DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to the application filed on 29 March 2024.
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 .
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.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-4, 7, 14 and 15 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1: see the claim set at p. 1, line 18, “the switching circuit” should be changed to “the switching switch”.
Claim 2: see claims p. 2, line 1, “the second switching switch” should be changed to “the second switching circuit”.
Claim 3: see claims p. 2, line 8, “the second switching switch” should be changed to “the second switching circuit”.
Claim 4: see claims p. 2, line 13, the claim recites, “… the control circuit realizes …”; the Cambridge online dictionary defines realize as meaning, “to become aware” or “to understand a situation”. However, a control circuit like that being claimed is inherently incapable of awareness and understanding. Examiner suggests changing “realizes” in claim 4 to “determines”.
Claim 4: at p. 2, line 17, the claim recites, “… to communicate to realize …”. For one, it appears that only one of the words “communicate” and “realize” should be present. If “realize” is selected, then this should be replaced with a more appropriate verb; see explanation and suggestion above.
Claim 7: see claims p. 3, line 17, “the switching circuit” should be changed to “the switching switch”.
Claim 14: see the objections to claim 4, above.
Claim 15: see p. 6, line 18, “the plurality of switching circuits” should be changed to “the plurality of switching switches”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chang et al. (US 2022/0271645; “Chang”) in view of TW I796859 B to Weltrend Semiconductor Inc. (“Weltrend”; originally cited in the 22 August 2024 IDS by Applicant).
Examiner’s note: A machine translation of the full text of Weltrend is being furnished with this Office action; citations to the text of Weltrend will refer to this translation document.
In re claim 1, Chang discloses a power supply (Figs. 2, 8-10) configured to provide two power outputs (e.g., Fig. 2: 203a, 203b), the power supply comprising:
a first conversion circuit (Fig. 2: 201) configured to convert an input voltage (from 205) into a first voltage (VHI1),
a second conversion circuit (202) coupled to the first conversion circuit (201), and the second conversion circuit configured to convert the first voltage (VHI1) into a second voltage (VHI2),
a control circuit (204) coupled to the first conversion circuit and the second conversion circuit (see, e.g., signals SET1 and SET2 in Fig. 2),
a first switching circuit (SW11, SW21) coupled to the control circuit (via signals SW11G, SW21G), the first conversion circuit (via VHI1), a first output terminal (203a), and a second output terminal (203b),
a second switching circuit (SW12, SW22) coupled to the control circuit (signals SW12G, SW22G), the first output terminal (203a), and the second output terminal (203b), and
wherein when the control circuit receives a first voltage requirement of the first output terminal or a second voltage requirement of the second output terminal (see [0035], [0039] and signals Sc1, Sc2 received by the control circuit 204 in Fig. 2), the control circuit is configured to control the first switching circuit to connect a path from the first conversion circuit to the first output terminal when the first voltage requirement is received (see Fig. 7: situation 2.1; when a device connected to first output 203a requires voltage, SW11 is on to connect the first conversion circuit 201 to 203a), and disconnect a path from the first conversion circuit to the second output terminal (Fig. 7: situation 2.1; switch SW21 is off to disconnect first conversion circuit 201 from second output terminal 203b), and the control circuit controls the second switching circuit to disconnect a path from the second conversion circuit to the first output terminal and a path from the second conversion circuit to the second output terminal (situation 2.1 in Fig. 7: both SW12 and SW22 are off, disconnecting second conversion circuit 202 from both output terminals 203a and 203b) so as to prevent the second voltage (VHI2) from being mistakenly supplied to the first output terminal and the second output terminal (see, e.g., [0044]; with both SW12 and SW22 turned off, VHI2 is disconnected from both output terminals).
Chang does not disclose a switching switch coupled to the control circuit, the second conversion circuit, and the second switching circuit, and wherein the control circuit, when disconnecting the path from the second conversion circuit to both output terminals, controls the switching switch so as to prevent the first voltage from flowing back to the second conversion circuit.
