DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55 for Application No. CN202410795987.4 filed on 06/19/2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The references cited in the information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 11/06/2024 have been considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
The following claims are objected to for informalities, lack of antecedent support, or for redundancies. The Examiner recommends the following changes:
Claim 12:
Line 2, replace “an EMS system, a cloud terminal, a third-party” with “the EMS system, the cloud terminal, the third-party”
Line 6, replace “dispatch instructions, a third-party” with “the dispatch instructions, the third-party”
Line 8, replace “a dispatch instruction value” with “the dispatch instruction value”
Line 10, replace “dispatch curves, an active” with “the dispatch curves, the active”
Line 12, replace “a dispatch curve” with “the dispatch curve”
Line 15, replace “a passive” with “the passive”
Line 17, replace “a local” with “the local”
Line 18, replace “a planned” with “the planned”
Appropriate correction is respectfully requested.
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.
Independent claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by XU et al. (CN117097766A) (“Xu”).
Regarding independent claim 1, Xu teaches:
A dispatch method of an energy management system for energy storage (EMS) for industrial and commercial use, applied to an EMS system, a cloud terminal and a third-party control system, the EMS system being coupled to the cloud terminal and the third-party control system, respectively, the dispatch method comprising: determining whether the third-party control system issues dispatch instructions, and initiating a third-party dispatching mode in response to determining that the third-party control system issues dispatch instructions, wherein in the third-party dispatching mode, the EMS system receives a dispatch instruction value of the third-party control system for distribution of energy storage power; (Xu: Page 7 last two lines – Page 8 lines 1-2 “s301, the cloud platform initiates a message queue telemetry transmission MQTT connection request to the edge device through the server, and the edge device and the energy storage device keep in communication so as to establish MQTT connection between the cloud platform and the energy storage system. Correspondingly, the energy storage system receives an MQTT connection request initiated by the cloud platform through the edge equipment.”) (Xu: Page 8 paragraphs 3-8 “S302, the energy storage system sends the MQTT connection request to the energy storage device through the edge device. Correspondingly, the energy storage device receives the MQTT connection request. S303, the energy storage system sends connection determination information to the edge device through the energy storage device. Correspondingly, the edge device receives connection confirmation information from the energy storage device. S304, the energy storage system sends connection confirmation information to the server through the edge equipment. Correspondingly, the cloud platform receives the connection confirmation information. S305, the cloud platform confirms to establish the MQTT connection through the server based on the connection confirmation information. S306, the cloud platform sends a subscription request to the edge device through the server based on the MQTT connection, wherein the subscription request is used for acquiring energy storage data of the energy storage device in the energy storage system. Correspondingly, the energy storage system receives a subscription request sent by the cloud platform through the edge equipment based on the MQTT connection. S307, the energy storage system sends the subscription information to the energy storage device through the edge device, wherein the subscription information comprises the data type and the data format of the energy storage data. Correspondingly, the energy storage device receives subscription information from the edge device.”) (Xu: Page 9, paragraph 8 “It should be understood that the cloud platform may further comprise a client to implement the steps described above with respect to the cloud platform through interactions between the client and the server described above.”) [The client reads on “a cloud terminal”. The cloud platform reads on “a third-party control system”. The energy storage system in combination with the edge device and corresponding energy storage device or reads on “an energy management system for energy storage (EMS)”. The energy storage system receiving the MQTT connection request via the edge device reads on “the third-party control system issues dispatch instructions”. The energy storage system being connected as indicated by connection confirmation reads on “a third-party dispatching mode”. The subscription request reads on “a dispatch instruction value”.]
determining whether the cloud terminal issues dispatch curves, and initiating an active dispatching mode in response to determining that the cloud terminal issues dispatch curves, wherein in the active dispatching mode, the EMS system receives a dispatch curve issued by the cloud terminal and distributes the energy storage power according to the dispatch curve issued by the cloud terminal. (Xu: Page 9, paragraph 13 “S402, the cloud platform generates a control instruction for the energy storage device through the client based on the energy storage data.”) (Xu: Page 10, paragraphs 1-4 “It should also be understood that the user operations shown above may be operations acting on the relevant interface of the client device, or may be operations acting on preset virtual/physical keys, which is not limited by the present application. S403, the cloud platform sends a control instruction for the energy storage device to the server through the client. S404, the cloud platform sends the control instruction through the server based on the MQTT connection established with the edge equipment so as to enable the energy storage equipment to execute the operation corresponding to the instruction. For example, when the edge device receives the above control instruction through the MQTT connection, the control instruction may be sent to the energy storage device, so that the energy storage device performs an operation corresponding to the control instruction, and for details, reference may be made to the description in the above embodiment, and for avoiding repetition, details will not be repeated here.”) [Enabling the energy storage equipment upon sending the control instruction through the server reads on “an active dispatching mode”. The control instruction reads on “dispatch curves”, and the energy storage device executing the control operation corresponding to the control instruction reads on “distributes the energy storage power according to the dispatch curve …”.]
The two “determining” limitations above, and the remaining claimed limitations of claim 1, which recite “initiating a passive dispatching mode in response to determining that the third-party control system does not issue any dispatch instruction and the cloud terminal does not issue any dispatch curve, wherein in the passive dispatching mode, the EMS system does not accept any dispatch curve issued by the cloud terminal, the EMS system runs a local control strategy, and distributes the energy storage power according to a planned dispatch curve in the EMS system” are conditional limitations. In accord with MPEP 2111.04 (II) “The broadest reasonable interpretation of a method (or process) claim having contingent limitations requires only those steps that must be performed and does not include steps that are not required to be performed because the condition(s) precedent are not met. For example, assume a method claim requires step A if a first condition happens and step B if a second condition happens. If the claimed invention may be practiced without either the first or second condition happening, then neither step A or B is required by the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. As a result, the additional limitations “initiating a passive dispatching mode in response to determining that the third-party control system does not issue any dispatch instruction and the cloud terminal does not issue any dispatch curve, wherein in the passive dispatching mode, the EMS system does not accept any dispatch curve issued by the cloud terminal, the EMS system runs a local control strategy, and distributes the energy storage power according to a planned dispatch curve in the EMS system” are not required to be met.
