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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gibney et al. (WO 2019/040510 A1).
Regarding independent claim 1, Gibney teaches a power supply system (Fig. 1; [0020]-[0025]) comprising:
a converter (104) capable of transforming a voltage into one of a first voltage and a second voltage that is greater than the first voltage (at 132); and
a first power distributor (106) that distributes output power, which is the DC power output from the converter, to a first load (114), wherein
the first power distributor is configured including
a first voltage detection unit (inside 134) that detects a voltage of the output power output from the converter and input to the first power distributor,
a first step-down unit (inside 106) capable of stepping down the voltage of the output power output from the converter and input to the first power distributor and supplying the output power (124) to the first load, and
a first distributor control unit (inside 134) that controls the first step-down unit based on the voltage detected by the first voltage detection unit, and
when the converter (104) outputs the first voltage, the first distributor control unit controls the first step-down unit (106) in a power satisfaction state to step down the first voltage of the output power and supply the output power to the first load in which the first voltage detected by the first voltage detection unit is equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold voltage ([0016], [0017]; the step-down unit is in the power satisfaction state when the supply voltage demand of the load corresponding to the step-down unit does not have the highest supply voltage need of all of the loads (114-122), and therefore the first voltage is equal to or higher than a predetermined voltage, which is a voltage just higher than the load demand of the step-down unit’s load), and
when the converter output the first voltage, controls the first step-down unit in a power shortage state in which the first voltage detected by the first voltage detection unit is less than the predetermined threshold voltage ([0017]; the power shortage state occurs in the one step-down unit (106-112) with the load that has the highest supply voltage needs, where the converter output voltage (132) is equal to that load’s supply voltage needs and the step-down unit does not perform stepping down of the converter output voltage).
Gibney teaches the output of the converter and the outputs of the step-down units being DC, but fails to explicitly teach the converter (104) being a DC/DC converter nor the claimed location of the various units being within the first power distributor. The Examiner takes Official Notice that it is known to have a DC power source supplying power to integrated circuit chips, similar to Gibney’s invention, that would lead to the converter (104) being a DC/DC converter. 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 the converter (104) of Gibney’s invention being a DC/DC converter since the Examiner takes Official Notice that DC power supplies are known to provide power to systems like Gibney’s, and since Gibney was silent as to the type of power source used.
It also would have been obvious to have the various claimed units to be inside each of the power distributors (106-112), instead of inside controller (134), since it has been held that rearranging parts of an invention involves only routine skill in the art. In re Japikse, 86 USPQ 70.
Regarding claim 2, Gibney teaches a converter control unit (inside 134) that controls the converter (104) ([0027]), wherein
when the first distributor control unit controls the first step-down unit in the power shortage state, the converter control unit controls the converter to boost the first voltage of the output power to the second voltage (this occurs in Gibney’s invention when a particular load’s demand increases to become the load with the highest supply voltage needs, which is greater than the first voltage; which causes the converter (104) to increase its output to match the load demand of this load), and
the first distributor control unit controls the first step-down unit in the power shortage state to supply the output power boosted to the second voltage by the converter to the first load without stepping down the voltage of the output power (because the second voltage matches the load demand of this load and no step down is needed).