Whereas Weltrend discloses a power supply with plural outputs (Fig. 3) including first and second converters (201, 202) and an output switching arrangement (QA1+QA2; QB1+QB2), where the switching arrangement may further include additional switches ([0060]: switches QB1 and QB2 may be implemented by the circuit SW4 shown in Fig. 4D, in which case the transistors NM21 that are part of switches QB1+QB2 may be considered to correspond to the “switching switch” while transistors NM22 that are part of QB1+QB2 may be considered to correspond to the “second switching circuit”). Because the transistors, as shown in Fig. 4D, are connected such that their body diodes are in opposing polarities, the resulting switching arrangement (Fig. 3) is able to ensure no current flows from any of the output terminals (VO1, VO2) back to the second conversion circuit (202) when the switches QB1, QB2 are turned off (see [0058], [0059]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the power supply of Chang by including a switching switch as an additional switching unit connected back-to-back to the second switching circuit (SW12 and SW22 in Fig. 2), where each of the individual switches are implemented as MOSFETs with their body diodes in opposite polarities as shown by Weltrend, in order to use the diodes’ blocking effects to prevent backfeeding of current from either output terminal to the second conversion circuit when it has been disconnected from the output terminals, as taught by Weltrend.
In re claim 2, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that when the first voltage requirement is equal to the second voltage requirement, the control circuit is configured to control the first switching circuit to connect the path from the first conversion circuit to the first output terminal and connect the path from the first conversion circuit to the second output terminal (see Chang, example Fig. 6, situation 4.1 and [0043]: with both output terminals being USB Type A and requiring 5V, the first switching circuit SW11 and SW21 connect the first conversion circuit 201 to both output terminals 203a and 203b), and control the switching switch and the second switching switch to bidirectionally disconnect the path from the second conversion circuit to the first output terminal and the path from the second conversion circuit to the second output terminal (in situation 4.1 as cited above, the switches SW12 and SW22 (which comprise the switching switch together with the switching circuit as was the proposed combination of prior art with respect to claim 1, above) are turned off and thus bidirectionally disconnect (because of the body diode orientation as explained) the second conversion circuit 202 from both output terminals 203a, 203b).
In re claim 3, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that when the first voltage requirement is greater than the second voltage requirement, the control circuit is configured to control the first switching circuit to connect the path from the first conversion circuit to the first output terminal (see Chang, example Fig. 7, situation 3.1 and [0045]: with first output terminal 203a high voltage and second output terminal 203b low voltage, first switching circuit SW11, SW21 connect first conversion circuit 201 to first output terminal 203a and disconnect it from 203b) and to disconnect the path from the first conversion circuit to the second output terminal, and control the switching switch and the second switching switch to connect the path from the second conversion circuit to the second output terminal and to disconnect the path from the second conversion circuit to the first output terminal (situation 3.1 as cited above: second switching circuit SW12, SW22 connect second conversion circuit 202 to second output terminal 203b and disconnect it from 203a).
In re claim 4, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that when the first conversion circuit is configured to provide the first voltage to one of the first output terminal and the second output terminal through the first switching circuit (see example situation shown in Fig. 11 of Chang and [0053]: from time t1-t3, first converter 201 provides voltage VHI1 as VOUT[1] to 203a), and the control circuit realizes that the other of the first output terminal and the second output terminal is connected to a load, the control circuit is configured to control the second conversion circuit to provide a default voltage through the switching switch and the second switching circuit to the other of the first output terminal and the second output terminal (Fig. 11 of Chang: at time t3 a load is connected to 203b and second converter 202 provides voltage VOUT[2] at a default level of 5V as shown and described at [0053]) to communicate to realize the first voltage requirement or the second voltage requirement (at time t4, through the communication earlier described in Chang, the second output 203b requires the higher voltage), and therefore to decide that the first conversion circuit or the second conversion circuit is configured to supply power to the other of the first output terminal and the second output terminal (Fig. 11 and [0053]: the controller decides that the outputs should be swapped and does so via the switching circuits and (after the combination with Weltrend as proposed) the switching switch during time period Tr or from T5-T6).