Allowable Subject Matter
Each of the claims 2-20 is 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.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
It is noted that any citations to specific, pages, columns, lines, or figures in the prior art references and any interpretation of the reference should not be considered to be limiting in any way. A reference is relevant for all it contains and may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP 2123.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
SANDERS et al. (US 2017/0005515 A1) teaches a third party service of dispatching and controlling distributed power or stored energy with an energy cloud via a centralized software-as-a-service, as described in at least paragraph [0018] (“The local data processing gateway monitors and controls most of the processes conducted by the power storage and supply device. The local data processing gateway is a computer-implemented device that may include, for example, one or more processors, a clock, memory, I/O interfaces, analog to digital converters, digital to analog converters, and operating system software. In addition, the local data processing gateway includes a number of software modules for implementing the functionality discussed below. The local data processing gateway can be configured to monitor and control the processes and measurements conducted by the power storage and supply device in either a local or remote mode configuration and can be aggregated by a third party (e.g., independent service operator, etc.) or utility for purposes of dispatching and controlling distributed power or stored energy.”), and paragraph [0029] (“Another aspect of one or more of the previous arrangements relates generally to a system for distributed energy storage and power management, and more particularly to a fully integrated system, method, and device for the controlling, monitoring, measuring, and conserving of distributed power generated on the premise, the resale of distributed power to a utility, and power generated from distributed energy storage (e.g., batteries) and other distributed renewable energy sources (e.g., solar panels, wind turbines, renewable energy generation sources, etc.). Moreover, the invention is minimally invasive, modular, and retains power-generating capacity, which is combined with load management and energy storage to provide energy at or near the point of consumption that can be aggregated with other renewable energy integrated systems to form an energy cloud via a centralized software-as-a-service.”) (Sanders: [0036] “In certain aspects, a consumer user interface is provided as a site resource to enable a user to interact with the consumer user interface at the site via a consumer portal and the network. The consumer portal provides a web-enabled presence for monitoring or controlling operational parameters at the site from a consumer device via the network.”).
WU (US 2022/0102977 A1) teaches periods where server does not decide scheduled power targets or periods when the network between the server and site controller, the site controller controls a corresponding energy storage device, as described in at least paragraph [0034] (“As mentioned above, before entering the scheduling period T1, the server 11 determines the scheduled power consumption target of each of the scheduling periods T1, T2, . . . , Tn for each of the users 17a, 17b, . . . , 17c. Therefore, in some embodiments, the communication interface 113 of the server 11 may also transmit the scheduled power consumption targets of each of the scheduling periods T2, Tn (including the scheduled power consumption targets of the scheduling period T2 for the users 17a, 17b, . . . , 17c, , and the scheduled power consumption targets of the scheduling period Tn for the users 17a, 17b, . . . , 17c) to the corresponding site controllers. One of the advantages of this approach is that the server 11 does not have to decide the scheduled power consumption targets of each pending scheduling period for the users 17a, 17b, . . . , 17c before entering every subsequent scheduling period, so the cost of calculation can be reduced under the condition that each site controller still know how to control the corresponding energy storage device to perform energy adjustment. Another advantage of this approach is that even if the communication between the server 11 and any site controller is interrupted, the site controller whose communication has been interrupted can still know how to control the corresponding energy storage device to perform energy adjustment.”), and paragraph [0061] (“Because the server 11 determines a scheduled power consumption target for each user in each scheduling period by considering the power consumption references of all users and the stages of charge of all the energy storage devices of the users and enables the users to support each other in each scheduling period according to the first complementary support technology and/or the second complementary support technology, the achievement rate that the users as a whole complete the grid service can be improved. Even if the network between the server and the site controller fails temporarily, each site controller can operate independently without being interrupted and thereby improve the probability that each user reaches the corresponding scheduled power consumption target thereof.”).
NAKAMURA (US 2020/0343726 A1) teaches a power management server transmitting control instructions, including a power flow control and a reverse power flow control, for a distributed power supply, such as a solar cell apparatus, a storage battery apparatus, based on real-time pricing and/or demand response, as described in at least paragraph [0025] (“The power management server 200 transmits, to a local control apparatus 360 provided in the facility 300, a control message which instructs control of a distributed power supply (e.g., a solar cell apparatus 310, a storage battery apparatus 320, or a fuel cell apparatus 330) provided in the facility 300. For example, the power management server 200 may transmit a power flow control message (e.g., DR; Demand Response) for requesting power flow control, or may transmit a reverse power flow control message for requesting reverse power flow control. Furthermore, the power management server 200 may transmit a power control message for controlling an operating state of the distributed power supply. The control degree of power flow or reverse power flow may be expressed by an absolute value (e.g., ∘∘ kW) or a relative value (e.g., ∘∘%). Alternatively, the control degree of power flow or reverse power flow may be expressed by two or more levels. The control degree of power flow or reverse power flow may be expressed by an electricity charge (RTP; Real Time Pricing) determined by the current electricity supply-demand balance, or an electricity charge (TOU; Time of Use) determined by a past electricity supply-demand balance.”).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL W CHOI whose telephone number is (571)270-5069. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-5pm.
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/MICHAEL W CHOI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2116
