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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicants' election with traverse of Group 1 in the reply filed on December 18, 2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground that “independent claim 5 includes all of the limitations of independent claim 1”. This is not found persuasive because the last two wherein clauses of claim 1 are not present in claim 5.
The Examiner notes that claim 5 recites fewer limitations that claim 1 and that all of the limitations of claim 5 are in claim 1. The Applicants do not make this argument (they incorrectly argue that all of the limitations of claim 1 are in claim 5). The Examiner notes that the art rejection of claim 1 provides sufficient clarity regarding the allowability of claim 5 (even without an art rejection of that specific claim). If claim 1 is found allowable in a future action, and claim 5 recites the same allowable subject matter, claim 5 would be rejoined at that time.
Furthermore, the Applicants do not present any arguments against the restriction of claim 6 or dispute the categorization of Group 2 as independent and distinct from Group 1. While claim 5 shares some limitations with claim 1, claim 6 does not share any limitations with Group 1. The Applicants do not demonstrate otherwise.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because figures 1-2 and 5-9 have text that is too small and pixelated to read.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The elected invention does not involve a “vehicle charging system” and “discharging vehicle” is too broad to indicate the aspect of electrified vehicles to which the claims are directed.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because:
The “a discharging outlet” limitation should have the “are” deleted in the phrase “are disposed on the discharging outlet”. This limitation already recites that the discharging outlet “having” the named holes – it is not required to also recite that the holes “are” on the outlet.
It is unclear how the discharging control device is configured to realize any type of “phase charging” to the second battery. The first battery provides DC power through its first terminal and the motor neutral. Thus, the discharging outlet will provide DC power to the second vehicle. DC power does not have a phase.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song (US 2019/0359073) in view of Khaligh (“Global Trends in High-Power On-Board Chargers for Electric Vehicles”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol. 68, No. 4, April 2019).
Song discloses a discharging vehicle (fig 1, 6; par 50-60, 83-88), comprising:
a discharging control device (211);
a first power battery (B1) with a first electrode (+ terminal) and a second electrode (- terminal);
a motor (140) with three-phase winding inductors (U, V, W) and a neutral wire (connected at 601); and
a motor control circuit (130) with a first input terminal (top), a second input terminal (bottom), and three output terminals (three horizontal lines in the middle); and
a discharging outlet (C1) with a DC+ hole and a DC- hole (C1 is a DC port with + and – connections [i.e. “holes”] to receive a cable);
wherein the first electrode of the first power battery is connected to the first input terminal of the motor control circuit (see fig 1), the second electrode of the first power battery is connected to the second input terminal of the motor control circuit (see fig 1), and the three output terminals of the motor control circuit are respectively connected to the three-phase winding inductors (see fig 1);
wherein connecting the neutral wire to a first electrode of a (unclaimed) second power battery of a (unclaimed) second, to be charged vehicle, connecting the second electrode of the first power battery to a second electrode of the second power battery, and controlling the motor control circuit via the discharging control device allows DC step-down charging of the second power battery by the first power battery (this entire paragraph is a hypothetical. It describes potential connections and how a specific control will “allow” the functionality DC step-down charging. The claim is directed to the one discharging vehicle. The second vehicle, its battery and the cable needed to transfer power are not claimed. This limitation does not explicitly recite any actual connections or discharging control device control functions);
wherein the discharging control device is further configured to control the motor control circuit to realize single-phase charging, two-phase charging, or three-phase charging of the second power battery (the “or” means that only one type of charging is required to be disclosed. Song discloses a three phase motor and, therefore, suggests three-phase charging. Song also discloses two power lines at C1 and, therefore, suggests single-phase charging. Furthermore, the Applicants intend to provide DC power at the discharging outlet – DC power does not have a phase); and
wherein the discharging outlet is disposed on the discharging vehicle (obviously) to be adaptively connected to a (unclaimed) charging connection device external to the discharging vehicle and connectable (hypothetical) to the second, to be charged vehicle with the DC+ hole and the DC- hole of the discharging outlet being respectively connected to the neutral wire (+ at C1 is connected to 601) and the second electrode (- at C1 is connected to battery -) of the first power battery.