In re claim 5, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that the first voltage is provided to the first output terminal and the load is connected to the second output terminal (as shown in Fig. 11 and described at [0053]: from time t1-t3 when the load is connected to 203b);
when the second voltage requirement is equal to the first voltage requirement (understood as implicitly taught in Chang where the initial situation is as shown in Fig. 11, and where both loads at 203a, 203b request the same voltage like in situation 4.1 of Fig. 6 and described at [0043]), the control circuit is configured to control the first switching circuit to connect the path from the first conversion circuit to the first output terminal and connect the path from the first conversion circuit to the second output terminal (Fig. 6 of Chang, situation 4.1, [0043]: first switching circuit SW11, SW12 are turned on to connect first converter 201 to output terminals 203a, 203b), and control the switching switch and the second switching circuit to keep bidirectionally disconnecting the path from the second conversion circuit to the first output terminal and disconnecting the path from the second conversion circuit to the second output terminal (situation 4.1 as cited above: switches SW12, SW22, which comprise the second switching circuit and the switching switch after the combination with Weltrend as proposed, are turned off to keep bidirectionally disconnecting the second converter 202 from both 203a, 203b).
In re claim 6, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that the first voltage is provided to the first output terminal and the load is connected to the second output terminal (as shown in Fig. 11 and described at [0053]: from time t1-t3 when the load is connected to 203b);
when the first voltage requirement is equal to the second voltage requirement (understood as implicitly taught in Chang where the initial situation is as shown in Fig. 11, and where both loads at 203a, 203b request the same voltage like in alternative situation 4.2 of Fig. 6 and described at [0043]), the control circuit is configured to control the first switching circuit to keep connecting the path from the first conversion circuit to the first output terminal and control the switching switch and the second switching circuit to keep disconnecting the path from the second conversion circuit to the first output terminal (Fig. 6 of Chang, situation 4.2 as cited: SW11 of first switching circuit is ON and SW12 comprising part of the second switching circuit and switching switch is turned OFF), and control the first switching circuit to keep disconnecting the path from the first conversion circuit to the second output terminal and control the switching switch and the second switching circuit to connect the path from the second conversion circuit to the second output terminal (situation 4.2 as cited: SW21 of first switching circuit is OFF, SW22 comprising part of second switching circuit and switching switch is ON).
In re claim 7, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that the first voltage is provided to the first output terminal and the load is connected to the second output terminal (as shown in Fig. 11 and described at [0053]: from time t1-t3 when the load is connected to 203b);
when the first voltage requirement is less than the second voltage requirement (understood as implicitly taught in Chang where the initial situation is as shown in Fig. 11, and where the loads request different voltages as in situation 3.2 of Fig. 7, described at [0045]), the control circuit is configured to control the first switching circuit to disconnect the path from the first conversion circuit to the first output terminal (situation 3.2 as cited: SW11 is OFF) and control the switching circuit and the second switching circuit to connect the path from the second conversion circuit to the first output terminal (situation 3.2 as cited: SW12 is ON), and control the first switching circuit to connect the path from the first conversion circuit to the second output terminal (Situation 3.2: SW21 is ON) and control the switching switch and the second switching circuit to keep disconnecting the path from the second conversion circuit to the second output terminal (situation 3.2: SW22 is OFF).
In re claim 8, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that the first switching circuit comprises: a plurality of first switches (see Fig. 2 of Chang: SW11, SW21) coupled to the first conversion circuit (201) and the control circuit (204), and respectively coupled to the first output terminal (203a) and the second output terminal (203b), wherein junction diodes of the plurality of first switches (the combination with Weltrend as proposed above would implement the switches as MOSFETs, where specifically the two switches of the first switching circuit, which correspond to QA1 and QA2 in Fig. 3 of Weltrend, are implemented as the NMOS transistor SW3 in Fig. 4C as taught at the cited [0060] of Weltrend) are arranged in a reverse-biased direction from the first conversion circuit to the first output terminal and the second output terminal (c.f. Figs. 3 and 4C of Weltrend, and Fig. 2 of Chang with all components as cited above in the Office action).
