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.
Claims 1-7, 9-11, 13, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Anderson (US 2008/0302112).
As to claim 1, Anderson discloses a heat pump comprising a first heating circuit and a second heating circuit, the heat pump comprising:
an evaporator 18;
an expansion valve 22 arranged upstream of the evaporator 18;
a compressor 14 arranged downstream of the evaporator 18;
a first condenser 16 arranged in the first heating circuit and a second condenser 20 arranged in the second heating circuit, wherein the heating circuits share a common line passing through the evaporator 18 and the compressor 14 (Figs 1-6);
wherein, during normal operation, only one of the heating circuits defines an active circuit that is involved in an active heating cycle, and the other of the heating circuits simultaneously defines an inactive circuit (paragraphs 30 and 33); and
a distributor comprising at least two valves 12/28/30 (as shown in Figs. 1-2; OR 60/64/66 as shown in Figs. 3-6);
wherein the distributor comprises a controller 42 configured to selectively redistribute a refrigerant charge between the heating circuits by controlling the valves 12/28/30 in dependency of actual operating conditions to optimize the amount of refrigerant in the active circuit, and wherein excess refrigerant is temporarily stored in the inactive circuit (paragraphs 34-38).
As to claim 2, the controller 42 of Anderson is configured to redistribute the refrigerant charge based on a level of subcooling (paragraphs 34-38).
As to claim 3, the controller 42 of Anderson is configured to determine a level of subcooling of the second condenser 20 by calculating a difference between a condensing temperature of the second condenser 20 and a temperature of the refrigerant leaving the second condenser 20 (paragraph 35).
As to claim 4, the controller 42 of Anderson is configured to redistribute refrigerant between the circuits based on the level of subcooling being above or below a pre-determined threshold temperature difference (paragraphs 37-38).
As to claims 5-7 and 19-20, Anderson is silent regarding the specific subcooling target. However, the specific degree of subcooling is recognized as a result-effective variable, i.e. a variable which achieves a recognized result. In this case, the recognized result is that a certain degree of subcooling will optimize system operations. Therefore, since the general conditions of the claim were disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum workable range by routine experimentation, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to use the claimed ranges for threshold temperature differences.
As to claim 9, Anderson discloses a branch downstream of the compressor to branch the common line into a first line for the first circuit and a second line for the second circuit (Figs. 1-6).
As to claim 10, Anderson discloses a combiner section upstream of the evaporator to re-combine the first line and the second line (Figs. 1-6).
As to claim 11, Anderson discloses three-way valve 12/60 that that defines the branch (Figs. 1-6).
As to claim 13, Anderson teaches two shutoff valves 28-30 as claimed.
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.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson as applied in the rejections above, and further in view of Noguchi (US 5,927,093).
As to claim 8, Anderson does not explicitly teach a further condenser on a further heating circuit. However, Noguchi teaches controlling a distributor to provide optimal amounts of refrigerant to branched heat exchangers (col. 6, lines 6-10) including a third heating circuit (Fig. 2, see branch 13C). Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify Anderson to utilize distributing refrigerant in a further heating circuit as claimed and taught by Noguchi because it would provide efficient operation of additional conditioning capabilities for the system.
Claims 12 and 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson as applied in the rejections above.
As to claim 12, Anderson does not explicitly teach a further three-way valve. However, it would have been an obvious design choice to modify the reference by having a further three-way valve as claimed, since applicant has not disclosed that having a particular type of valve combining the circuits solves any stated problem or provides any unexpected result, and it appears that the circuit would perform equally well with any means of combining the branched circuits.
As to claim 14, Anderson does not explicitly teach that the shutoff valves 28-30 are expansion valves as claimed. However, it would have been an obvious design choice to operate shutoff valves 28-30 as expansion valves in order to provide more versatile flow control capabilities of the system.
As to claims 15-17, Anderson does not explicitly teach third and fourth shutoff valves as claimed. However, the general use of a shutoff valve is well-known in the art and thus it would have been an obvious design choice to add third and fourth shutoff valves as claimed in order to provide more precise control of the refrigerant flow in the circuits.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 9-10, filed 9/10/2026, with respect to the objection to the drawings, objection to the specification, and rejection of claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Said objections/rejections have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 10-13, filed with respect to the claim rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejections have been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Anderson (US 2008/0302112) as discussed in the rejections above.
Conclusion
This action is being made NON-FINAL to afford the applicant the opportunity to respond to the new ground(s) of rejection.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN BRADFORD whose telephone number is (571)270-5199. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 - 4:00 ET.
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/JONATHAN BRADFORD/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763
