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 .
Claims 1-14 are pending.
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.
Claims 1-3, 5 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lim, et al. (EP 3,829,018, herein Lim) in view of Gupta (GB 2,584,290).1 2 Regarding claims 1-3, Lim teaches a secondary battery management system comprising: a first circuit which is configured to measure a voltage of the secondary battery (paragraph 0131: voltage measuring unit 50); a second circuit which is configured to measure a current of the secondary battery (paragraph 0131: current measuring unit 60); and a control circuit to which information on voltage from the first circuit and information on current from the second circuit is input (paragraph 0131), wherein the control circuit starts charging to the secondary battery (paragraph 0132), wherein the control circuit performs arithmetic operation3 of data showing battery characteristics on the basis of a value input from the first circuit or the second circuit (paragraph 0132), wherein the control circuit detects a local maximum value of the data (paragraph 0148), and wherein the control circuit stops the charging when detecting the local maximum value (paragraph 0148). Lim does not explicitly teach a secondary battery that is charged and discharged at higher than or equal to -50 °C and lower than or equal to 0 °C. Gupta teaches a secondary battery that is charged and discharged at higher than or equal to -50 °C and lower than or equal to 0 °C (page 4, bullet point 2: -40 Celsius to 65 Celsius).4 It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine the teachings of Lim and Gupta, because such a combination aids in charging and discharging batteries in extreme temperatures (page 4 of Gupta). Regarding claims 5 and 9-10, Lim further teaches the charging is performed with a constant current (paragraph 0139).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6-8, and 11-14 are 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW MIKELS whose telephone number is (571)270-5470. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Thursday 7:30 AM ET - 5:00 PM ET, Friday 7:30 AM ET - 9:30 AM ET, the Examiner is on central time.5
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/MATTHEW MIKELS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
1 A copy of each reference is attached to this Office Action.
2 In addition to the cited portions of each reference, please see also the associated figures.
3 The dt/dV operation of claim 3 is seen in paragraph 0083.
4 In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Here, the claimed range is -50 to 0 Celsius, while Gupta discloses -40 to 0 Celsius. These ranges overlap; thus, a prima facie case of obviousness exists.
5 The Examiner can also be reached at matthew.mikels@uspto.gov.
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