In re claim 9, the combination of Chang and Weltrend as proposed above would necessarily further provide that the second switching circuit comprises: a plurality of second switches (Chang, Fig. 2: SW12, SW22, or more particularly, after the proposed combination with Weltrend, the switches of the second switching circuit are depicted as transistor NM22 of Fig. 4D, when circuit SW4 is used for both switches QB1, QB2 of Fig. 3: see [0060] of Weltrend) coupled to the switching switch (which comprises transistors NM21 in both of QB1, QB2 in the combination as proposed) and the control circuit (which is controller 204 of Chang, and controls all of the switches ON or OFF as taught in Chang), and respectively coupled to the first output terminal and the second output terminal (Chang Fig. 2: SW12, SW22 connected to 203a, 203b respectively; corresponding with Weltrend Fig. 3: QB1, QB2 connect to VO1, VO2 respectively), wherein junction diodes of the second switches are arranged in a forward-biased direction from the switching switch to the first output terminal and the second output terminal (c.f. Figs. 3 and 4D of Weltrend and Fig. 2 of Chang: transistors NM22 would both have their diodes forward-biased in the manner recited), and a junction diode of the switching switch (which could be the diode of NM21 (Weltrend, Fig. 4D) that is proposed to be part of the switch SW12 (Chang, Fig. 2), or the diode of NM21 (Weltrend, Fig. 4D) that is proposed to be part of SW22 (Chang, Fig. 2)) is arranged in a reverse-biased direction from the second conversion circuit to the plurality of second switches (c.f. Figs. 3 and 4D of Weltrend and Fig. 2 of Chang: transistors NM21 would both have their diodes reverse-biased in the manner recited).
Claim 10 is directed to a power supply that substantially corresponds to claims 1 on a limitation-by-limitation basis, except that claim 10 extends or narrows the scope of the inventive power supply by further defining the second conversion circuit as a plurality of second conversion circuits that produce a plurality of second voltages, further defining the second switching circuit as a plurality of second switching circuits, and further defining the switching switch as a plurality of switching switches.
It is respectfully submitted that the cited embodiment of Fig. 2 in Chang is also described as being extended or narrowed in the exact same manner as claimed, as shown in Figs. 9 and 10 and described at [0047]-[0052], except for the plurality of switching switches, which are not explicitly taught in Chang, exactly as explained with respect to claim 1, above. Meanwhile, the modifications to Chang in light of the teachings of Weltrend that were proposed with respect to claim 1, above, would be easily understood to the person of ordinary skill in the art to be equally applicable to these further embodiments in Chang, by using the circuit SW4 of Fig. 4D of Weltrend for each of the plurality of second switching circuits just as was proposed for the one second switching circuit (SW21, SW22 in Fig. 2 of Chang), above.
Therefore, based on the cited content of the prior art and under essentially the same rationale as explained above, mutatis mutandis¸it would have been equally obvious for the person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the power supply of Chang by including a switching switch as an additional switching unit connected back-to-back to each of the second switching circuits (Figs. 9 or 10, in correspondence with Fig. 2, as cited and explained above), where each of the individual switches are implemented as MOSFETs with their body diodes in opposite polarities as shown by Weltrend, in order to use the diodes’ blocking effects to prevent backfeeding of current from any output terminal to any of the second conversion circuits when they have been disconnected from the output terminals, as taught by Weltrend.
In this same manner, claims 11-20 correspond substantially to respective claims 2-9, with the additional second conversion circuits/second output terminals/second switching circuits/ switching switches. The claims correspond nearly identically with the functionality described in Chang, as evidenced by the mapping of claims 2-9 in the Examiner’s explanations for these claims. In the same manner, the nearly identical further embodiments in Figs. 9-10 and their description in Chang are understood as teaching, whether expressly or implicitly, to provide the corresponding functionality, mutatis mutandis, for the corresponding limitations of claims 11-20. See Chang, for example the citations above with respect to claims 2-9, as well as [0047]-[0048] for Fig. 9, or [0049]-[0050] for Fig. 10.
Therefore, the explanations for each individual claim 11-20 are not repeated here.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US Patent 9,755,454 discloses redundant power supply protection including switching units for selectively connecting outputs of multiple conversion circuits to multiple output terminals, and including additional switching switches for blocking reverse current flow to a disconnected conversion circuit from any terminal.
US 2021/0111578 discloses a USB Type-C interface circuit comprising switching circuits for selectively connecting outputs of multiple conversion circuits to multiple output terminals.
US 2022/0337056 is the English language equivalent document to TW I773084 B, cited by Applicant in the 29 March 2024 IDS.
US 2023/0333616 discloses power source selection systems including a switchover switch and reverse current blocking diodes.
US 2024/0372458 discloses a power converter with multi-port DC output circuit for selectively connecting multiple conversion circuit outputs with multiple output terminals, while blocking undesired reverse currents between terminals.
US 2025/0047124 discloses a power supply device including output switching units for selectively connecting outputs of multiple conversion circuits to multiple output terminals, with additional diodes as switches for blocking reverse current flow.
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/FRED E FINCH III/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2838