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.
Claim(s) 11 and 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bystedt (US PGPub No. 2020/0023740) in view of NPL titled “Switched-mode power supply (herein Wiki).
Bystedt teaches:
limitations from claim 11, an electrical drive device (FIG. 2; paragraph 27) for electric operation of a truck-mounted concrete pump (this is considered an intended use limitation; the system of Bystedt drives a hydraulic pump and is therefore capable of meeting this use), the electrical drive device comprising: a hydraulic pump drive system (FIG. 2) for driving a concrete pumping system of the truck-mounted concrete pump (paragraph 27; pump 21), the hydraulic pump drive system comprising: a hydraulic pump (21), an electric motor (20), and at least two mains connection interfaces via which the electric motor is supplied with electrical energy (30a, 30b, 30c), wherein the electric motor is configured to drive the pumping system (paragraph 30), wherein the mains connection interfaces are each assigned one or more mains connection modules (31, 41; paragraphs 34, 36) and feed a DC circuit (34) of the motor;
Bystedt teaches that modules (31, 41) converting DC power to the bus (34) of the motor circuit, but does not teach that the connection modules (31, 41) are primary switched-mode power supply units;
Wiki teaches that switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) are devices commonly known to convert electrical power from mains to a user (see first paragraph of Page 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of pumps and their motors at the time the invention was filed to utilize SMPS’s in the drive system of Bystedt as the power conversion devices, as Wiki teaches multiple advantages to using SMPS devices such as reduced size, increase efficiency through reduced power loss (see text and Table on Pages 4-6 of Wiki).
limitations from claim 13, further comprising an electric accumulator connected to the DC intermediate circuit (see batteries described in paragraph 33 for example);
limitations from claim 14, wherein the hydraulic pump is arranged to be driven by only the electric motor (20; paragraph 30, 44);
Claims 11-12 and 15-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over DE 10 2020121360 (herein Lehmann).
The applied reference has a common assignee with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2).
This rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 might be overcome by: (1) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(a) that the subject matter disclosed in the reference was obtained directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor of this application and is thus not prior art in accordance with 35 U.S.C.102(b)(2)(A); (2) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(b) of a prior public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(B); or (3) a statement pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) establishing that, not later than the effective filing date of the claimed invention, the subject matter disclosed and the claimed invention were either owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person or subject to a joint research agreement. See generally MPEP § 717.02.
A machine translation of Lehmann was provided by applicant on 07/01/2025 and is relied upon herein.
Lehmann teaches:
limitations from claims 11 and 19, an electrical drive device for electric operation of a truck-mounted concrete pump (FIG. 4), the electrical drive device comprising: a hydraulic pump drive system (122) for driving a concrete pumping system of the truck-mounted concrete pump (100), the hydraulic pump drive system comprising: a hydraulic pump (115), an electric motor (122), and at least two mains connection interfaces (133, 136) via which the electric motor is supplied with electrical energy (paragraph 26), wherein the electric motor is configured to drive the concrete pumping system (paragraph 22), wherein the mains connection interfaces are each assigned one or more mains connection modules (200), wherein the mains connection modules each are configured to feed a direct current (DC) intermediate circuit via which the electric motor is connected (via line 139; paragraph 3 for example);
Lehmann teaches a module (200) conditioning the power from the electrical sources (paragraph 23), but does not teach that the connection modules (31, 41) are primary switched-mode power supply units;
Wiki teaches that switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) are devices commonly known to convert electrical power from mains to a user (see first paragraph of Page 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of pumps and their motors at the time the invention was filed to utilize SMPS’s in the drive system of Lehmann as the power conversion devices, as Wiki teaches multiple advantages to using SMPS devices such as reduced size, increase efficiency through reduced power loss (see text and Table on Pages 4-6 of Wiki).
Lehmann further teaches:
limitations from claim 12, wherein at least one of the mains connection modules has two or more of the switched-mode power supply units, which are connected in parallel (see FIG. 7A-7B including multiple input/outputs 203-206, in the combination with Wiki, each output would include a SMPS to condition the power supply);
limitations from claim 15, wherein the hydraulic pump is a first hydraulic pump, wherein the electric motor is a first electric motor, wherein the hydraulic pump drive system comprises a second hydraulic pump and a second electric motor configured to drive the second hydraulic pump, wherein the first and second electric motors are separately controllable and are each connected via the DC intermediate circuit (see FIG. 4, pumps 115, 117-119, plural motors disclosed in paragraph 22; and a control of the motors/pumps, paragraph 25);
limitations from claim 16, further comprising an internal combustion engine connected to a transfer case in addition to or as an alternative to the electric motor for driving the hydraulic pump drive system (paragraph 20);
limitations from claim 17, a truck-mounted concrete pump (111) comprising the concrete pumping system of claim 11 (FIG. 4);
limitations from claim 18, wherein the truck-mounted concrete pump (111) is connected to the electrical drive device for driving the concrete pumping system (see FIG. 4);
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 2016/0145880 teaches a concrete pumping vehicle with multiple power sources (FIG. 2);
US 2016/0102663 and US 2011/0052420 teaches the use of SMPS in pumps;
EP 2180576 teaches a construction machine with multiple (AC/DC) power sources;
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER S BOBISH whose telephone number is (571)270-5289. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-5.
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/CHRISTOPHER S BOBISH/Examiner, Art Unit 3746
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