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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement filed on 5/15/2024 has been considered. An initialed copy of form 1449 is enclosed herewith.
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- 5 and 7- 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Seo et al. (JP 2012100435 A).
Re. claims 1 and 7- 9, Seo discloses a vehicle control device (rotating electric machine control device 10 in Fig. 1) comprising:
a step drive over control section configured to perform a step drive over control for a vehicle to drive over a step (“a rotating electric machine control device 10 is positioned on a slope or when going over a step ”¶. [0037]),
a protection control section configured to perform a protection control to protect a rotating electric machine that drives the vehicle by suppressing the rotating electric machine from overheating (“a current continues to flow through some of the switching elements of the inverter 14, causing some of the switching elements to generate heat and increase in temperature. For this reason, the control unit 16 performs protection control” ¶. [0037]),
a temperature acquisition section configured to acquire the temperature of the rotating electric machine (element specifying means 36 in FIG. 1), and
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an execution deferment section configured to defer execution of the protection control (“The control unit 16 also has a minimum allowable time estimation means 38 that estimates a minimum allowable output time, which is the allowable continuous current flow time according to the current flowing to the ``maximum temperature prediction element'' identified by the element identification means 36”¶. [0039]) until a predetermined period has elapsed (“after the limit time has elapsed, when the lock time reaches the "limit time," the current limit execution means 40 executes protection control”¶. [0067]) if the temperature of the rotating electrical machine becomes equal to or higher than a first threshold value ( “the vertical axis of FIG. 10 [duplicated and annotated by the Examiner above] can also be expressed by replacing it with the temperature”¶. [0064]) at which the protection control should be executed while the vehicle is performing the step drive over control (“the time from when the rotary electric machine 12 starts to enter a locked state until it reaches its usage limit is the "limit time, ”¶. [0064]).
Re. claim 2, Seo discloses a speed acquisition section configured to acquire a speed of the vehicle (“a vehicle speed sensor that detects the speed of the vehicle” ¶. [0038]), wherein if the temperature of the rotating electric machine exceeds the first threshold value, the protection control section sets a protection control torque to be applied to the rotating electric machine so that the speed of the vehicle becomes a target vehicle speed (“the control unit 16 performs protection control of each switching element Su1, Su2, Sv1, Sv2, Sw1, and Sw2 by limiting the torque of the rotating electric machine 12 in a locked state” ¶. [0037] wherein “It is preferable to treat such a low-speed rotation state below a low speed as being equivalent to a locked state and perform the above-mentioned protection control” ¶. [0038] and [0042]).
Re. claim 3, Seo discloses if the temperature of the rotating electric machine becomes equal to or higher than a second threshold value, which is higher than the first threshold value, the protection control section sets the protection control torque so that the speed of the vehicle becomes equal to or lower than the predetermined speed (“after the limit time has elapsed, when the lock time reaches the "limit time," the current limit execution means 40 executes protection control” ¶.[0067] when temperature is at max according to Fig. 10, then “The control unit 16 also has a lock-equivalent determination means 32 that determines whether the rotating electric machine 12 is in a low-speed rotation state including a locked state or a locked-equivalent state in which rotation is stopped” ¶.[0039].
Re. claim 4, Seo discloses the rotating electric machine is a three-phase motor generator (12), and the temperature acquisition section estimates the temperature based on an electric current value of an electric current flowing in the three-phase motor generator (“the element identification means identifies the highest temperature prediction element from the state acquisition values, which are the electrical angle and current value of each phase current.” ¶. [0016]).
Re. claim 5, Seo discloses wherein if the vehicle is traveling below a predetermined speed and the motor generator is continuously energized, the temperature acquisition section estimates the temperature so that a rate of increase of the temperature is higher than that estimated when the vehicle is traveling above the predetermined speed (Fig. 10 and ¶. [0064]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 6 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.
Conclusion
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/SAID BOUZIANE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2846