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
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/20/23 has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 2-3 are objected to because of the following informalities:
in claim 2, line 4, “[Math. 2]” should be deleted;
in claim 2, line 5, “…… (2)” should be deleted.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Bortis (US 2020/0076311).
With respect to claim 1, Bortis discloses a control apparatus for a three-terminal static DC transformer for drive-controlling the three-terminal static DC transformer configured so that first, second, and third self-excited single-phase inverters (Fig. 1 VB) which are connected parallelly to DC capacitors (Fig. 1 capacitors on DC side of VB), respectively, at their DC sides are connected via a high frequency transformer (Fig. 1 T) at their AC sides so as to supply electric power between first, second, and third DC terminals (Fig. 3 A,QAC, B,QHV, C,QNV) to which the first, second, and third self-excited single-phase inverters corresponding to the first, second, and third DC terminals, respectively, are connected, the control apparatus comprising a computing unit (Fig. 6 RG, R1-Rn) that drives each of the first, second, and third self-excited single-phase inverters so that voltages at the AC side are respectively caused to undergo time changes cyclically in three levels, that is, a positive voltage (Fig. 4a positive pulse), a null voltage (Fig. 4a zero voltage), and a negative voltage (Fig. 4a negative pulse), and time when sections of the null voltage regarding the voltages at the AC sides of the first, second, and third self-excited single-phase inverters overlap (Fig. 4a null voltages overlap) in time with each other is maximized (Fig. 4a entire time of shortest null voltage of phase C occurs in the other 2 phases A and B).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3 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 and if the claim objections stated above were overcome. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With respect to claim 2, the prior art does not disclose or suggest, in combination with the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, primarily, wherein the computing unit drives each of the first, second, and third self-excited single-phase inverters to satisfy a mathematical expression below:
(π-δ1)V1=(π-δ2)V2=(π-δ3)V3
where V1 represents a voltage of the first DC terminal connected to the first self-excited single-phase inverter; V2 represents a voltage of the second DC terminal connected to the second self-excited single-phase inverter; V3 represents a voltage of the third DC terminal connected to the third self-excited single-phase inverter; δ1 represents time of the null voltage which is the voltage of the AC side of the first self-excited single-phase inverter; δ2 represents time of the null voltage which is the voltage at the AC side of the second self-excited single-phase inverter; and δ3 represents time of the null voltage which is the voltage at the AC side of the third self-excited single-phase inverter.
The aforementioned limitations in combination with all remaining limitations of the respective claims are believed to render the aforementioned indicated claim and any dependent claims thereof patentable over the art of record.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Iyasu (US 2020/0271684), Kominami (US 2014/0103860), Kado (US 2020/0195156) and Jia (US 2022/0045619) disclose three terminal static DC transformers.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARRY RAYMOND BEHM whose telephone number is (571)272-8929. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8-5 EST.
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/HARRY R BEHM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2838
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