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 § 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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over FOR1 (JP2015017751A – provided by Applicant in the IDS) in view of Bayoumi (US 10,969,119).
Regarding claim 1, FOR1 teaches a heat pump device (see Abstract, claim 1) comprising:
a heat source equipment (2, Fig. 2, see Description) that produces heated water by a heat source;
a radiation terminal that is connected to the heat source equipment and that adjusts a temperature of an indoor space by radiation heat that is obtained by flowing the heated water from the heat source equipment into a radiation panel (8, Fig. 1, see Description);
a forced convection terminal that is connected to the heat source equipment (6, Fig. 2, see Description), flows the heated water from the heat source equipment into a use-side heat exchanger (6, Fig. 2, see Description), and blows air on which heat exchange with the heated water is performed by the use-side heat exchanger using a blast fan and thus adjusts the temperature of the indoor space (see Description which notes the control of a blower to pass air into the conditioned space); and
a control device that controls the heat source equipment, the radiation terminal, and the forced convection terminal (see 3, 7, 9, Description, “The heat pump heat source device 2 is operated by a user operation from the heat pump remote controller 3. The fan coil unit 6 is operated by a user operation from the wireless dedicated remote controller 7. Each floor heating panel 8 is operated by a user operation from a floor heating controller 9 attached to the wall of each room 5”).
FOR1 does not specifically teach”
the control device includes a controller that, when the radiation terminal and the forced convection terminal are operated at a time, controls the forced convection terminal to reduce an air volume of the forced convection terminal compared to an air volume in a case where only the forced convection terminal is in operation.
Bayoumi teaches a radiant heating and cooling device (Bayoumi, Title) with a heat pump connected to a radiation terminal (see Bayoumi, Fig. 8) wherein during hybrid cooling, the conditioned air volume is reduced to maintain indoor air quality (Bayoumi, col. 1, lines 20-30). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date, to provide FOR1 with reducing the air volume when the radiation terminal and forced convection terminal are operated at the same time, as taught by Bayoumi, in order to maintain the desired indoor air quality (Bayoumi, col. 1, lines 20-30).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 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 closest prior art of record is Lee (KR20040106154A) in view of Tomasko (US 2017/0175910).
The prior art of record when considered as a whole, either alone or in combination, does not anticipate or render obvious:
Regarding claim 2:
wherein the control device includes a detector that detects a temperature of the heated water that is produced by the heat source equipment; and a storage that stores a target value of the air volume of the forced convection terminal corresponding to the temperature of the heated water, wherein, when the radiation terminal and the forced convection terminal are in operation at a time, the controller reads the target value corresponding to the temperature of the heated water that is detected by the detector from the storage and controls the forced convection terminal to enable the read target value.
Regarding claim 4:
when the temperature of the indoor space of the forced convection terminal lowers after the controller controls the forced convection terminal to lower the air volume of the forced convection terminal, the controller controls the heat source equipment to increase a flow of the heated water to the forced convection terminal and the radiation terminal.
In the Examiner’s opinion, it would not be obvious to further modify the prior art structures to arrive at the claimed invention, absent impermissible hindsight. Therefore, rendering dependent claims 2 and 4, with dependent claims therefrom are considered allowable.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NAEL N BABAA whose telephone number is (571)270-3272. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-5 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jerry-Daryl Fletcher can be reached at (571)-270-5054. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NAEL N BABAA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763
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