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 Objections
Claims 6-8, 12 & 15-22 are objected to.
Claim 6-8 & 12 are objected to for containing a typographical error. In line 2 of the claims, it is recited: “wherein the or each switch comprises”. It is believed that claim 6 should recite: “wherein each switch comprises”.
Claims 15-22 are objected to under 37 CFR 1.75(c) as being in improper form because a multiple dependent claim should refer to other claims in the alternative only. See MPEP § 608.01(n). Accordingly, the claims 15-21 have not been further treated on the merits.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claims 3 & 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 3 recites the limitation " the PCT/PVT " in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1, from which claim 3 depends, was amended to recite a “photonic transducer” and removed language related to a “photonic current or voltage transducer”. It is believed that Applicant intended to have claim 3 recite “the photonic transducer” instead of “the PCT/PVT” and the claim will be examined as such.
Regarding claim 6, the phrase "optionally comprises" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitations following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). For the purposes of this office action, any limitation following the phrase “optionally comprises” will not be considered to required to meet the language of the claim 6.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 of this title, if the differences 3between 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, 3-7 & 13-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kern (US 7,394,982), in view of Banaska (US 2006/0192547).
With regard to claim 1, Kern, in Fig. 1, teaches a photonic transducer (19) signal conditioning stage comprising: a burden resistor (16) (column 2, lines 20-54).
Kern does not teach a plurality of burden resistors; and a plurality of switches, each switch in parallel with a corresponding burden resistor; wherein each of the burden resistors is different; and wherein each of the switches is operable to short the corresponding burden resistor responsive to detection of a corresponding threshold current or voltage.
Banaska, in Figures 2 & 3, teaches a current measuring circuit (paragraph 0004) comprising a measuring resistor (12). It is further taught that the resistor comprises a plurality of resistors (26-34); and a plurality of switches (36 in Fig. 2 or 44 of Fig. 3), each switch in parallel with a corresponding burden resistor (as seen in Figs. 2 & 3); wherein each of the resistors is different (as shown in Fig. 2, each resistor is larger than the resistor above it by a factor of 100); and wherein each of the switches is operable to short the corresponding burden resistor responsive to detection of a corresponding threshold current or voltage (paragraphs 0015-0020).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kern with Banaska, by incorporating the auto-ranging function of the measuring resistor of Banaska into the burden resistor of Kern, for the purpose of allowing the circuit to sense a wide variety of current without needing commands from a controller (Banaska, paragraph 0024).
With regard to claims 3-7 & 13-17, Kern in view of Banaska discloses the device of claim 1, and further discloses that the signal conditioning stage is operable to automatically switch detection range so as to increase the dynamic range of the PCT/PVT (Banaska, paragraph 0018) (re claim 3), wherein the signal conditioning stage comprises two burden resistors and two corresponding switches (as seen in Fig. 2 of Banaska) (re claim 4), the signal conditioning stage is configured such that the or each switch is off by default to maximise the burden resistance of the signal conditioning stage at low input current (paragraph 0018 teaches that the switches are only turned on once the current increases above a threshold for each resistor and thus will start in the off configuration) (re claim 5), wherein the or each switch comprises a solid-state switch (as seen in Figs. 2 & 3 of Banaska), wherein the solid-state switch optionally comprises one or more MOSFETs, and optionally comprises a bi-directional MOSFET switch (re claim 6), wherein the or each switch is controlled by an electronic driver comprising two or more Zener diodes (36, Fig. 2 of Banaska) selected for a desired current or voltage threshold (re claim 7), a photonic current transducer comprising: a current transformer (Kern, 14), a photonic transducer signal conditioning stage (burden resistor 16 of Kern and circuit of Fig. 2 of Banaska) according to claim 1, and an optical voltage sensor comprising a fibre Bragg grating (Kern, 20 & column 3, lines 3 & 4) mechanically coupled to a piezoelectric actuator (Kern, 18) which expands and contracts responsive to the voltage across the plurality of burden resistors of the signal conditioning stage (re claim 13), a photonic voltage transducer comprising: a voltage transformer (Kern, 14) or voltage divider; a photonic transducer signal conditioning stage according to claim 1; and an optical voltage sensor comprising a fibre Bragg grating (Kern, 20 & column 3, lines 3 & 4) mechanically coupled to a piezoelectric actuator (Kern, 18) which expands and contracts responsive to the voltage across the plurality of burden resistors of the signal conditioning stage (re claim 14), a monitoring system comprising: one or more photonic current transducers according to claim 13 and/or one or more photonic voltage transducers according to claim 14; and an interrogator (Kern, 22) in optical communication with the one or more photonic voltage and/or current transducers via an optical fibre (re claim 15), the monitoring system of claim 15, comprising a plurality of photonic voltage and/or current transducers, wherein the interrogator is configured to illuminate the optical fibre, receive a corresponding plurality of optical signals from the photonic transducers, and determine the or each sensed voltage from the received optical signal (as seen in Fig. 2 of Kern) (re claim 16), wherein the or each sensed voltage is determined from a spectral position of a peak reflection wavelength from the or each fibre Bragg grating of respective photonic voltage transducers, and changes in the sensed voltage are determined from changes in the peak reflection wavelength (this would necessarily be the case as Kern teaches that the optical filters are fibre Bragg gratings) (re claim 17).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 8-12 & 18-22 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 photonic transducer signal conditioning stage comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with the one or more of the switches being operable to short the one or more corresponding burden resistors only in the event of abnormal, fault or test currents.
Claim 8 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 photonic transducer signal conditioning stage comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with the or each switch being controlled by a comparator.
Claims 9-11 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 8 which would also be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 12 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 photonic transducer signal conditioning stage comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with the or each switch being controlled by a microcontroller.
Claim 18 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 photonic transducer signal conditioning stage comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with the interrogator being configured to identify changes in a sensed voltage which correspond to range-switching in a signal conditioning stage of a photonic voltage or current transducer.
Claim 19 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims because it depends on claim 18 which would also be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 20 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 monitoring system comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with the interrogator being configured to identify a power network fault at or near a particular photonic voltage or current transducer based on changes in the sensed voltage.
Claim 21 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 monitoring system comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with the fibre Bragg grating of the or each photonic voltage and/or current transducer having a unique peak reflection wavelength, and the interrogator comprises a wavelength division multiplexer.
Claim 22 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 monitoring system comprising all the features as recited in the claims and in combination with the interrogator comprising a time division multiplexer.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Howell (US 3,963,959) and Baker (US 4,728,806) both teach circuitry to shunt a burden resistor coupled across a current transformer and share similarities with Applicant’s invention. Niewczas (US 2008/0124020) taches a photonic transducer included both a current and a voltage sensor similar to the system claimed in Applicant’s invention.
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/Scott Bauer/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2838