Song discloses a vehicle with the claimed structure (battery, inverter, three-phase motor, neutral connected to the battery, charging port). The Examiner notes that Song expressly discloses vehicle-to-vehicle charging (at least par 77) and, therefore, would disclose that one of the two vehicles is a “discharging” vehicle that uses the charging port to provide (output) power. As the claims are directed to a single vehicle with only the possibility of discharging, the citations to Song’s vehicle-to-vehicle charging are not required to be made at this time.
The claim presents 4 wherein clauses.
The first wherein clause further narrows the structure of the vehicle and how the battery electrodes are connected. This is disclosed by Song in figure 1.
The second wherein clause recites a hypothetical. “wherein connecting [and] controlling“ indicates what is necessary to “allow” step-down DC conversion. The claim does not positively recite any of the necessary connections or control functionality. Support for this can be found in that the claim is limited to the one discharging vehicle and explicitly omits claiming the second vehicle (and its battery) or any charging cable that would mate with the discharging outlet. The claim begins with a list of structural components that are included within the scope of the claim – the second vehicle and the charging cable are not included in this list and are not introduced in any similar manner. The language of the paragraph, “wherein connected” indicates a description of a hypothetical (possibility) – not an explicit connection that is included within the scope of the claim. Because Song disclose the same claimed structure, it will obviously react/perform in the same manner if/when the recited connections and motor control circuit control is executed.
The third wherein clause appears to be incorrect, as DC power does not have any phase (see objection, above). Since Song discloses the same structure, it is interpreted as having the same phase features.
The last wherein clause also recite hypotheticals about how the vehicle discharging outlet is “adaptively connected” and “connectable” to an unclaimed charging connection device (to recited until claim 2) and the second vehicle. These devices are not positively claimed. Song discloses a vehicle charging port that is connectable to an adapter (see fig 5, “connector & cable”) and a to-be-charged vehicle (par 77).
The Song charging port is a collection of “holes” to receive a charging adapter and/or plug (it is well known that ports on the vehicle side are female ports to accept a cable with male terminals). Terminal C1 shows at least two of the holes as DC+ and DC-. Song does not expressly disclose the other named holes. Khaligh discloses that the known GB/T standard includes the named holes (see fig 2g), including a discharging outlet having a DC+ hole, a DC- hole, a PE hole, a CANH hole, a CANL hole, an A+ hole, an A- hole, a CC1 hole, and a CC2 hole are disposed on the discharging outlet.
When combined, the modified Song discharging outlet would also have: “the PE hole of the discharging outlet being connected to a body ground of the discharging vehicle” (because “PE” is protective earth and would be understood as a grounded connection) and “the CANH hole and the CANL hole of the discharging outlet both being connected to the discharging control device” (because “CAN” is a network connection for data transfer).
Song and Khaligh are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor, namely electric vehicle charging ports. At the time of the earliest priority date of the application, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to modify Song’s charging port to use the GB/T standard, as taught by Khaligh. The motivation for doing so would have been to use/sell the Song vehicle in China.
Claims 2-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song in view of Khaligh and Kinomura (US 2014/0232182).
With respect to claim 2, the combination of Song and Khaligh teaches a vehicle charging system comprising the discharging vehicle according to claim 1, and Song further discloses a charging control connection device (fig 5, item 510and the circuitry on the bottom left of the figure) having a first resistor (unlabeled at the bottom/left, below S2 and connected to +5V) and a first adapter portion (510; as discussed above, Song is modified to have the GB/T standard. This would apply to the first adapter portion as well):
wherein the first adapter portion comprises a second resistor (unlabeled resistor next to S3 on the bottom/left side of 510), a third resistor (the unlabeled resistor immediately below the second resistor), and a trigger switch (S3), a first end of the second resistor is connected to the CC1 pin of the first adapter portion (in the combination, the Song (3) pin is interpreted as the GB/T CC1 line), a second end of the third resistor is connected to a second end of the second resistor (R25 and R26 are connected), and the trigger switch is connected in parallel to the second resistor (see fig 2);
wherein the discharging outlet comprises a fourth resistor (either resistor above S2, near buffer 503), a second end of the fourth resistor is connected to a first end of the first resistor to form a first detection point (at buffer 503), and a second end of the first resistor is connected to a first pull-up voltage (+5V); and
wherein the discharging control device is further configured to detect a voltage of the first detection point and determine a status of the connection between the first adapter portion and the discharging outlet according to the voltage of the first detection point (par 78).
