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 .
Acknowledgement is made of application #18/761,013 filed on 07/01/2024 in which claims 1-5 have been presented for prosecution in a first action on the merits.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. 16/765,387, filed on 10/08/2018.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 07/01/2024 has been considered and placed of record. An initialed copy is attached herewith.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Anderson USPAT 8,400,112 B2.
Regarding claim 1: Anderson at least discloses and shows in Figs. 1-4:A method for managing a battery(16) that includes a plurality of battery cells(inherent since the vehicle is an hybrid electric vehicle 10), the method being part of a control strategy programmed into a module battery management system (MBMS)(18)(see col. 3, lines 47-62), the method comprising: a reference discharging power limit setting operation(see curves 24/24’ of Fig. 2 and col. 3, lines 63-col. 4, line 5), via the MBMS(18), of setting a referential predetermined discharging power limit(initial discharge power limit as shown by curve 24); and a real-time discharging power limit setting operation(shown as curve 28 in Fig. 2 and shown as curve 32 in Fig. 3)(note- that An initial discharge power limit, shown by the curve 24 is above the power capability curve 22 for certain states of charge), via the MBMS(18), of setting a real-time discharging power limit(note that curve 32 is adjusted somewhat to fall between curve 26’ and curve 24’; see Fig. 3) of the battery by reducing the reference predetermined discharging power limit(24/24’) according to a real-time voltage of the battery(see col. 4, lines 14-65 and col. 5, lines 38-55).
Accordingly claim 1 is clearly anticipated.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5 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.
Regarding claim 2, the prior art of record either taken alone or in combination with art filed in IDS on 07/01/2024 fails to teach or reasonably suggest, the claimed combination of elements or steps as recited, most particularly the limitations of, wherein the real-time discharging power limit setting step comprises: (a-2) an operation, via the MBMS, of measuring a voltage of each of the plurality of battery cells; (b-2) an operation, via the MBMS, of determining whether the voltage of a battery cell having a lowest voltage among voltages of the plurality of battery cells measured in step (a-2) is less than a preset minimum allowable voltage; (c-2) an operation, via the MBMS, of measuring a period during which the voltage of the battery cell having the lowest voltage is maintained less than the preset minimum allowable voltage; and (d-2) an operation, via the MBMS, of reducing the referential predetermined battery discharging power limit by a predetermined ratio to calculate the real-time discharging power limit when the period during which the voltage of the battery cell having the lowest voltage is maintained less than the preset minimum allowable voltage is equal to or longer than a predetermined period, wherein steps (a-2) to (d-2) are repeatedly performed, and wherein a number of times step (d-2) is performed is counted to generate a counted value.
Claims 3-5 depend either directly or indirectly from claim 1 and thus are also allowable for the same reasons.
Conclusion
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M'BAYE DIAO
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2859
/M BAYE DIAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 December 23, 2025