DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. The specification, the abstract and the drawings are all acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
4. Claims 1-2, 13-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USPN 9,840,801 to Kim in view of USPN 10,536,058 to Kim/Park, and further in view of USPN 9,071,182 to Yoshida.
As to claim 1, Kim teaches a washing machine (fig. 1) comprising: a case(fig. 1: “110”); a laundry inlet through which laundry is loaded, the laundry inlet being disposed in an upper portion or a lateral surface of the case(col. 4: lines 31-41); a door attached to the laundry inlet(col. 3: lines 47-49); a fixed tank (fig. 1: “122”) configured to store water for washing the laundry(col. 2: lines 5-6); a rotating tank (fig. 1: “121”) within the fixed tank and capable of rotating and the rotating tank including a container(col. 2: lines 8-15).
Kim does not teach a power conversion device configured to drive a motor that rotates the rotating tank, wherein the power conversion device comprises: a first rectifier configured to rectify an alternating current AC voltage of an input power supply and provide a first DC voltage based on rectifying the AC voltage; a direct current DC link capacitor configured to smooth the first DC voltage provided by the first rectifier and output a smoothed DC voltage; an inverter configured to convert the smoothed DC voltage output by the DC link capacitor into an AC voltage for driving the motor; the motor, wherein the motor is driven by the AC voltage provided by the inverter and is configured to rotate the rotating tank based on the AC voltage; a first power converter connected to both ends of the DC link capacitor or both ends of the input power supply and configured to generate and supply a second DC voltage to a load; the load, wherein the load is capable of being driven by the second DC voltage supplied by the first power converter; a second power converter connected to the both ends of the DC link capacitor and configured to convert the smoothed DC voltage provided by the DC link capacitor into a third DC voltage and charge an energy storage device with the third DC voltage, based on a voltage across the both ends of the DC link capacitor becoming greater than or equal to than a first certain voltage, wherein an increase of the voltage at the both ends of the DC link capacitor is caused by deceleration of the motor; and a processor configured to control respective operations of the first power converter and the second power converter.
Kim/Park teaches a power conversion device (fig. 8: “320”) configured to drive a motor (fig. 8: “400”) that rotates the rotating tank, wherein the power conversion device comprises: a first rectifier (fig. 4: “120”) configured to rectify an alternating current AC voltage of an input power supply(fig. 4: “ES”) and provide a first DC voltage based on rectifying the AC voltage(col. 10: lines 28-30); a direct current DC link capacitor (fig. 5: “C111”) configured to smooth the first DC voltage provided by the first rectifier and output a smoothed DC voltage(col. 12: lines 35-39); an inverter (fig. 8: “320”) configured to convert the smoothed DC voltage output by the DC link capacitor into an AC voltage for driving the motor(fig. 8: “400”); the motor wherein the motor (fig. 8: “400”) is driven by the AC voltage provided by the inverter (fig. 8: “320”) and is configured to rotate the rotating tank based on the AC voltage(fig. 4: “ES”); a first power converter connected to both ends of the DC link capacitor or both ends of the input power supply and configured to generate and supply a second DC voltage to a load; the load, wherein the load is capable of being driven by the second DC voltage supplied by the first power converter; a second power converter connected to the both ends of the DC link capacitor and configured to convert the smoothed DC voltage provided by the DC link capacitor into a third DC voltage and charge an energy storage device with the third DC voltage, based on a voltage across the both ends of the DC link capacitor becoming greater than or equal to than a first certain voltage(col. 12: lines 40-65 wherein apparatus and method are taught for a motor control system for using the DC link capacitor to be charged to store the electric energy in the circuit).
Yoshida teaches an apparatus wherein an increase of the voltage at the both ends of the DC link capacitor is caused by deceleration of the motor and a processor configured to control respective operations of the first power converter and the second power converter(col. 2: lines 28-65).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Kim/Park and Yoshida into Kim since Kim suggests a washing machine with a motor, and Kim/Park and Yoshida suggests the beneficial use of a motor control system in the analogous art of machine/motor control technology.
The motivation for this comes from the fact that Kim/Park and Yoshida teaches a motor control system which can be used to improve the washing machine controls.
As to claim 2, Kim in view of Kim/Park and Yoshida teaches the washing machine of claim 1, wherein, the first power converter is connected to the both ends of the input power supply, and the power conversion device further comprises a second rectifier (Kim/Park fig. 4: “160”) configured to rectify the AC voltage of the input power supply and provide a fourth DC voltage to the first power converter based on rectifying the AC voltage(Kim/Park col. 14: lines 4-13).
As to claim 13, Kim in view of Kim/Park and Yoshida teaches the washing machine of claim 1, further comprising: a communication interface and a user interface comprising an input interface and an output interface, wherein the load includes at least one of the processor, the communication interface, or the user interface(Kim/Park col. 4: lines 25-29).
As to claim 14, Kim in view of Kim/Park and Yoshida teaches the washing machine of claim 13 and the communication interface(Kim/Park col. 4: lines 25-29) and control power generated by the regenerative braking(Yoshida col. 2: lines 28-40). It is obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to use Wi-Fi communication because it is widely used everywhere in the world.
As to claim 15, Kim in view of Kim/Park and Yoshida teaches the washing machine of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to: control conversion of the smoothed DC voltage provided by the DC link capacitor into the third DC voltage in association with charging the energy storage device; and control the voltage across the both ends of the DC link capacitor such that the voltage is equal to or less than a target voltage(Yoshida col. 3: lines 10-20).
As to claim 16, Kim in view of Kim/Park and Yoshida teaches the washing machine of claim 15, wherein, while the processor is controlling the voltage across the both ends of the DC link capacitor such that the voltage is equal to or less than the target voltage, a magnitude of a current associated with charging the energy storage device is constant(Yoshida col. 3: lines 10-20).
As to claim 17, Kim in view of Kim/Park and Yoshida teaches the washing machine of claim 15, wherein the target voltage is less than or equal to the first certain voltage(Yoshida col. 3: lines 10-20).
As to claim 18, it is rejected as the same reason as claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 3-12, 19-20 are objected to as being dependent upon the rejected base claims 1, 18, but could be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claims and any intervening claims for the following reasons: No prior art of record discloses the features as claimed in the noted claims.
6. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter. The non-obvious features are:
In comparison with the closest prior art as cited in this Office action and any previous Office actions, no prior art of record discloses the following features as claimed in the following claim limitations:
As per claim 3: A third power converter configured to generate and supply a fifth DC voltage to the load, wherein the third power converter is configured to convert stored DC voltage provided by the energy storage device into the fifth DC voltage, wherein the processor is configured to control the third power converter.
As per claim 8: The second power converter is configured to convert the DC voltage of the DC link capacitor, based on the voltage on the both ends of the DC link capacitor becoming equal to or greater than a first predetermined voltage due to regenerative braking caused by the deceleration of the motor, to charge the energy storage device and the second power converter is a bidirectional buck-boost converter configured to convert a DC voltage into a DC voltage of a different level in both directions.
As per claim 19: The charging the energy storage device with the second DC voltage comprises charging the energy storage device with the second DC voltage when the smoothed DC voltage of the DC link capacitor becomes greater than or equal to the first certain voltage, wherein an increase of the DC voltage of the DC link capacitor is due to regenerative braking caused by deceleration of the motor, and the method further comprising discharging energy from the energy storage device to the DC link capacitor when the voltage of the DC link capacitor is less than or equal to a second certain voltage.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
USPN 9,825,519 to Sona discloses a motor control system.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID S LUO whose telephone number is (571)270-5251. The examiner can normally be reached 8AM-5PM.
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/DAVID LUO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2837
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