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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement filed on 5/30/2024 has been considered. An initialed copy of form 1449 is enclosed herewith.
Claim Objections
Claim 13 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 13 recites “The method of claim 1.” Claim 13 depends from independent claim 11. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
4. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1- 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention.
Claims 1 and 11 recite the limitation “the BLDC motor is controlled by a state-machine logic stored within a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)/a central processing unit (CPU)” equipped with algorithm programs such as start/soft stop algorithm. The state-machine logic details used to perform claimed method were not disclosed in the specification, and the record showed that a person of skill in art would not understand how "the BLDC motor is controlled " as recited in the claims in order to perform the claimed method. The state of the prior art shows that state-machine logics used to control an electric motor is highly unpredictable, as engineers were not able to successfully apply it universally. The quantity of experimentation needed to make or use the invention based on the content of the disclosure is significant as evidenced by the control logic “state-machine” differs according to the nature of the motor and the operation circumstances involved.
When reviewing In re Donohue, 550 F.2d 1269, 193 USPQ 136 (CCPA 1977), the lack of enablement was caused by lack of information in the specification about a single block labeled "LOGIC" in the drawings. See also Union Pac. Res. Co. v. Chesapeake Energy Corp., 236 F.3d 684, 57 USPQ2d 1293 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (Claims directed to a method of determining the location of a horizontal borehole in the earth failed to comply with enablement requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112 because certain computer programming details used to perform claimed method were not disclosed in the specification, and the record showed that a person of skill in art would not understand how to "compare" or "rescale" data as recited in the claims in order to perform the claimed method.)
Dependent claims 2-10 and 12- 20 are also rejected due to its dependency on claims 1 and 11.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
5. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1- 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 11 recite the limitation “soft start motion,” “ soft stop” and “smooth operation” recited in claims 1 and 11 renders the claims indefinite, because the claims includes elements and functions not actually disclosed (those encompassed by the relative degree of the softness of the start and stop and the smoothness of the operation), The term “soft” and “smooth” in the claims are not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention; thereby, rendering the claims confusing, vague, and indefinite.
Claims 1 and 11 recite the limitation “rotation of an electric brake comes to a stop.” The boundaries of the functional language are unclear because the claim do not provide a discernable boundary on what performs the function (rotating the electric brake and stopping it). The recited function does not follow from the structure recited in the claim, i.e., BLDC) motor, the load bridge, the digital control system, or state-machine logic; so it is unclear whether the function requires some other structure or is simply a result of operating the motor in a certain manner. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would not be able to draw a clear boundary between what is and is not covered by the claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1- 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kande et al. (US 7195211 B2) in view of Pani (US 20230121985 A1)
So far as the claims are understood:
Re. claims 1 and 11, Kande discloses a crossing gate mechanism/method (10) comprising:
an electric brushless direct current (BLDC) motor (motor 76) which has at least one internal sensing device (“a Hall effect sensor” column 7, lines 40) that is used as a closed feedback loop (“accurate position and speed control is possible by closed loop control of the transverse flux machine 78” column 5, lines 9- 10) to determine a position of the BLDC motor and accurately control a speed of the BLDC motor (“Motor control electronics 82 receives a signal from the controller 122 and controls the speed of the transverse flux machine 78” column 4, lines 60- 62);
a crossing gate arm (gate arm 12) operated via the BLDC motor (78); and
a digital control system configured to control operation of the BLDC motor, wherein the digital control system is configured to provide a motor control signal that of the results in a soft start motion and a soft stop motion crossing gate arm (Fig. 11), wherein
Kande discloses a program control logic shown in Fig. 11 to control the acceleration and a deceleration of the BLDC motor that provides a relatively smooth operation of the crossing gate arm when it reaches both horizontal and vertical positions (“accurate position and speed control is possible by closed loop control of the transverse flux machine 78” column 5, lines 9- 10), and wherein the BLDC motor is controlled so that a rotation of an electric brake comes to a stop before the electric brake is energized to keep the crossing gate arm in the vertical position (column 5, lines 30- 61)
Kande does not disclose the program control logic is a state-machine logic stored within a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)/a central processing unit (CPU). However, Pani discloses a state machine motor controller used to accurately determine the position of BLDC motor; Hence, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the invention of Kande with the teaching of Pani implement state-machine logic stored within a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)/a central processing unit (CPU) which can be pick up "off the shelf" to control the speed and torque of the motor with high efficiency (Pani, ¶. [0009].)
Re. claims 2- 4, 10, 12- 14 and 20, the combination of Kandi and Pani discloses the used Pani state-machine logic stored within (FPGA), ASIC, CPLD or SoC) in central processing unit (CPU) which can be pick up "off the shelf" to design the controller to control the speed and torque of the motor with high efficiency (Pani, ¶. [0009].)
Re. claims 5 and 15, the combination of Kandi and Pani discloses one internal sensing device comprises one or more Hall effect sensor (“a Hall effect sensor” column 7, lines 40).
Re. claims 6 and 16, the combination of Kandi and Pani discloses microcontroller 122 which can be modified by Pani teaching to include a memory that stores a menu software that provides an ascent time and a decent time and an angle calculation software that provides a main shaft angle (Pani, ¶. [0010]- [0012]).
Re. claims 7- 9 and 17- 19, the combination of Kandi and Pani discloses wherein the digital control system uses feedback loops on a speed and a position of the crossing gate arm to implement a soft start/soft stop algorithm that effectively provides soft start/soft stop motor control (“accurate position and speed control is possible by closed loop control of the transverse flux machine 78” column 5, lines 9- 10) to determine a position of the BLDC motor and accurately control a speed of the BLDC motor (“Motor control electronics 82 receives a signal from the controller 122 and controls the speed of the transverse flux machine 78” column 4, lines 60- 62).
Conclusion
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/SAID BOUZIANE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2846
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