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 .
This non-final office action is responsive to Applicants' application filed on 05/10/24. Claims 1-9 are presented for examination and are pending for the reasons indicated herein below.
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 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.
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.
Claims 1-2, 5-7 and 9 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Moon et al. (US 20160380541 A1)
Regarding claim 1. Moon teaches a power supply control circuit [fig 1] comprising:
a soft start generation circuit [fig2, 40 w/ CSS] that outputs a soft start voltage which gradually increases with time [VSS, fig 4];
an error signal generation circuit [fig2, 31] that generates an error signal corresponding to a difference between a feedback voltage [FB] corresponding to an output voltage in a switch output stage [see Q1/D1] and the soft start voltage;
and an output control circuit [35] that controls the switch output stage according to the error signal, wherein the soft start generation circuit can temporarily stop [see T1-T2 in fig 4] the increase in the soft start voltage.
Regarding claim 2. Moon teaches the power supply control circuit according to claim 1, wherein the soft start generation circuit can temporarily stop the increase in the soft start voltage according to the difference between the soft start voltage and the feedback voltage [function of 31 based on CHS and VFB].
Regarding claim 5. Moon teaches the power supply control circuit according to claim 1, wherein the soft start generation circuit includes a capacitor [see fig 3, CSS] that outputs the soft start voltage corresponding to an amount of charge,
a current source [41] that can charge the capacitor and a current circuit that can perform on/off control on the current source so as to charge the capacitor or stop the charge of the capacitor [43/44], wherein the charge of the capacitor is stopped such that the increase in the soft start voltage is stopped.
Regarding claim 6. Moon teaches the power supply control circuit according to claim 1, further comprising: a soft start control circuit [47] that controls the soft start voltage according to a difference between a lower one of a predetermined reference voltage [ground voltage of 44] and the soft start voltage and the feedback voltage [i.e. VSS with VFB].
Regarding claim 7. Moon teaches the power supply control circuit according to claim 6, wherein the soft start generation circuit includes a capacitor [CSS] that outputs the soft start voltage corresponding to an amount of charge, and the soft start control circuit includes a charge/discharge control circuit [see 43/44] that charges and discharges the capacitor according to the difference between the lower one of the reference voltage [ground voltage of 44] and the soft start voltage and the feedback voltage [i.e. VSS with VFB].
Regarding claim 9. Moon teaches a power supply device [fig 1] comprising: the power supply control circuit according to claim 1; and the switch output stage [see N2], wherein the power supply device generates the output voltage [VO] corresponding to the error signal from an input voltage [Vin].
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 of this title, 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 3-4 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (US 20160380541 A1) in view of Wachi et al. (US 8653800 B2)
Regarding claim 3. Moon teaches the power supply control circuit according to claim 1, However, Moon does not explicitly mention further comprising: an overcurrent detection circuit that can detect whether a value of an output current output by the switch output stage is equal to or greater than a predetermined overcurrent protection value, wherein the soft start generation circuit can temporarily stop the increase in the soft start voltage according to a result of the detection performed by the overcurrent detection circuit.
Wachi teaches a circuit further comprising: an overcurrent detection circuit [protection circuit disclose in col 12 lines 1-10] that can detect whether a value of an output current output [current charging C3] by the switch output stage is equal to or greater than a predetermined overcurrent protection value [i.e. threshold triggering ], wherein the soft start generation circuit can temporarily stop [start operation is shown to be stopped before returning to normal, col 11 lines 50-56] the increase in the soft start voltage according to a result of the detection performed by the overcurrent detection circuit.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the features of Wachi in order to provide a ground fault that trips the soft start before the system experiences damaging current.
Regarding claim 4. Moon as modified teaches the power supply control circuit according to claim 3, wherein the output control circuit forcibly stops an operation of generating the output current according to the result of the detection performed by the overcurrent detection circuit, and thereafter restarts the operation of generating the output current at a predetermined switching cycle [implicit in Wachi since soft start operation is shown to be stopped before returning to normal, col 11 lines 50-56].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 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.
Examiner Note
The examiner cites particular columns and lines numbers in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bryan Perez whose telephone number is (571)272-8837. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon.-Fri. (7:30 – 5:00).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Crystal Hammond, can be reached on (571) 270-1682. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BRYAN R PEREZ/Examiner, Art Unit 2838