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
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.
Claim(s) 1-7, 9-13, 15-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Frost et al. (US 2016/0363629 A1).
With regards to Claim 1, 9, 15, Frost teaches a battery system, comprising:
a battery configured to power a load (Figure 1, Paragraph 2); and
a processing system comprising one or more processors, wherein the processing system is configured to:
determine an electrical characteristic (voltage and currents) of the battery at a start of a prediction interval (Paragraph 7);
predict a first predicted electrical characteristic of the battery in a first subsection of the prediction interval based at least in part on the electrical characteristic (Paragraph 7, “first iteration interval”);
predict a second predicted electrical characteristic of the battery in a second subsection of the prediction interval based at least in part on the electrical characteristic, the first predicted electrical characteristic, or both (Paragraph 8 and 9, “second iteration interval”); and
predict a spike power capability that the battery can support after an end of the prediction interval based at least in part on the second predicted electrical characteristic (Paragraph 9).
Note: Based on the broadest reasonable interpretation the examiner interprets “spike power capability,” as the “estimated current-limited power capability of the battery”).
With regards to Claim 2, 10, Frost teaches wherein the electrical characteristic is based at least in part on a battery state-of-charge (SOC), a battery current, a battery voltage, or a battery impedance (Paragraph 7, 21).
With regards to Claim 3, 11, 16, Frost teaches wherein the first predicted electrical characteristic, the second predicted electrical characteristic, or both comprises a predicted preload current (Paragraph 7, “initial battery current”).
With regards to Claim 4, Frost teaches wherein the processing system is configured to predict the predicted preload current based at least in part on a battery equivalent impedance predication, a battery equivalent voltage prediction, and a battery preload power (Paragraph 21).
With regards to Claim 5, 12, Frost teaches wherein the processing system is configured to predict the spike power capability by determining a product of an estimated maximum current that the battery can deliver and a battery cutoff voltage (Paragraph 44, “threshold”).
With regards to Claim 6, 17, Frost teaches wherein a time interval from start of the prediction interval to the end of prediction interval is at least 10 seconds (Paragraph 47 and 50 – teaches generic teaching of intervals of the iteration hitting a threshold at different times).
With regards to Claim 7, 13, 18, Frost teaches wherein the processing system is configured to execute a control action to reduce a battery draw by the load based at least in part on the spike power capability being less than a threshold amount (Paragraph 51, discusses implementing a control action).
With regards to Claim 19, Frost teaches determining, via the processing system and based on historical data, a predicted power demand of or on the battery; and determining, via the processing system, the threshold amount as a function of the predicted power demand (Paragraph 41-43, “previous predicted…”).
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, 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.
Claim(s) 8, 14, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Frost et al. (2016/0363629 A1) in view of Itabashi et al. (US 9,784,794).
With regards to Claim 8, 14, and 20, Frost is silent with regards to wherein the processing system is configured to determine the first predicted electrical characteristic, the second predicted electrical characteristic, or both based at least in part on a voltage residual value output by a model error correction calculator that receives at least a first input indicative of a measured battery current or impedance and a second input indicative of a measured battery voltage.
Itabashi teaches wherein the processing system is configured to determine the first predicted electrical characteristic, the second predicted electrical characteristic, or both based at least in part on a voltage residual value output by a model error correction calculator that receives at least a first input indicative of a measured battery current or impedance and a second input indicative of a measured battery voltage (Column 5, Lines 51 – Column 6, Line 4)
Note: This describes a battery model fed the same current input as the real battery, comparing the model’s predicted voltage, computing the resulting error and feeding it back via a Kalman gain to correct the internal model.
It would have been obvious at the time of filing to include wherein the processing system is configured to determine the first predicted electrical characteristic, the second predicted electrical characteristic, or both based at least in part on a voltage residual value output by a model error correction calculator that receives at least a first input indicative of a measured battery current or impedance and a second input indicative of a measured battery voltage as taught by Itabashi into Frost for the purpose of optimizing the battery usage to preserve the SOC of the battery.
Pertinent Art Cited
Please see PTO-892 for additional references.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sujoy K Kundu whose telephone number is (571)272-8586. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 EST.
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/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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