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 § 102
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.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 & 4-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Naidu (US 2021/003069).
With regard to claim 1, Naidu, in Figure 1, discloses a device (21) comprising: at least one processor (paragraph 0305) configured to: determine, based on a value of a voltage and a value of a current at a location of an electrical power system, a plurality of voltage features and a plurality of current features corresponding to the location (paragraphs 0052-0054 teaches that the rates of change of voltage and current are features and are derived from a plurality of voltage and current samples at each location); determine, based on the plurality of voltage features and the plurality of current features (rates of change of voltage and current), using a classification model (22), whether a fault has occurred in the electrical power system (paragraph 0067 teaches that the phase classifier may receive rates of change of voltages and current as inputs and output a fault type ); and responsive to determining that a fault has occurred, causing a protective device in the electrical power system to trip (paragraph 0292 teaches that the phase classification outputs a decision on whether or not tripping is to be performed based on the rates of change of voltage and current inputs) (re claim 1), wherein the classification model comprises a support vector machine (SVM)-based classification model (paragraph 0011 teaches that an SVM based classification model may be used) (re claim 4), wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: responsive to determining that a fault has occurred, determine, based on power measurements at the location, an estimate of a time at which the fault occurred (fault inception time, Abstract) (re claim 5), wherein determining the estimate of the time at which the fault occurred comprises: determining, as the estimate of the time, a time at which at least one of (i) a rate of change of an active power at the location or (ii) a rate of change of a reactive power at the location exceeded a threshold rate of change (paragraph 0047) (re claim 6), wherein the device comprises a protective relay and causing the protective device to trip comprises tripping a circuit breaker of the protective relay (paragraph 0087) (re claim 7).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 & 3 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 2 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims because the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest a device comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with determining, based on a first value of the current corresponding to the first phase, a second value of the current corresponding to the second phase, and a third value of the current corresponding to the third phase, a positive sequence current corresponding to the location, a negative sequence current corresponding to the location, and a zero sequence current corresponding to the location; and determining, for each of the first phase, the second phase, and the third phase, a respective total harmonic distortion of the respective current.
Claim 3 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims because they depend on claim 2 which would also be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 8-18 are allowable.
Claim 8 is allowable because the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest a device comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with determining, based on a value of a voltage and a value of a current at a first location of an electrical power system, using a classification model, a respective indication, corresponding to the first location, of whether a fault is upstream or downstream from the first location; determine, based on the respective indication corresponding to the first location and a respective indication corresponding to a neighboring location, whether the fault is in a neighborhood of the first location; and responsive to determining that the fault is in a neighborhood of the first location, causing a protective device in the electrical power system that is in the neighborhood to trip.
Claims 9-14 are allowable as they depend from claim 8, which is also allowable.
Claim 15 is allowable because the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest a device comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with determining, based on a value of a voltage and a value of a current at a first location of an electrical power system, using a classification model, a respective indication, corresponding to the first location, of whether a fault is upstream or downstream from the first location; determine, based on the respective indication corresponding to the first location and a respective indication corresponding to a neighboring location, the neighboring location being within a decision zone that includes the first location whether the fault is the decision zone; and responsive to determining that the fault is in the decision zone, causing a protective device in the electrical power system that is in the decision zone to trip.
Claims 16-18 are allowable as they depend from claim 15, which is also allowable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Engelstein (US 2020/0333767), Sun (US 2022/0268827) and Kagan (US 2023/0162123) all teach devices to detect a fault in a power distribution system using a classification model to detect a fault and to trip a device in response. These references share similarities with Applicant’s invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SCOTT BAUER whose telephone number is (571)272-5986. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 12pm - 8pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, THIENVU TRAN can be reached at (571)270-1276. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Scott Bauer/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2838
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