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
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Motohiko (JP 2019-140854 A, cited in IDS filed 05/03/2024, machine translation provided for citation) in view of Lee et al. (US 2023/0054074) and Taruya et al. (US 2022/0080841 A1).
With regards to claims 1, 6 and 7, Motohiko teaches a fuel cell system (10) comprising a fuel cell (FC) configured to generate electric power by an electrochemical reaction between a cathode gas and an anode gas (¶ 0006, 0009), a fuel cell heat medium supply device configured to supply to the fuel cell a heat medium for controlling a temperature of the fuel cell (FC medium circuit 300), a fuel cell heat medium temperature sensor configured to detect a temperature of the heat medium for controlling the temperature of the fuel cell (¶ 0016, sensor 390), a heat medium supply device configured to branch the heat medium flowing from the fuel cell heat medium supply device and supply a heater (660) the branched heat medium (Heater circuit 600), and a heat medium temperature sensor configured to detect a temperature of the heat medium flowing through the heat medium supply device and controlling a temperature of the heater (¶ 0020, sensor 680, 690).
Motohiko teaches a switching valve (640) that is a 3-way valve that can allow or block communication between the FC circuit (hereinafter referred to as the FC) and the Heater circuit (¶ 0020-0021, hereinafter referred to as the HC). Motohiko teaches that the switching valve (640) is controlled by a control unit (700) (¶ 0022-0026). Motohiko describes that it is known in the art during time periods of receiving regenerative power from the motor or braking, the controller can perform a charging process to charge a storage battery (¶ 0022). However, the controller is also capable of performing auxiliary power consumption processing such as causing the heating unit to consume power exceeding acceptable storage of the battery, using the term surplus power (¶ 0022). This surplus power is a condition in which as claimed the power storage device is not chargeable with regenerative power generated by the motor. As seen in Figure 1 the fuel cell system includes inverter 240 such that during operation of the fuel cell power can be supplied to the motor (250) to generate a driving force and during regenerative power stages the power is transferred back through the inverter to either the battery or an auxiliary operation to consume the power.
Motohiko teaches that the controller is programmed with logic to execute the auxiliary power consumption in an order of operations in which the temperature of both the HC and the FC are measured and utilized (¶ 0024-0026). First, the controller determines the temperature in the HC, and with the valve isolating the HC from the FC, or in the “shut-off” position, it sends surplus power to the heater (¶ 0024). Thus during step S110-S120, the controller is measuring the temperature of the HC as it rises and approaches a predetermined first temperature T1. During this time, because the fuel cell is not receiving heated medium, nor is the fuel cell generating heat itself the temperature of the fuel cell is lower than the temperature of the heating medium.
Once the HC reaches a predetermined temperature the controller will then switch the switching valve to the claimed state in which there is communication to increase a fuel cell heat medium temperature by communication between the FC and the HC (¶ 0125). The claimed relationship of a temperature difference obtained by subtracting the current FC temp from the HC temp is analogous to the operation described in Motohiko. Rather than expressing the increasing difference in temperature as a delta between the FC and the HC, Motohiko describes monitoring the HC temp until it hits a ceiling. This means that as the temperature in the HC rises the claimed delta is also rising until a threshold is hit. That threshold is when the HC hits the ceiling temp. What is not described in Motohiko is the contingency that the fuel cell itself is lower than a first threshold temperature. Meaning that the controller would not turn on an element that heats the fuel cell if the fuel cell is already at an elevated temperature. However, this obvious logic gate flows naturally from the art as the controller of Motohiko also includes a threshold temperature that the fuel cell is not to exceed. This is described in ¶ 0026.
In a similar field of endeavor, Lee teaches a system for controlling a fuel cell (Abstract) similar to that of Motohiko. Lee teaches that it is known in the art to control the cell in order to explicitly avoid overcooling and overheating (¶ 0018).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill to ensure that the fuel cell is not heated above a threshold temperature as this is also a limitation in Motohiko as it is well known in the art to avoid overheating of a fuel cell, and thus inclusion of a logic element in the controller of Motohiko that prevents communication between a heating element and the fuel cell if the fuel cell is already above a critical temperature would be obvious to one of ordinary skill.
