DETAILED ACTION
The Information Disclosure Statements filed on May 22, 2024 and July 16, 2024 have both been reviewed and considered by the Examiner.
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 § 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) 5, 6 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Suzuki (JP 2002067747 A) in view of Yamamoto (JP 2012196027 A).
Suzuki discloses a contactless power feeding apparatus, and method of operating, comprised of a power supply line 47 to supply AC power to a power receiver provided on a mobile body (V) in a non-contact manner. A plurality of power supply boards, in the form of inverters (M) to generate AC power and supply the AC power to the power supply line. The power supply boards are operable to supply the AC power by generating a control pulse to control the generation of the AC power such that a timing of a center of an ON pulse of the control pulse has a same timing as a timing defined by a reference clock, and by changing a duration of the ON pulse.
Suzuki discloses the apparatus as described above. However, Suzuki does not specifically show the use of a PWM control circuit with the power feeding apparatus. Yamamoto discloses a power receiving circuit of a contactless power feeding system. Yamamoto further shows a PWM module 63 which outputs drive pulses P to a switching means 57 in synchronization with synchronized pulses P. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have applied a PWM control circuit, like that of Yamamoto, to a contactless power supply system, like that of Suzuki, with the expected result of providing a more efficient pulse circuit to better control the power supply transmission to a vehicle so as to efficiently power and propel the vehicle.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 7 is 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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/Robert J McCarry Jr/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3615
RJM
June 16, 2026
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