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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1, 3, 5, and 126-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hudson (US 2020/0284477).
As to claim 1, Hudson discloses a system with a condenser unit comprising:
a compressor 102 configured to receive refrigerant from a condenser unit input port and provide a compressed refrigerant;
a gas cooler 104 configured to receive the compressed refrigerant and provide a first cooled refrigerant at a gas cooler discharge port;
an expansion valve 138 configured to receive the first cooled refrigerant and provide a second cooled refrigerant to a condenser unit discharge port; and
a first controllable valve 142 configured to receive the first cooled refrigerant and provide a first metered refrigerant combined with the second cooled refrigerant to the condenser unit discharge port (Fig. 1), the first controllable valve configured to selectively open when the refrigerant is subcritical (paragraph 67) and thus when a first temperature at the gas cooler discharge port is below a first temperature threshold.
As to claim 3, Hudson discloses the first controllable valve 142 as a shut off valve (paragraphs 67 and 70).
As to claim 5, Hudson discloses the first temperature threshold as corresponding to a critical temperature of carbon dioxide (paragraph 67).
As to claims 12-16, if a prior art device, in its normal and usual operation, would nec-essarily perform the method claimed then the method claimed will be considered to be anticipated by the prior art device. When the prior art device is the same as a device described in the specification for carrying out the claimed method it can be assumed the device will inherently perform the claimed process. Thus the method as claimed would necessarily result from the normal operation of the apparatus.
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 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hudson as applied in the rejection(s) above, and further in view of Buck (US 5,495,720).
As to claim 2, Hudson is silent regarding use of any specific type of expansion valve. However, Buck teaches the same configuration of an expansion device 9 and parallel controllable valve 91 (Fig. 1) and states that the simplest use case for the expansion device 9 is a fixed differential expansion valve in the form of a capillary (col. 5, lines 25-35). Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify Hudson such that the expansion valve 138 is a fixed differential expansion valve as claimed and taught by Buck in order to simplify installation and operation of the system.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hudson as applied in the rejection(s) above, and further in view of Saho (US 2021/0108840).
As to claim 4, Hudson does not explicitly teach a first temperature sensor physically attached to the first controllable valve 142. However, Saho teaches that it is known to utilize a temperature sensor 111 physically attached to effect control of a valve (Fig. 1; paragraph 51). Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify Hudson to have a sensor arranged as claimed and taught by Saho because it would provide a straightforward means of controlling the valve 142 to perform the desired system operations.
Claims 6-11 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hudson as applied in the rejection(s) above, and further in view of Ohta (US 7,467,525).
As to claim 6, Hudson teaches an evaporator unit having a second controllable valve 106 configured to provide a second metered refrigerant to an evaporator 108 (Fig. 1), but does not explicitly teach that the second controllable valve 106 is configured to selectively open when a second temperature at the evaporator discharge port is below a second temperature threshold. However, Ohta teaches that it is known to control the opening of a second controllable valve 12 in a supercritical system based on temperature measured at an outlet of evaporator 9 (Fig. 1). As such it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify Hudson to be configured such that the second controllable valve 106 is selectively opened when a second temperature at the evaporator discharge port is below a second temperature threshold as claimed in order to control the superheat degree of the system.
As to claim 7, the valve 106 can control flow through the refrigerant line and thus is considered to be a shutoff valve.
As to claim 8, Ohta teaches a temperature sensor physically attached to the second valve 12 (Fig. 1).
As to claim 9, the modified apparatus includes utilizing a controller to actuate the valves based on sensor inputs in the manner as claimed (Hudson, paragraph 73; Ohta, Fig. 4).
As to claims 10-11, the modified apparatus does not explicitly teach using pulse width modulation (PWM) for the controllable valves. However, Official Notice is taken that PWM is a common and typical feature of refrigerant valve control that would have been obvious to use in conjunction with the valves of the modified apparatus for the purpose of providing precise flow control.
As to claims 17-20, if a prior art device, in its normal and usual operation, would nec-essarily perform the method claimed then the method claimed will be considered to be anticipated by the prior art device. When the prior art device is the same as a device described in the specification for carrying out the claimed method it can be assumed the device will inherently perform the claimed process. Thus the method as claimed would necessarily result from the normal operation of the apparatus.
Conclusion
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/JONATHAN BRADFORD/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763