Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 07/02/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
35 U.S.C 103
Applicant’s arguments filed with respect to the rejection(s) of claims 1-20 under U.S.C 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However new grounds of rejection are made in view of Irish (US Pat # 11961977) and Zhen (U.S Pub # 20210027550).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 16 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 cited prior arts do not disclose the limitations cited within these dependent claims.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 7-8, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(2) as being anticipated by Irish (US Pat # 11961977).
With regards to claim 1, Irish discloses a battery management apparatus for managing battery management system (BMS) data related to a state of a battery, the apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and a memory configured to store at least one instruction to be executed by the at least one processor, wherein the at least one instruction includes:
an instruction to detect at least one event requiring an emergency storage of the BMS data ([Col. 5 lines 18-30] threshold condition of a state of charge of a battery falling above or below a threshold);
an instruction to, upon detecting the at least one event requiring the emergency storage of the BMS data, request for the emergency storage of the BMS data to a first controller in a device including the battery (Fig. 1 [Col. 5 lines 4-12] determine whether to write data to the data store 107 based on the comparison with the threshold condition), the at least one processor and the first controller being connected to a Controller Area Network (CAN) bus ([Col. 7 lines 36-43] battery pack comprises a controller area network. The controller may be configured to communicate over the CAN); and
an instruction to receive a response to the request for the emergency storage of the BMS data from the first controller and to transmit the BMS data to the first controller (Fig. 2 [Col. 5 lines 4-12] determine whether to write data to the data store 107 based on the comparison with the threshold condition);
wherein the first controller stores the BMS data in response to the request for the emergency storage of the BMS data (Fig. 2 [col. 5 lines 34-42] writes data).
Claims 8 and 18 correspond to claim 1 and are rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 7, Irish further discloses:
wherein the BMS data transmitted to the first controller is transmitted to and stored in the first controller or a selected one among one or more second controllers interoperating with the first controller (Fig. 2 [col. 5 lines 34-42] writes data).
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.
Claims 2 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Anma (U.S Pub # 20180244165).
With regards to claim 2, Irish does not disclose however Anma discloses:
wherein the at least one event requiring the emergency storage of the BMS data includes an event that a temperature of the battery detected by the battery management apparatus is equal to or greater than a threshold temperature ([0090] when the detected temperature becomes equal to or greater than the first threshold value, the BMS may store a piece of temperature information indicating the same).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Anma to determine if a battery may be overheating.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to store temperature information indicating the detected temperature has gone too high (Anma [0021]).
Claim 19 corresponds to claim 2 and is rejected accordingly.
Claims 3-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Metzner (U.S Pub # 20140359190).
With regards to claim 3, Irish does not disclose however Metzner discloses:
wherein the request for the emergency storage of the BMS data and a transmission of the BMS data are made through Controller Area Network (CAN) communication ([0033] controller area network protocol).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Metzner to communicate between controllers using a controller protocol.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order so nodes may communicate across a single shared bus according to a message-based protocol (Metzner [0003]).
With regards to claim 4, Irish does not disclose however Metzner discloses:
wherein at least one frame used for the CAN communication includes a field of an identifier that specifies a sender and a receiver of the at least one frame and one or more data fields ([0003] headers within the data that identify the sender and recipient of a data communication).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Metzner to communicate between controllers using a controller protocol.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order so nodes may communicate across a single shared bus according to a message-based protocol (Metzner [0003]).
With regards to claim 5, Irish further discloses:
wherein the one or more data fields includes information indicating whether the at least one frame is a message requesting the emergency storage or a message responding to whether the emergency storage is possible (Fig. 1 [Col. 5 lines 4-12] determine whether to write data to the data store 107 based on the comparison with the threshold condition).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Metzner to communicate between controllers using a controller protocol.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order so nodes may communicate across a single shared bus according to a message-based protocol (Metzner [0003]).
Claims 9 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Poristoin (U.S Pub # 20080005734).
With regards to claim 9, Irish further discloses:
In response to the request for the emergency storage of the BMS data; receive the BMS data from the battery management apparatus and store the BMS data in a storage device within the first controller (Fig. 2 [col. 5 lines 34-42] writes data).
