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 .
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-7 and 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Horn (US 2023/0406072).
As to claims 1-3, Horn discloses an air conditioning apparatus for a motor vehicle comprising a refrigeration circuit path that comprises:
a compressor 11;
a condenser 12/13 configured to condense refrigerant fluid by heat exchange with an additional fluid;
parallel expansion valves 20-21
parallel evaporators 14-15 downstream of the expansion valves and configured to exchange heat with an environment or device; and
a bypass line 30 connecting a first node of the path downstream of the condenser 12/13 and upstream of the evaporators 14-15 with a second node downstream of the evaporators 14-15 and upstream of the compressor 11 (Fig. 3; note a first node that is at solid circles in the diagram upstream of valves 20-21, and a second node that is low pressure side of the compressor at element 25), the bypass line comprising a controllable valve 31 that is controllable to regulate a flow of refrigerant from the first node to the second node bypassing the evaporator.
As to claim 4, the controllable valve 31 is arranged in parallel with the expansion valves 20-21 (Fig. 3).
As to claims 5-7, Horn discloses an internal heat exchanger 17 configured to realize a heat exchange between the refrigerant fluid circulating between the condenser 12/13 and the first node and the refrigerant fluid circulating between the evaporators 14-15 and the second node 25, wherein the first and second nodes are downstream from a first and second section of the internal heat exchanger 17 (Fig. 3).
As to claims 11-13, Horn discloses a motor vehicle comprising the apparatus of claims 1-2, the vehicle comprising a passenger compartment and at least one electrical device (paragraphs 1 and 11), wherein the evaporators 14-15 are configured to subtract heat from the passenger compartment and the electrical device which comprises an energy storage (paragraph 39: evaporator 14 is an air conditioning evaporator; paragraphs 46-47: chiller 15 is for a cooling circuit as set forth in DE 10 2019 107 191 which discloses a cooling for a battery).
As to claims 14-20, Horn discloses the limitations of the claims for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections above.
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.
Claims 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn as applied above, and further in view of Chougale (US 2020/0408446).
As to claims 8-9, Horn teaches detecting a compressor suction temperature with sensor S1, does not explicitly teach controlling the valve 31 according to a target compressor suction temperature. However, Chougale teaches controlling such an evaporator bypass valve 124 according to a target suction temperature (paragraph 28). Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify Horn to control the bypass valve 31 in the manner as claimed and taught by Chougale in order to prevent undesirably high refrigerant temperatures at the compressor.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn as applied above.
As to claim 10, Horn teaches that valve 31 can be proportionally controlled (paragraph 64) but is silent regarding a specific type of valve used. However, it would have been an obvious design choice to modify the valve 31 of Horn to be a proportional servo valve, since applicant has not disclosed that having a particular valve type solves any stated problem or provides any unexpected result, and it appears that the system would perform equally well with any valve capable of providing the desired flow capabilities.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN BRADFORD whose telephone number is (571)270-5199. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 - 4:00 ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jerry-Daryl Fletcher can be reached at (571)270-5054. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JONATHAN BRADFORD/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763
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