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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 06-04-2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 1-10 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites “ positive (e.g., labeled a-phase belt) and negative sectors (e.g., labeled x-phase belt)” which is confusing as to what “e’g.” means, also if the word in parentheses is a sector or not. Correction is needed to fix what is meant be positive and “negative sectors” and what is meant by e.g. need to further define clearly the limitations inside the parentheses.
Claim 2 recites : “star of slots diagram” in line 2, and “virtual slot number”, which all lack antecedent basis.
Claim 4 recites “mod” and “J” in the formula, without defining what “mod” or “J” stand for.
Claim 5 recites “mod” in the formula, without defining what “mod” or “J” stand for.
Claim 6: define all the variables “words” in the formula, also identify what J stands for..
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Claims 2-10 are rejected based on dependency from rejected base claim 1 and or other claims.
Inventorship
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a), the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(c) and potential pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a).
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 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claim 1 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alberti (IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol.49, No 2, March/April 2013, Theory and Design of Fractional-slot Multilayer Windings hereinafter “Alberti”) in view of Yan-Ping (Chinese Patent Publication Cn105703555A hereinafter “Yan-Ping- in IDS dating 06-04-2024) .
Re-claim 1, Alberti discloses a method for two-layer winding layout (Title) applicable to a winding machine (winding machine, see Abstract, Last line), wherein the method comprises the following steps:
1) the design of the initial double-layer winding layout (Pg, 3112, Col.1, P[1], two layer Winding) structure for each machine unit, which is based on a principle of the largest number of spokes belonging to phase A (Page 3114,P’1 and P2 in Col.1, spoke number in negative sector, A+, A++ one positive spoke and two spokes in A”” sector), , also see P 3114, Col.2, P’1 and 2, each phase has at least 2 spokes, therefore, it could be more which is 3 spokes, or so as indicated in said section, see Fig.3 from Alberti);
2) rearranging the number of spokes in positive (e.g., labeled a-phase belt[Positive spokes A++, see Fig.3) and negative sectors (e.g., labeled x-phase belt (A--, see fig.3) belonging to phase A (A phase3 is all part of aa ++) for making slot numbers equally divided (all divided sections, equally, see fig.3);
3) solving a serial number of a stator slot (Page 3112 to P[3113], , Col.2, Last Paragraph, { slots are
assigned to the phase A, one for each spoke of the star (i.e. number 1, 6, 7 and 12). In the slots of the positive sector (1 and 6) is located a coil side with positive (incoming) incidence. Then the other coil sides are located according to the computed coil throw, i.e. in the slot 2 and 7 with yq = 1. In this way the two coils of the positive sectors A+, are located in the slots 1–2 and 6–7. The two coils of the
negative sector A- are located similarly but with inverse incidence.]} in reverse (see Paragraph above) to get a final winding layout schemes which contain multiple layout structures for one slot-pole combination (see fig.3, showing pole an slot, having multiple layout structures of windings).
Alberti fails to explicitly state that the machine is an asymmetrical winding machine.
However, Yan-Ping teaches the machine can be an asymmetrical winding machine (Page 2, P[3], also Title).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to modify the machine and winding arrangement of Alberti wherein the machine is an asymmetrical winding machine as suggested by Yan-Ping since asymmetric winding are optimization design method to have winding arrangement that would reduce branch loop, reduce winding loss and improve motor operation (Yan-Ping, Page 2, P[3-5]).
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Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Re-claim 2, recites, “inter alia” 2. The method for double-layer winding layout of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the following steps: in the initial double-layer winding layout structure depicted in the star of slots diagram for each machine unit of the asymmetrical winding machine as mentioned in step 1, the direction of the first spoke in the star of slots diagram for each machine unit labeled 1 is set to point to the right horizontally and the other spokes lag behind the first spoke successively by an angle θN in a clockwise direction, as detailed below:
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where N is the virtual slot number of each spoke in the star of slots diagram; v is the greatest common divisor between slot number Q and pole pairs p;
in the asymmetrical winding machine, it specifically includes h machine units, where h=v/3, and there are three-layer slot vectors in the star of slots diagram for each machine unit, where the number of spokes in the one-layer star of slots diagram is q=Q/v.”
The prior art of record, ip.com search, similarity ai search or other search fail to teach or suggest the combination of ALL claim 2 with claim 1, the details of Totality of method in claim 2 is unique an is not taught or suggested by the prior art of record and is found to be allowable.
Claims 3-10 are objected to as being dependent from allowable claim 2.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure in PTO892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAGED M ALMAWRI whose telephone number is (313)446-6565. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Christopher M. Koehler can be reached on 5712723560. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MAGED M ALMAWRI/ Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2834