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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/08/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 3-8, 11 and 13-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1, 11 and 15, the limitations regarding “the permanent magnet flux axis”, “a first signal injection step” and “a second signal injection step” render the claims indefinite.
First, the claims fail to provide sufficient antecedence basis for “the permanent magnet flux axis”;
Second, it is unclear what is being done by the steps, and how “an initial angle” and “an angle of the permanent magnet flux axis” are determined within the steps.
Regarding claims 3-5 and 13, recited limitations render the claims indefinite because they fail to clearly define what is being done by “first signal injection” and /or “second signal injection”.
First, the recited limitations fail to clearly define whether the “first signal injection” and/or “second signal injection is “AC injection” or “voltage pulses signal injection”;
Second, it is unclear what is being done by the “AC injection” and/or “voltage pulses signal injection”.
Regarding claims 16-18, the recited limitations render the claims indefinite because it is unclear how the recited limitations relate to “first pulse test” and “second pulse test” as recited in claim 2.
Regarding claims 6-8 and 14, these claims are indefinite because they either directly or indirectly depend on claims 1, 3-5, 11, 13 and 15-18.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because it is drawn to a computer program product comprising computer program code, i.e. computer readable medium with computer program code; where the recording medium can be transitory, i.e., is not explicitly limited as disclosed as only being non-transitory computer readable media. A transitory recording medium can be a signal, a carrier wave, or a data structure, per se, which are non-statutory as noted, infra. A claim directed to a signal, a carrier wave, or a data structure, per se, is non-statutory because it is not: A process, or A machine, or A manufacture, or A composition of matter.
Therefore, fail(s) to fall within a statutory category of invention. Applicant should note that adding "non-transitory" to the claim to limit a claimed computer readable medium to being statutory would be acceptable.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 9-10, 12 and 19-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include 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 found was Marvin (US 6,401,875 B1).
Marvin discloses an invention for determining standstill/initial position of a rotor by injecting AC current with predetermined initial phase angle (e.g. Abstract). However, Marvin fails to teach or disclose:
a DC injection is performed, in which DC injection a direct current is injected into an idle salient-pole permanent magnet electrical machine to a DC injection direction θDC,dir=θd,axis,1±θadd, where DC injection direction θDC,dir is the angle of injected direct current and added angle θadd is an angle defining the shift from the initial angle of the permanent magnet flux axis θd,axis,1;
a second signal injection step is performed, in which second signal injection step an angle of the permanent magnet flux axis θd,axis,2 is determined; and
the initial angular position θ^init of a rotor of a salient-pole permanent magnet electrical machine is determined as: θ^init=θ^d,axis,2,180°-θ^d,axis,2-θDC,dir-180°≤90°θ^d,axis,2-180°,otherwise.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAWING CHAN whose telephone number is (571)270-3909. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.
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/KAWING CHAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2837
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