HYUN NAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2183