DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. The specification, the abstract and the drawings are all acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
3. 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.
4. Claims 1, 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by USPN 11,682,989 to Ishizaki.
As to claim 1, Ishizaki teaches an electric motor control device (fig. 1: “7”) for electric motors connected in parallel (fig. 1: motors “1” and “2” are connected in parallel) comprising: a single motor drive circuit (fig. 1: “20”) that drives the plurality of electric motors (fig. 1: motors “1” and “2”) in forward or reverse rotation (col. 12: lines 15-24) and a single control unit (fig. 1: “30”) that outputs control signals for controlling the rotation of each electric motor to the motor drive circuit(col. 3: lines 6-17); a plurality of shunt resistors provided between each electric motor and the motor drive circuit and a plurality of voltage detection circuits that detect the voltage at both ends of each shunt resistor(col. 13: lines 29-55), when the control signal is a forward command for each electric motor, the control unit compares the detected voltages at both ends of each shunt resistor with a preset first threshold to detect a fault in a current path of each electric motor, when the control signal is a reverse command for each electric motor, the control unit compares the detected voltages at both ends of each shunt resistor with a preset second threshold to detect a fault in the current path of each electric motor(col. 7: lines 42-54 & col. 13: lines 29-55 wherein apparatus and method are taught shunt resistor detected voltage comparison and fault detection based on the comparison result for the detected voltage with a preset threshold).
As to claim 5, it is rejected as the same reason as claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 2-4 are objected to as being dependent upon the rejected base claim 1, but could be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claims and any intervening claims for the following reasons: No prior art of record discloses the features as claimed in the noted claims.
6. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter. The non-obvious features are:
In comparison with the closest prior art as cited in this Office action and any previous Office actions, no prior art of record discloses the following features as claimed in the following claim limitations:
As per claim 2: The control unit detects an open circuit fault has in the current path of the electric motor connected to the shunt resistor if the voltage at either end of each shunt resistor is below the preset first threshold when the control signal is a forward command.
As per claim 3: The control unit determines an open circuit fault in the current path of the electric motor connected to the shunt resistor if the voltage at either end of each shunt resistor is above the second threshold when the control signal is a reverse command.
As per claim 4: The preset first threshold is greater than the voltage at both ends of each shunt resistor while each electric motor is stopped, and the preset second threshold is smaller than the voltage at both ends of each shunt resistor while each electric motor is stopped.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
USPN 10,411,619 to Li discloses a motor control system.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID S LUO whose telephone number is (571)270-5251. The examiner can normally be reached 8AM-5PM.
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/DAVID LUO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2837
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