DETAILED ACTIONAcknowledgment is made of applicant’s preliminary amendment filed 8/2/24.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
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.
Claims 1 – 6 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Roth et al. (DE10212428, hereinafter Roth – See IDS dated 4/18/25).
Regarding claim 1, Roth discloses a method comprising a misfire detection part for detecting a misfire state in at least one cylinder of an engine (See Fig. 1), an effective misfire determination part for determining, on the basis of an unburned parameter that is an indicator of an unburned fuel concentration in an exhaust gas duct, a risk of unburned fuel in the exhaust gas duct burning, when the misfire detection part detects the misfire state; and an engine stop processing control part for performing stop processing of the engine on the basis of a determination result in the effective misfire determination part (See Pg. 2, Para. 3, Pg. 3, Para. 4 and Pg. 6, Paras. 2 - 5).
Regarding claim 2, the unburned parameter is an air-fuel ratio parameter that is an indicator of an air-fuel ratio in the at least one cylinder, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines an effective misfire on the basis of the air-fuel ratio parameter (See Pg. 3, Para. 4).
Regarding claim 3, the air-fuel ratio parameter is an indicator of a fuel supply amount into the at least one cylinder, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines the effective misfire on the basis of whether or not the fuel supply amount exceeds a predetermined threshold (See Pg. 3, Para. 4).
Regarding claim 4, the unburned parameter is an exhaust gas composition parameter based on a composition of an exhaust gas flowing in the exhaust gas duct, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines an effective misfire on the basis of the exhaust gas composition parameter (See Pg. 3, Para. 4 and Pg. 6, Paras. 2 – 3).
Regarding claim 5, the exhaust gas composition parameter includes an unburned fuel concentration and an oxygen concentration in the exhaust gas, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines an effective misfire on the basis of the unburned fuel concentration and the oxygen concentration (See Pg. 3, Para. 4).
Regarding claim 6, the engine stop processing control part calculates an integrated value of the number of determinations of effective misfires from the effective misfire determination part in a past certain time or a past certain cycle, and performs the stop processing of the engine if the integrated value exceeds a predetermined integration threshold (See Pg. 4, Paras. 4 and 5 and Pg. 5, Paras. 1 – 4).
Regarding claim 9, a misfire detection step is performed for detecting a misfire state in at least one cylinder of the engine; an effective misfire determination step is performed for determining, on the basis of an unburned parameter that is an indicator of an unburned fuel concentration in an exhaust gas duct, a risk of unburned fuel in the exhaust gas duct burning, when the misfire state is detected in the misfire detection step; and an engine stop processing control step of performing stop processing of the engine on the basis of a determination result in the effective misfire determination step (See Pg. 2, Para. 3, Pg. 3, Para. 4 and Pg. 6, Paras. 2 - 5).
5. Claims 1 – 5 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Glugla et al. (CN107448318, hereinafter Glugla). Regarding claim 1, Glugla discloses a method and apparatus comprising a misfire detection part 300 (See Fig. 3) for detecting a misfire state in at least one cylinder of an engine; an effective misfire determination part 318 for determining, on the basis of an unburned parameter that is an indicator of an unburned fuel concentration in an exhaust gas duct, a risk of unburned fuel in the exhaust gas duct burning, when the misfire detection part detects the misfire state; and an engine stop processing control part for performing stop processing of the engine on the basis of a determination result in the effective misfire determination part (See Pg. 10, Paras. 3 – 5, Pg. 11, Paras. 1 – 4, Pg. 12, Paras. 1 – 5 and Pg. 13, Paras. 1 – 6).
Regarding claim 2, the unburned parameter is an air-fuel ratio parameter that is an indicator of an air-fuel ratio in the at least one cylinder, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines an effective misfire on the basis of the air-fuel ratio parameter (See Pg. 12, Paras. 2 – 4).
Regarding claim 3, the air-fuel ratio parameter is an indicator of a fuel supply amount into the at least one cylinder, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines the effective misfire on the basis of whether or not the fuel supply amount exceeds a predetermined threshold (See Pg. 12, Paras. 2 – 4).
Regarding claim 4, the unburned parameter is an exhaust gas composition parameter based on a composition of an exhaust gas flowing in the exhaust gas duct, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines an effective misfire on the basis of the exhaust gas composition parameter (See Pg. 12, Paras. 2 – 4).
Regarding claim 5, the exhaust gas composition parameter includes an unburned fuel concentration and an oxygen concentration in the exhaust gas, and wherein the effective misfire determination part determines an effective misfire on the basis of the unburned fuel concentration and the oxygen concentration (See Pg. 12, Paras. 2 – 4).
Regarding claim 9, a misfire detection step is performed for detecting a misfire state in at least one cylinder of the engine; an effective misfire determination step is performed for determining, on the basis of an unburned parameter that is an indicator of an unburned fuel concentration in an exhaust gas duct, a risk of unburned fuel in the exhaust gas duct burning, when the misfire state is detected in the misfire detection step; and an engine stop processing control step of performing stop processing of the engine on the basis of a determination result in the effective misfire determination step (See Pg. 10, Paras. 3 – 5, Pg. 11, Paras. 1 – 4, Pg. 12, Paras. 1 – 5 and Pg. 13, Paras. 1 – 6).
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 7 and 8 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.7. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The primary reasons for indicating allowable subject matter is that the prior art does not anticipate or make obvious the provisions of “the effective misfire determination part is configured to determine the risk of the unburned fuel in the exhaust gas duct burning, by comparing the unburned parameter with an effective misfire determination threshold, and wherein the engine stop processing control part further has a number-of-effective- misfires correction portion for weighting the integrated value of the number of determinations of the effective misfires in accordance with a magnitude of the unburned parameter in calculating the integrated value” (referring to claim 7) and “the past certain time or the past certain cycle and the integration threshold are set to larger values from startup to low load than at high load” (referring to claim 8) in combination with the other limitations presented in claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to
applicant's disclosure.9. Hashimoto et al. (JP2021055579) disclose a device for determining presence/absence of accidental fire of internal combustion engine. Glugla et al. (11,732,668) disclose systems and methods for cylinder misfire detection. Katayama et al. (11,536,628) disclose a misfire detecting device and method for internal combustion engine. Sugimoto (11,359,556) discloses a device and method for detecting misfire in internal combustion engine. Hino et al. (JP4118001) disclose a misfire detection device and misfire detection method. Tsujimura et al. (JP2005163696) disclose misfire detection device of internal combustion engine. Oh (KR20020051772) discloses an apparatus for sensing misfire and overrisen temperature of exhaust gas and method for controlling of fuel injection device using the same. Shimazaki et al. (JP2000073805) disclose a misfire detecting device for internal combustion engine.10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OCTAVIA HOLLINGTON whose telephone number is (571)272-2176. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.
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/OCTAVIA HOLLINGTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2855 5/29/26
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