Regarding claim 3, Gibney teaches a second power distributor (108) connected to the first power distributor, wherein
the second power distributor is configured including
a second voltage detection unit (inside 134, but rearranged as explained above) that detects a voltage of the output power output from the first power distributor and input to the second power distributor (both Gibney and the present invention teach the same circuit configuration of the power distributors each receiving the output of the converter in parallel; Applicant’s Fig. 1 and Gibney’s Fig. 1 basically show the same circuit configuration, so if drawn differently Gibney’s Fig. 1 could have the “output” from the first power distributor connected to the input of the second power distributor just like Applicant’s Fig. 1),
a second step-down unit capable of stepping down the voltage of the output power output from the first power distributor and input to the second power distributor and supplying the output power (126) to a second load, and
a second distributor control unit (inside 134, but rearranged as explained above) that controls the second step-down unit based on the voltage detected by the second voltage detection unit,
the first power distributor controls the first step-down unit in the power satisfaction state when the first voltage is equal to or higher than a first predetermined threshold voltage, and controls the first step-down unit in the power shortage state when the first voltage is less than the first predetermined threshold voltage (as described above in claim 1),
the second power distributor controls the second step-down unit in the power satisfaction state when the first voltage is equal to or higher than a second predetermined threshold voltage, and controls the second step-down unit in the power shortage state when the first voltage is less than the second predetermined threshold voltage (as described above in claim 1 with regards to power distributors in general),
the converter control unit controls, when the first power distributor is in the power satisfaction state and the second power distributor is in the power shortage state, the DC/DC converter to boost the voltage of the output power to the second voltage (i.e. when the second power distributor’s load just increased to have the highest supply voltage needs (i.e. 1.4 V) and the first power distributor’s load needs is say 1.0V and the DC/DC converter’s current output (first) voltage is 1.2V, therefore, in Gibney’s invention, the DC/DC converter’s output would be boosted to 1.4V aka the second voltage to match the load with the highest supply voltage needs aka the second load; [0017]),
the first distributor control unit controls the first step-down unit in the power satisfaction state to step down the second voltage and supply the output power to the first load (i.e. step down the 1.4V to 1.2V),
the second distributor control unit controls the second step-down unit in the power shortage state to supply the second voltage to the second load without stepping down the voltage of the output power (i.e. the 1.4V),
the converter control unit further controls, when the first power distributor and the second power distributor are in the power shortage state, the DC/DC converter to boost the voltage of the output power to a third voltage that is higher than the second voltage (i.e. when the first and second loads needs increase to 1.6V, and the DC/DC converter is currently outputting 1.4V, therefore Gibney’s DC/DC converter will boost to a third voltage (i.e. 1.6V)),
the first distributor control unit controls the first step-down unit in the power shortage state to supply the output power whose voltage is boosted to the third voltage by the DC/DC converter to the first load without stepping down the voltage of the output power (i.e. the 1.6V), and
the second distributor control unit controls the second step-down unit in the power shortage state to supply the output power whose voltage is boosted to the third voltage by the DC/DC converter to the second load without stepping down the voltage of the output power (i.e. 1.6V).
Claim(s) 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gibney et al. (WO 2019/040510 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Lai et al. (2013/0170311).
Gibney teaches the power supply system as described above. Gibney fails to explicitly teach the use of a battery. Lai teaches a similar power supply system (Fig. 2A) to that of Gibney. Lai teaches a similar common bus (Vin) connected to a plurality of power distributors (131, 132), similar to Gibney’s common bus (VOUT, 132) connected to their plurality of power distributors (106-112) and their converter (104). Lai goes on to teach a battery (11 and 12) electrically connected to the common bus to be charged by the voltage on the common bus coming from power source (201) ([0027]) and electrically connected to the first power distributor (131) to supply power directly to the first power distributor ([0028]). 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 battery into Gibney’s invention connected to their common bus (VOUT), so that in the case of excess power or a failure in the DC/DC converter, the battery can receive/store the excess power or supply power to the power distributors so that the loads can still remain powered even if the DC/DC converter fails.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed December 26, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Regarding detecting a volage of the output power output from the DC/DC converter, the Examiner believes that Gibney inherently teaches this. Gibney, at step 206, teaches determining the output voltage for their converter (104) and then controls the converter to output the determined amount of output voltage. It is inherent that Gibney’s invention teaches detecting a voltage output from the converter (104) since the invention needs to know how much voltage is being output after determining how much voltage needs to be output to know how much to increase or decrease the current output voltage by and to make sure the invention is operating correctly.
Regarding new claim 4, a new prior art reference was found to teach this new limitation, Lai et al. (2013/0170311).
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
2/10/2026
/DANIEL KESSIE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836