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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it is more than 150 words. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 6, & 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Korean Patent Document No. KR102168343B1 to Park et al. in view of Korean Patent Document No. KR101440492B1 to Kang et al.
Regarding claim 1, Park teaches a distribution board with wireless leakage and overheating alarm functions enabling an emergency situation to be handled by applying a non-contact energy harvesting leakage current and temperature monitoring technology, comprising:
an energy harvesting unit for harvesting energy required for operation by using electromotive force induced in a main energy harvesting coil from among energy harvesting coils provided in the vicinity of each of a plurality of conductors to be monitored in which phase currents flow (110; “an energy harvesting unit for receiving current inputted from a current transformer (CT) coupled with a power cable installed at a power facility to produce a power source”);
a wireless transmission/reception unit for receiving the value of the leakage current from the leakage current monitoring unit and converting the received value of the leakage current into a low-power wireless signal and transmitting the low-power wireless signal to a terminal (180; “a wireless communication unit to transmit the current, voltage, and temperature information analyzed from the MCU calculator to the outside”) and
an emergency situation control unit for harvesting energy required for operation by using electromotive force induced in a sub energy harvesting coil, excluding the main energy harvesting coil, if an emergency situation occurs in which the energy harvesting unit cannot harvest the energy required for operation and notifying the terminal that the emergency situation has occurred by using the energy harvested from the sub energy harvesting coil (“In addition, when the PT is connected (D), since the load in the wireless complex sensing control sensor increases, the possibility of deactivation of the buck converter unit 113 increases when the energy harvesting energy through the CT is small. In order to solve this, the backup auxiliary power supply unit 130 is used to compensate. However, the power of the energy harvesting unit 110 is always first supplied and used, and the output of the auxiliary power supply unit 130 is optimized to be near the minimum value of Vi when designing to use the minimum backup energy.”).
But Park does not teach explicitly a distribution board main body for receiving and distributing power; and
a leakage current monitoring unit for receiving the energy harvested by the energy harvesting unit and monitoring, in a non-contact manner, a leakage current flowing in a zero-phase current transformer coil provided to encompass, in a non-contact manner, the plurality of conductors to be monitored.
However, Kang teaches a distribution board main body for receiving and distributing power (claim 1: “a three-phase four-wire switchboard”); and
a leakage current monitoring unit for receiving the energy harvested by the energy harvesting unit and monitoring, in a non-contact manner, a leakage current flowing in a zero-phase current transformer coil provided to encompass, in a non-contact manner, the plurality of conductors to be monitored (“magnetic flux due to current flow is formed in the iron core portion of the ZCT”; “The leakage current detection sensor 120 may be a ZCR transformer and the leakage current detection sensor 120 may be connected to an electric leak detector (ELD) 410 through a controller 200.”; claim 1).
It 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 to utilize the ZCT of Kang as a noncontact leakage current detector with the board of Park in order to provide nondestructive, noninvasive monitoring, thereby preventing signal distortion and energy efficiency via the use of waste energy for power.
Regarding claim 6, Park in view of Kang teaches the distribution board with wireless leakage and overheating alarm functions enabling an emergency situation to be handled according to claim 1, and Kang further teaches wherein each of the conductors to be monitored is a quadrangular busbar or a round cable (figure 4 elements R, S, T, & N).
The examiner also notes for the sake of completeness that the applicant provides no indication as to any advantage or purpose for a change in shape of the monitored conductor. Therefore, adapting the invention to increase its utility via accepting various conductors would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing. See MPEP § 2144(II).
Regarding claim 7, Park in view of Kang teaches the
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park and Kang, and further in view of Korean Patent Document No. KR102308421B1 to Lee.
Regarding claim 2, Park in view of Kang teaches the distribution board with wireless leakage and overheating alarm functions enabling an emergency situation to be handled according to claim 1, but does not teach explicitly wherein the emergency situation control unit is further configured to receive energy required for operation from an emergency power unit if there is no electromotive force induced in both the main energy harvesting coil and the sub energy harvesting coil and notifying the terminal that there is no electromotive force induced in both energy harvesting coils.
However, Lee teaches wherein the emergency situation control unit is further configured to receive energy required for operation from an emergency power unit if there is no electromotive force induced in both the main energy harvesting coil and the sub energy harvesting coil and notifying the terminal that there is no electromotive force induced in both energy harvesting coils (“In addition, the power supply unit 25 includes a constant power supply module 25A for supplying constant power through commercial power, and a battery module 25B for temporarily supplying power in case of an emergency such as a power outage, and monitoring through this Power is stably supplied to the unit 20.”).
It 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 to provide the battery backup of Lee to the board of Park and Kang so as to not lose functionality in the event of catastrophic power loss.
Regarding claim 3, Park in view of Kang teaches the distribution board with wireless leakage and overheating alarm functions enabling an emergency situation to be handled according to claim 2,
wherein the emergency situation control unit is further configured to notify the terminal that an emergency situation has occurred when energy harvested from the main energy harvesting coil is compared with energy harvested from the sub energy harvesting coil and a difference between the energies is a predetermined value or higher.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park and Kang, and further in view of United States Patent App. Pub. No. 20160187406 to Liu et al.
Regarding claim 7, Park in view of Kang teaches the distribution board with wireless leakage and overheating alarm functions enabling an emergency situation to be handled according to claim 1, but does not teach explicitly wherein the conductors to be monitored are either underground cables or overhead power transmission lines.
However, Liu teaches the conductors to be monitored are either underground cables or overhead power transmission lines (claims 8 & 9).
It 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 to use the board of Park in view of Kang with overhead power transmission lines as doing so would increase its overall utility and adaptability. See MPEP § 2144(II).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5 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.
The closest prior art found during the examiner’s search to the subject matter of claim 3 was Chinese Patent Document No. CN111596171A to Wang et al., which discloses an intelligent deep learning network fault diagnosis positioning comprehensive system under artificial intelligence having zero-sequence voltage monitoring for the purpose of arc suppression as well as fault indicators, but lacking “notify the terminal that an emergency situation has occurred when energy harvested from the main energy harvesting coil is compared with energy harvested from the sub energy harvesting coil and a difference bet ween the energies is a predetermined value or higher.”
Claims 4-5 depend on claim 3.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
United States Patent App. Pub. No. 20200235608 to LaFayette et al. discloses a sensor network node system with energy harvesting pickup/receiver.
United States Patent App. Pub. No. 20200091721 to Rumrill discloses systems and methods to maximize power from multiple power line energy harvesting devices.
United States Patent App. Pub. No. 20170162320 to Rumrill discloses a current harvesting transformer with protection from high currents.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Robert P Alejnikov whose telephone number is (571)270-5164. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00a-6:00p M-F.
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/ROBERT P ALEJNIKOV JR/ Examiner, Art Unit 2857
/ARLEEN M VAZQUEZ/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2857