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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-21, and 23-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (2022/0239074) and Du et al. (2023/0155368).
Regarding independent claims 1, 13, 14, and 18, and dependent claims 8, 12, 15, and 16, Moon teaches a rack-mountable switching device and power provisioning method (Figs. 1 and 2), comprising:
two enclosures (housing of 10 and 20) mountable in a cabinet of an electronic equipment rack (30);
a field-replaceable automatic transfer switch module (circuitry inside 10) removably disposed in a first enclosure (the housing of 10) ([0007]);
an electronic bypass module (circuitry inside 20) in electrical communication with said automatic transfer switch module, and removably disposed in a second enclosure (the housing of 20);
a pair of inlets (10/20-1 and 10/20-2) penetrating said enclosure, each of said inlets connectable to a first power source and a second power source, respectively; ([0004])
at least one outlet (10/20-3) penetrating said enclosure and connectable to an electrical load/device; and
switching circuitry (Fig. 2) that includes a plurality (i.e. 3) of switch positions (inside 20 via 20-4), said switching circuitry interconnecting said automatic transfer switch module and said bypass module, said switching circuitry to prevent a bypass operation from completing until the bypass module inlet voltage is present and within an acceptable range, thereby preventing loss of power to said at least one outlet and/or switching device ([0004]).
Moon fails to explicitly teach a single enclosure having a unitary structure comprising two compartments, one for each of the two modules, and their claimed configuration of being horizontally side by side and the width of the enclosure being greater than the height of the enclosure. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to rearrange and combine the two enclosures in Moon’s invention in the claimed manner, since it has been held that forming in one piece an article which has formerly been formed in two pieces and put together involves only routine skill in the art (Howard v. Detroit Stove Works, 150 U.S. 164 (1893)), and since it has been held that rearranging parts of an invention involves only routine skill in the art (In re Japikse, 86 USPQ 70).
Moon fails to explicitly teach the switching circuitry including an inlet voltage sensor. Du teaches a similar switching device and power provisioning method (Figs. 1 and 2) to that of Moon. Du teaches an embodiment of their Fig. 1 where there are only two switch modules (120) to connect each power source (104 or 106) to the load ([0028]; i.e. two 124’s and two 126’s). In this case, Du’s first horizontal pair of modules (124 and 126) being analogous to Moon’s automatic transfer switch module, and the second horizontal pair (the other 124 and 126) being analogous to Moon’s bypass module. Du also teaches their switching circuitry including an inlet voltage sensor disposed in said bypass module, said inlet voltage sensor to monitor an inlet voltage at said bypass module ([0025], [0034]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement an inlet voltage sensor into Moon’s invention to be able to detect a failure in a power source and have more information available to know when a good time is to switch to the other power source, based on the loss of voltage at one power source, since Moon teaches the idea of performing switching so that a power is not cut-off to the load side but was silent on how to detect and what to do if/when a power source fails. Therefore, with this modification, Moon’s invention will detect the input power and determine if the main source has failed and can perform switching to provide power without a cut-off to the load side, since that is one of the main objectives of Moon’s invention.
Moon also teaches the switchboard (30) having inlets, outlets, and the two modules all being connected to one another (Fig. 2), but fails to explicitly teach their switchboard (30) comprising a backplane. The Examiner takes Official Notice that backplanes are known to be used in the switchboard art. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement a backplane in Moon’s switchboard that is connected to the inlets and outlets and allows the two modules to be connected to the sources and outlets via the backplane, since the Examiner takes Official Notice that it is known in the switchboard art to use backplanes to connect various elements to each other.
Regarding claims 3 and 4, Moon fails to explicitly teach the switching circuitry including microprocessors for each of the switch modules. Du teaches switching circuitry including microprocessors for each switch module and the microprocessors being in electrical communication and are operative to cooperate with another to ensure provisioning of power from one of the power sources to the outlet upon removal of said automatic transfer switch module ([0029], [0032], [0033]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include microprocessors for each of the switch modules in Moon’s invention, so that the switch modules can communicate and coordinate operations with each other to allow the system to function automatically, as opposed to only manually.
Regarding claims 5 and 6, Du teaches the bypass microprocessor being operative to monitor availability of input power, supply of output power to the at least one outlet ([0034]), if any, and a status of said automatic transfer switch module ([0029], [0033]).
