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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Isono et al. (US 2001/0003402).
Regarding claim 1, Isono discloses a braking control device for a vehicle (see Abstract, FIG. 24) comprising: a pressure adjustment unit (332) that adjusts wheel pressure of a wheel cylinder by a servo pressure generated using an electric motor (336) as a power source (see ¶ 0195); a solenoid valve (312) provided in a hydraulic pressure transmission path from the servo pressure to the wheel pressure (see FIG. 24); and a controller (370) that controls the pressure adjustment unit (see ¶ 0200); wherein the controller: calculates a pressure loss in the solenoid valve based on an instruction pressure calculated from a braking request amount and the wheel pressure (see ¶ 0203), determines a target pressure by adding the pressure loss to the instruction pressure (see ¶ 0203), and controls the pressure adjustment unit based on the target pressure (see ¶ 0203).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2 is 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, Isono does not disclose that the controller calculates a predicted flow rate passing through the solenoid valve based on a deviation between an instruction liquid amount calculated from the instruction pressure and an actual liquid amount calculated from the wheel pressure, and calculates the pressure loss based on the predicted flow rate. Rather, Isono discloses that the pressure loss is calculated based on a predetermined relationship (see e.g. FIG. 7; ¶ 0128).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICHOLAS J LANE whose telephone number is (571)270-5988. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM.
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/NICHOLAS J LANE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3616