Irish does not disclose however Poristoin discloses:
determine whether a communication path between the battery management apparatus and the first controller is normal ([0061] connection update);
check whether the first controller secures a storage space to store the BMS data and send a response message to the battery management apparatus ([0071] determine if there’s enough space to store data in memory).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Poristoin to determine if a storage operation is viable.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to determine a successful automatic update of information (Poristoin [0006]).
Claim 20 corresponds to claim 9 and is rejected accordingly.
Claims 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Kratzer (U.S Pub # 20180134160).
With regards to claim 10, Irish does not disclose however Kratzer discloses:
one or more second controllers under a control of the first controller ([0124-0125] Tes controller controlling cell module controllers).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Metzner to communicate between a plurality of controllers.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to obtain signals from multiple controllers to output a system signal (Kratzer [0010]).
Claims 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Kratzer (U.S Pub # 20180134160) and in further view of Smereka (U.S Pub # 20170171272).
With regards to claim 11, Irish further discloses:
in response to the request for the emergency storage of the BMS data, receive the BMS data from the battery management apparatus; and transmit the BMS data to the controller (Fig. 2 [col. 5 lines 34-42] writes data).
Irish does not disclose however Smereka discloses:
determine which of the one or more second controllers is a safest second controller to store the BMS data ([0044] utilize device having the most available storage space).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish and Kratzer by Smereka to determine the best avenue to perform a storage operation.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to manage downloading data to a specific storage (Smereka [0013]).
With regards to claim 12, Irish does not disclose however Smereka discloses:
wherein the safest second controller is determined based on one or more of an availability of a storage space to store the BMS data, location from the battery, and a temperature of a corresponding controller of the one or more second controllers ([0044] utilize device having the most available storage space).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to manage downloading data to a specific storage (Smereka [0013]).
With regards to claim 13, Irish does not disclose however Kratzer discloses:
wherein the request for the emergency storage of the BMS data and the transmitting of the BMS data are made through Controller Area Network (CAN) communication ([0074] controller area network).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Metzner to communicate between a plurality of controllers.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to obtain signals from multiple controllers to output a system signal (Kratzer [0010]).
Claims 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Kratzer (U.S Pub # 20180134160) and in further view of Smereka (U.S Pub # 20170171272) and Metzner (U.S Pub # 20140359190).
With regards to claim 14, Irish does not disclose however Metzner discloses:
wherein at least one frame used for the CAN communication includes a field of an identifier that specifies a sender and a receiver of the at least one frame and one or more data fields ([0003] headers within the data that identify the sender and recipient of a data communication).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish, Kratzer, Smereka by Metzner to communicate between controllers using a controller protocol.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order so nodes may communicate across a single shared bus according to a message-based protocol (Metzner [0003]).
With regards to claim 15, Irish further discloses:
wherein the one or more data fields includes information indicating whether the at least one frame is a message requesting the emergency storage or a message responding to whether the emergency storage is possible ([0023] BMS protects the battery through an emergency operation when a dangerous situation is detected by storing).
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Matsumoto (U.S Pub # 20230150393).
With regards to claim 17, Irish does not disclose however Matsumoto discloses:
wherein the first controller is a vehicle control unit (VCU) which is the highest level controller that centrally controls one or more electronic control units (ECUs) communicating with the battery management apparatus ([0039] a vehicle control unit that commands an ECU and battery control unit).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish by Matsumoto to illustrate the hierarchy within controllers of a vehicle.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to observe the state of a battery mounted on a hybrid vehicle (Matsumoto [0035]).
Claim 28 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Irish (US Pat # 11961977) in view of Metzner (U.S Pub # 20140359190) and in Zhen (U.S Pub # 20210027550).
With regards to claim 28, Irish does not disclose however Zhen discloses:
wherein a transmission period of the at least one frame for the CAN communication is 10ms ([0017] check every other 10 milliseconds over the Controller Area Network).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Irish and Metzner by Zhen to have a transmission period of 10ms.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to inform users about car conditions activated upon the detection of certain conditions (Zhen [0002]).
Conclusion
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/TONY WU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166
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