Regarding claim 7, Du teaches the bypass microprocessor is operative to override and disconnect said automatic transfer switch module, thereby preventing said automatic transfer switch module from determining the power source from which power is provisioned. (via 132; [0031])
Regarding claim 9, Moon teaches said electronic bypass module (20) including a low voltage, low power three-position switch, comprising:
a first position for provisioning power from the first power source through said electronic bypass module (when 20-4 contacts 20-1);
a second position for provisioning power from the second power source through said electronic bypass module (when 20-4 contacts 20-2); and
a third position for enabling said automatic transfer switch module to determine an associated power source from which power is provisioned (when 20-4 doesn’t contact either, as shown in Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 10, Du teaches the electronic bypass module including one or more power relays (122 and/or 216; Fig. 2), from which power is provisioned, that are activated by a low power signal (via 212 and/or 214). ([0033])
Regarding claims 11 and 17, Moon fails to explicitly teach the enclosure being sized to fit with a 1U rack space. However, it would have been an obvious matter of design choice to have the enclosure being sized to fit with a 1U rack space, since such a modification would have involved a mere change in the size of a component, and change in size is generally recognized as being within the level of ordinary skill in the art. In re Rose, 105 USPQ 237 (CCPA 1955).
Regarding claim 19, Moon and Du both teach continuing to provide uninterrupted power upon disconnection of said automatic transfer switch module from said at least one of the plurality of power sources, and Du further teaches:
determining whether power is being provisioned from at least one power source through said bypass module or said automatic transfer switch module ([0029]; via communication bus to coordinate activities), and
allowing disconnection of said automatic transfer switch module only upon determining that power is being provisioned through said bypass module ([0044]).
Regarding claim 20, Du teaches placing said bypass module in a first state (i.e. connected to a power source) to disconnect said automatic transfer switch module and provision power from one of the plurality of power sources through the bypass module. ([0044])
Regarding claim 21, Du teaches placing said bypass module in a second state (when the bypass’ switch is open) to enable said automatic transfer switch module to determine the power source from which power is provisioned (by the ATS selecting which source/switch to connect/close).
Regarding claim 23, Du teaches a display (30) configured to provide information on one or more of power quality of the first power source and the second power source, status of power switching circuits of the switching circuitry, and power provided to the at least one outlet ([0030])
Regarding claims 24-27, Moon teaches said bypass module includes a selector switch (inside 20 via 20-4) having a plurality of bypass switch positions (Fig. 2 of Moon) including a first bypass position for provisioning power from the first power source through said bypass module (connected to 20-1) and a second bypass position for provisioning power from the second power source through said bypass module (connected to 20-2), and wherein said switching circuitry is operative to ensure provisioning of power from one of the first power source or the second power source to said at least one outlet irrespective of which of said plurality of bypass switch positions is selected ([0004]).
Claim(s) 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (2022/0239074) and Du et al. (2023/0155368) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Tomassi (2020/0091761). Moon and Du teach the switching device as described above. They fail to explicitly teach an install sensor. Tomassi teaches a similar switching device (Figs. 1-3) to that of Moon and Du. Tomassi also teaches an install sensor configured to detect when at least one of the switch modules is fully inserted into a backplane of a switching device, and wherein a signal from the at least one install sensor is used to control operation of power switch circuits of the switching circuitry ([0009], [0010], [0095]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement an install sensor into the Moon/Du invention so that the microprocessor (and the user) will know when each switch module is fully inserted into the switching device and is safely ready to be used.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed July 23, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Regarding the Applicant’s arguments with respect to the “housing”, “enclosure(s)”, “compartments” and the “equipment rack”, and their configuration with respect to spatial relationship (horizontal, side-by-side, etc.), the Examiner feels that none of this is a novel concept. Both the Applicant’s invention and the prior art teach two switching modules being removably combined in an equipment rack to perform the same function. Both teach two sources and two switching modules that are replaceable in an equipment rack to provide power from one of the two sources to a load based on the state of the power sources to provide uninterruptible power to a load. The semantics around the spatial relationship and what is an enclosure, a housing, and a compartment are frivolous. It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, based on the prior art teachings, to come up with the Applicant’s claimed configuration of enclosures, compartments, housings, and equipment rack, etc. Also, the Examiner points out that in claim 1 there is one enclosure with two modules, and in claim 14 there is a “dual compartment enclosure” with the two modules. The terms may be different but the resultant outcome of various “blocks” of elements combined together to perform the two source, one load, and side-by-side switching circuitry configuration to provide uninterrupted power is obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding the inlet voltage sensor, Du teaches the inlet voltage sensor disposed in the bypass module (120; shown in Fig. 2 of Du and [0034]). Du exactly teaches an inlet voltage sensor disposed in a bypass module (120 at 202). Du teaches detecting the voltage at 202 which is equivalent to the inlet voltage of the power source (see Fig. 1). Moon already teaches determining the status of the sources to prevent a bypass operation from completing until the bypass module inlet voltage is present and within an acceptable range.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DRU M PARRIES whose telephone number is (571)272-8542. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday -Thursday from 9:00am to 6:00pm. The examiner can also be reached on alternate Fridays.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Rexford Barnie, can be reached on 571-272-7492. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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DMP
7/31/2026
/DANIEL KESSIE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836
Prosecution Insights