While Motohiko does not explicitly teach that the two gasses comprise a fuel gas and air, Lee teaches that it was known in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to utilize a fuel gas such as hydrogen and air for the reaction (¶ 0008) for vehicle fuel cells similar to Motohiko. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to utilize air along with an air supply device such as a compressor (¶ 0013, 0144) in the system of Motohiko for the gas as both relate to fuel cell vehicles presenting a reasonable expectation of success, and Motohiko does not teach a specific anode and cathode fuel source means prompting one of ordinary skill to look to related art. These control units are known, as discussed in Lee, to include sensors for monitoring air flow rate (¶ 0149).
Motohiko in view of Lee does not explicitly teach that the controller is configured to switch the switching valve to a shut-off state to perform power consumption control in which a rotational speed of the air pump is increased to cause the regenerative power to be consumed by the air pump when the contingency of the fuel cell heat medium temperature becoming equal to or higher than the first threshold temperature.
As discussed above, when the 3-way valve of Motohiko is in the open or communication position, the heating medium passing over the hot heating element is also flowing through the fuel cell. The controller is already capable of operating the 3-way valve to switch to the “shut-off” state. The question is whether it is obvious to shut-off the flow of medium passing over the hot heater when the fuel cell reaches a predetermined elevated temperature. While not explicitly stated in Motohiko it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to switch the valve to the shut-off position when the combined system (400/300/600) reaches the highest allowable temperature. This is obvious because the heating element is hot, and that heat is required to go somewhere. Removing the FC from the heat source when the FC is too hot is a logical design choice selecting from the finite number of predictable solutions for the control of the FC. Even if power is turned off to the heater there remains thermal inertia in the system.
Motohiko in view of Lee does not explicitly teach directing the remaining surplus power to the air pump or compressor once the FC has reached a critical temperature threshold. However, it is previously established that surplus power can be directed towards auxiliary systems.
In a similar field of endeavor, Taruya teaches a power system for a fuel cell vehicle (Abstract, Fig. 1). As seen in Figure 2 the system includes a fuel cell stack (20) with a compressor for supplying air (23) that is under the control of a controller (9). As seen in Figure 3 Taruya contemplates conditions in which surplus power is produced necessitating the second idling stop process as the car is in downhill travel (Fig. 3) and as seen in Figure 6 this can include the battery at the upper limit. The system air supply system of Taruya is shown in greater detail than the air supply of Motohiko. As seen in Taruya the air pump has a passage that feeds the fuel cell (24) and has a branch (27) that includes a bypass valve (27a). This bypass allows for the controller to supply power to the air pump while not generating additional power in the fuel cell (¶ 0061, 0069). Taruya explicitly discusses the condition in which the controller continues to operate auxiliary devices like the air pump in order to use the surplus power.
Thus the art recognizes an additional predictable solution for consuming surplus power in the form of driving the air pump along with opening of a bypass valve. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to provide the controller of Motohiko with instructions to configure it to utilize driving the air pump along with operation of the bypass valve as an additional predictable option for consuming surplus power after the temperature of the fuel cell precludes the initial solution as doing so utilizes a known predictable solution in the art for surplus power generation.
With regards to claim 2, Motohiko in view of Lee and Taruya as applied to claim 1 above teaches first heating the HC, then the FC, then the additional measures.
With regards to claim 3, Motohiko teaches first sending power to the heater in a condition in which the valve is in the shut-off position (¶ 0024) necessarily being below a threshold as the heating has not commenced.
With regards to claim 4, Once the HC reaches a predetermined temperature the controller will then switch the switching valve to the claimed state in which there is communication to increase a fuel cell heat medium temperature by communication between the FC and the HC (¶ 0125). This increases the temperature of the FC.
With regards to claim 5, Motohiko does not teach that the valve includes an intermediate state; however, as discussed in the Taruya, it is well-known in the art that flow rates can be controlled depending on the degree of opening of a valve (¶ 0059). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to configure the controller to be capable of partial opening of a valve in order to increase the control of the sensitive process.
Conclusion
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/GALEN H HAUTH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1743
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