Song discloses a charging cable connection circuit, but does not expressly disclose the orientation of the resistors between a data line (CC1 in the combination) and ground (PE), as claimed. Kinomura discloses a discharging vehicle (fig 1-2; par 47-95), comprising:
a discharging control device (310);
a first power battery (110) with a first electrode (its + terminal) and a second electrode (its - terminal);
a motor (130 and/or 135) with three-phase winding inductors (suggested by the three lines leading from the inverters to the motors); and
a motor control circuit (122 and/or 123) with a first input terminal (+ DC), a second input terminal (- DC), and three output terminals (three horizontal lines leading out of the right side towards the motor); and
a discharging outlet (220; shown in more detail in figure 2); and
a charging connection device (300 and 410) having a first resistor (R10) and a first adapter portion (410).
In the combination, the discharging vehicle includes the GB/T standard connection and, therefore, also a GB/T standard first adapter portion. Thus, the combination teaches that the Kinomura first adapter portion (410) has a DC+ pin, a DC- pin, a PE pin, a CANH pin, a CANL pin, an A+ pin, an A- pin, a CC1 pin, and a CC2 pin (as would be required to satisfy the GB/T standard).
Kinomura further discloses (as modified by Khaligh to have a GB/T port/adapter):
wherein the first adapter portion comprises a second resistor (R26), a third resistor (R25), and a trigger switch (SW20), a first end of the second resistor is connected to the CC1 pin of the first adapter portion (in the combination, the Kinomura L3 line is interpreted as the GB/T CC1 line), a first end of the third resistor is connected to the PE pin of the first adapter portion (see Kinomura fig 2), a second end of the third resistor is connected to a second end of the second resistor (R25 and R26 are connected), and the trigger switch is connected in parallel to the second resistor (see fig 2);
wherein the discharging outlet comprises a fourth resistor (R15), a first end of the fourth resistor is connected to the PE hole of the discharging outlet (ground), a second end of the fourth resistor is connected to a first end of the first resistor to form a first detection point (at L3), and a second end of the first resistor is connected to a first pull-up voltage (350); and
wherein the discharging control device is further configured to detect a voltage of the first detection point and determine a status of the connection between the first adapter portion and the discharging outlet according to the voltage of the first detection point (par 91).
Kinomura discloses a vehicle charging adapter that uses a voltage divider circuit, with a trigger switch that is activated by the proximity of a charging cable, to create a voltage (PISW) that indicates the presence of the cable. The Kinomura charger detection circuit is identical to what is claimed by the Applicants, the only difference between the charging standard. Khaligh teaches that GB/T is a known standard and, therefore, the skilled artisan would have been motivated to apply the Kinomura detection circuit to GB/T.
Song and Kinomura are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor, namely electric vehicle charging circuitry with cable detection. At the time of the earliest priority date of the application, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to modify Song to include the charger detection circuit, as taught by Kinomura. The motivation for doing so would have been to detect when the charging cable is connected to the adapter and/or vehicle port using a known alternative circuit design. Both Song and Kinomura successfully detect the connection of a charging cable and, therefore, the skilled artisan would have considered replacing one with the other.
The prior art discloses both a GB/T port and the need to detect the connection of a charging cable. Thus, the skilled artisan would have been motivated to apply both features together to apply the benefits of one to the other.
With respect to claim 3, Song discloses:
a first switch (fig 6, R6) with a first end connected to the neutral wire (601) and a second end connected to the DC+ hole of the discharging outlet (at C1); and
a second switch (R4) with a first end connected to the second electrode of the first power battery (via R2) and a second end connected to the DC- hole of the discharging outlet (at C1);
wherein the discharging control device is further configured to control the first and second switches according to at least one of a status of the connection between the charging connection device and the discharging outlet (par 85, 96) and charging and discharging data.
Song discloses that, during discharging, switches R4 and R6 are closed. The charging vehicle and discharging vehicle are identical (see par 77) and, therefore, the discharging vehicle would obviously also close R4 and R6 to provide output charging power while utilizing the benefit of the motor as a converter (par 85).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ADI AMRANY whose telephone number is (571)272-0415. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8am-7pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rex Barnie can be reached at 5712722800 x36. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ADI AMRANY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836