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 11/4/24, is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
The information disclosure statement filed 1/10/25 fails to comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609 because the Non-patent literature is not translated into english. It has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered as to the merits. Applicant is advised that the date of any re-submission of any item of information contained in this information disclosure statement or the submission of any missing element(s) will be the date of submission for purposes of determining compliance with the requirements based on the time of filing the statement, including all certification requirements for statements under 37 CFR 1.97(e). See MPEP § 609.05(a).
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.
Claim(s) 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Unsin et al. (US 2015/0053514).
Regarding claim 1,
Unsin discloses (Fig. 1):
A control device (Fig. 1, 10) for fail-safe control of an electric actuator (16, 18, ¶0052), the control device comprising: a source of electrical power (58a, 58b, ¶0058); at least one power path from the source of electrical power (58a, 58b) to an output connection for an actuator (through 54a, 54b, 56a, 56b, to 16, 18), at least one power part (24a-d) arranged in said power path (¶0058-¶0060), said power part is designed to at least one of switch a polarity of a voltage present at the output connection or to change the amount of an electrical power provided at the output connection (¶0051); at least one power switching element (24a-d) arranged in the power path, the at least one power switching element is designed to switch the electrical power provided at the output connection on and off (¶0066);
at least one sensor (22) arranged downstream of the power switching element in order to determine the electrical power currently provided at the output connection (54a, 54b, 56a, 56b); a first signal input for an enable signal for actuating the power switching element (from 22 to 54a, 54b, 56s, 56b); a second signal input for a switching signal for providing the electrical power at the output connection based on a switching state of the enable signal (70, 72, ¶0064-¶0066); at least one software-free electrical logic assembly comprising a combinational circuit (22), which is designed to carry out logic operations between the switching state of the switching signal and the electrical power determined by the sensor and consequently to generate at least one further enable signal, which further enable signal is able to be used to act on the at least one power switching element (test signal, ¶0064-¶0066).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-21 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Wu (US 2024/0396434) – multi level converter
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/C.S.L./Examiner, Art Unit 2837 /KAWING CHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2837
