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
Applicant's election with traverse of Species I in the reply filed on 05/19/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the species are not two distinct inventions. This is found persuasive and the restriction requirement is hereby withdrawn.
Drawings
Figure 1 should be designated by a legend such as --Prior Art-- because only that which is old is illustrated. See MPEP § 608.02(g). Corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The replacement sheet(s) should be labeled “Replacement Sheet” in the page header (as per 37 CFR 1.84(c)) so as not to obstruct any portion of the drawing figures. 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.
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 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Heinig et al. ("Single-Fiber Combined Optical Power and Data Transmission for High-Voltage Applications," IECON 2020 The 46th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, 18 Oct. 2020, pages 1473-1480, IEEE).
a) regarding claim 1:
Heinig et al. discloses a method to provide power (Figures 2 and 3) to a control supporting circuit (GDU) that is coupled to a high voltage system (Section II. 1st paragraph), comprising:
connecting an optical power converter (OPC) to the control supporting circuit (GDU) that is coupled to the high voltage system, wherein the optical power converter is connected to a laser source (Laser) via a fiber optic cable (Fiber);
controlling, by a controller (Control), a laser source driver (generator of Plaser) to drive the laser source (Laser) that provides a laser through the fiber optic cable (Fiber, Section IV. Part A);
controlling, by the controller (Control), the control supporting circuit (GDU, Section IV. Part A and Section VI. 3rd paragraph); and
supplying power to the control supporting circuit (GDU) by irradiating the optical power converter (OPC) with the laser via the fiber optic cable (Fiber, Section IV. Part A and Section VI. 3rd paragraph),
wherein a stray capacitance between the controller (Control) and the control supporting circuit (GDU) is reduced to zero or nearly zero (Section II. Part A, 1st paragraph and Section VI. 5th paragraph).
b) regarding claim 2:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the high voltage system is a power electronics circuit (MMC) and wherein the control supporting circuit (GDU) is a gate driver (Figure 2).
c) regarding claim 3:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the power electronics circuit (MMC) comprises a switching module that includes switching devices controlled by the gate driver (GDU, Figure 2).
d) regarding claim 4:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 3, wherein the switching module includes a first switching module connected to a second switching module in series (Figure 2).
e) regarding claim 5:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 4, wherein the first switching module and the second switching module each comprise at least one wide bandgap transistor (Section II. Part B, 3rd paragraph).
f) regarding claim 6:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 5, wherein the at least one wide bandgap transistor is rated at a voltage of 10kV (Table 1).
g) regarding claim 7:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the optical power converter (OPC) supplies up to 20V at 5W to the power electronics circuit (Section IV. Part D).
h) regarding claim 8:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the laser source (Laser) is a semiconductor diode (Section II. Part A, Subsection 3 and Table II).
i) regarding claim 9:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 8, further comprising tuning the laser source (Laser) to a wavelength utilized by the optical power converter (Section IV. Part C, 1st paragraph).
j) regarding claim 10:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the optical power converter is disposed adjacent to a heat sink (Section V. Part B, 1st paragraph).
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 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Heinig et al.
a) regarding claim 11:
Heinig et al. discloses the method of claim 1.
Heinig et al. fails to explicitly disclose wherein the fiber optic cable comprises a glass fiber optic cable.
However it was well known in the art at the time of the invention to use glass fiber optic cables and therefore would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use glass fiber optic cables in the system disclosed by Heinig et al. as it only requires the simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12-16 are allowed.
Claims 17-19 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior art of record fails to disclose or make obvious a method of shutting down a laser source driver providing laser energy to an optical power converter, comprising: connecting a second fiber optic cable from the controller to the control supporting circuit; monitoring a feedback signal from the control supporting circuit to the controller on the second fiber optic cable; and responsive to detecting a loss of the feedback signal, turning off, by the controller, the laser source driver, along with all the other limitations as required by claim 12.
The prior art of record fails to disclose a method to provide power to a control supporting circuit that is coupled to a high voltage system, comprising: connecting a second fiber optic cable from the controller to the control supporting circuit; monitoring a feedback signal from the control supporting circuit to the controller on the second fiber optic cable; and responsive to detecting a loss of the feedback signal, turning off, by the controller, the laser source driver, along with all the other limitations as required by claim 17.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Nojima (US 2022/0393669) discloses an apparatus for driving and monitoring power semiconductor switches. Yang et al. (US 2019/0222211) discloses a power driving device capable of delivering control signals and power at the same time.
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/PATRICK O NEILL/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836
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