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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the amendments filed on 12/10/2025, in which claims 1-11 are presented for the examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/10/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that Naderivesal fails to teach "performing, via the control unit, an anomaly detection as a function of the temporal operational variable profiles; and upon recognizing an anomaly, detecting, via the control unit 43, error-relevant variables." As recited in independent claim 1.
Response:
These arguments are not persuasive for the reasons set forth below.
Applicant contends that Naderivesal does not expressly disclose “detecting battery over discharge” and therefore does not teach the claimed anomaly detection. However, the rejection does not rely on the exact phrase “detecting battery over discharge” appearing verbatim in the reference. Rather, during examination, claim terms are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, and a prior art reference need not use the identical terminology as the claims to teach the claimed subject matter.
Naderivesal teaches receiving and processing historical battery data [0115] and current battery data and generating prediction values and an overall confidence values and an overcall confidence regarding battery failure using a plurality of algorithms [0024], [0025], under a broad but reasonable interpretation, identifying from temporal battery related operational data that a battery is trending towards failure constitutes detecting an abnormal battery condition. The claimed” anomaly detection” does not require any particular algorithm, thresholding technique or explicit use of the word “anomaly”. Thus, Naderivesal’s failure prediction based on time-varying battery parameters (temporal operational variable profiles) reasonably reads on the claimed anomaly detection step.
Further, the battery operating parameters used in Nadeverisal, such as sensed battery values over time, reasonable correspond to the claimed error-relevant variables, because such variables are relevant to identifying and predicting the abnormal or failure condition. The claims do not require the prior art to expressly use the terms “anomaly detection “ or “error-relevant variable” nor do they require a separate detection stage beyond what is disclosed.
Accordingly, Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive, and the rejection of claim 1 is maintained.
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.
Claims 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Naderivesal et al. (US 2021/0405104, referred herein after Naderivesal) in view Koller et al. (US 2019/0212391, referred herein after Koller).
As per claim 1, 10, 11, Naderivesal discloses a computer-implemented method for providing a risk value for a predicted error in a device battery of a technical device using an error evaluation model, wherein the error evaluation model has at least one error factor assignment table, the method comprising: -
detecting, via a computer, temporal operational variable profiles of at least one device battery (Fig. 7, historical data collection about temperature or voltage of the battery of the vehicle is considered as temporal operational variable as claimed);
performing, via the computer, an anomaly detection as a function of the temporal operational variable profiles (Fig. 1, failure notification using historical data and current battery data which collected over the time period);
upon recognizing an anomaly, detecting, via the computer, error-relevant variables ([0028], voltage reading at various predetermined time sensed considered as claimed error-relevant variables);
Naderivesal does not specifically discloses evaluating, via the computer, the error evaluation model as a function of the error-relevant variables to determine an error type of a predicted error;
assigning, via the computer, error factors to the error type using the at least one provided error factor assignment table of the error evaluation model;
determining, via the computer, a risk value as a function of the error factors; and
signaling, via the computer, the risk value;
However, Koller discloses evaluating, via the computer, the error evaluation model (error predictive model) as a function of the error-relevant variables to determine an error type of a predicted error ([0049], [0062], [0063]);
assigning, via the computer, error factors to the error type using the at least one provided error factor assignment table of the error evaluation model ([0113]-[0118]);
determining, via the computer, a risk value as a function of the error factors; and ([0113]-[0114]);
signaling, via the computer, the risk value ([0081], [0082], [0113]-[0114]);
Therefore it would have been obvious to the one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate teaching of Koller’s method for monitoring a battery in a motor vehicle into Naderivesal’s automobile battery failure prediction method because one of the ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to predict future behavior of the battery of the vehicle system.
As per claim 2, Koller discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the error-relevant variables comprise a frequency of balancing, a temperature behavior, a state of charge profile, an OCV profile (open-circuit voltage characteristic) for low states of charge, an aging state profile, a charging behavior and/or a cell pressure profile ([0061]-[0062], battery temperature behavior and voltage monitored).
As per claim 3, Koller discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein a feature extraction is performed with the error-relevant variables to obtain error-relevant features, wherein the error factors for the error type are determined using the error factor assignment table provided in the error evaluation model as a function of the error-relevant features ([0062], [0063], predictors are considered as claimed error factors for the error type).
As per claim 4, Naderivesal discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the error factors comprise at least one of a propagation speed of the error, a severity of the error, and a propagation probability of the error ([0058]-[0059], [0032], [0119]).
As per claim 5, Koller discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the risk value is determined as a function of a multiplication of the error factors ([0112]-[0113]).
As per claim 6, Koller discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein, depending on a level of the risk value and the type of error, an instruction for action is issued to a user of the device battery ([0036], [0037], early failure warning is issued to user).
As per claim 7, Koller discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of performing the anomaly detection and evaluating the error evaluation model is performed in a central processing unit remote from the device (Fig. 1, processing unit 205 performs anomaly detection, which is remote from device 400).
As per claim 8, Koller discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein detecting error-relevant variables comprises detecting the operational variable profiles at a higher sampling rate, or wherein upon detection of the anomaly, the operational variable profiles are detected at a higher sampling rate ([0046], [0056], [0106], [0115]).
As per claim 9, Koller discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the error evaluation model is updated in a central processing unit based on operational variable profiles of a plurality of device batteries as a function of a detected anomaly and a subsequently occurring error of a certain error type ([0041], [0060]-[0063]).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAMINI B PATEL whose telephone number is (571)270-3902. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8-4:30.
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/KAMINI B PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114