DETAILED ACTION
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.
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 2015186989 (‘989) in view of Kim (US 2017/0106725).
Regarding claim 1, ‘989 teaches a battery (322); a battery cooling circuit (32) configured to allow a first coolant to flow and adjust a temperature of the battery (Fig. 10; a refrigeration cycle (2) for air conditioning including an electric compressor (20), condenser (21), and an evaporator (26) and configured to allow a second coolant to flow (Fig. 1); and a heating circuit (4) including a heater core (41) and configured to allow a third coolant to flow (Fig. 1); wherein the battery cooling circuit, refrigeration cycle, and heating circuit are configured to allow the first through third coolants to flow independently through their respective circuits (Fig. 1), and the condenser exchanges heat between the second and third coolants (see Fig. 1).
‘989 does not include an outdoor condenser.
Kim teaches that it is old and well-known in such systems to provide the refrigeration cycle (20) with both a heating (23) and exterior (35) heat exchanger (see Fig. 2).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to provide the device of ‘989 with the eternal heat exchanger on the refrigeration cycle, as taught by Kim, in order to allow for increased cooling capacity.
‘989 further teaches that: in the refrigeration cycle the condenser is provided downstream of the compressor (Fig. 1), per claim 2; the heating circuit includes an electric heater (40), per claim 3; a chiller (27) exchanges heat between the first and second coolants (Fig. 1), per claim 4; a drive device (313); a drive device cooling circuit (31) configured to allow the first coolant to flow and cool the drive device (Fig. 1), and a first switching valve (36) configured to switch between a communication state (Fig. 2) in which the drive device cooling circuit and battery cooling circuit communicate with each other and a shut off state (e.g. Figs. 3a, 3b) in which communication between the drive device and battery cooling circuits is shut off, per claim 5; the drive device coolant circuit (31) includes a radiator (312) and a bypass flow path bypassing the radiator (Fig. 2; the connections to the circuit 32 act as the bypass as illustrated), and a second switching valve (35) configured to switch between a bypass state (Fig. 2) in which the drive device cooling circuit allows the first coolant to flow through the bypass flow path (352) and a non-bypass state (Figs. 3a, 3b) in which the drive device cooling circuit is configured to allow the first coolant to flow through the radiator, per claim 6; the device is configured to set the first switching valve (36) to the communication state (open to 362; Fig. 2) and the second switching valve to the bypass state (open to 352; Fig. 2), and heat the third coolant by absorbing heat from the first coolant via the chiller (27; Fig. 2) and absorbing heat from the second coolant via the condenser (21; Fig. 2), thereby using heat of the drive device to heat a passenger compartment, per claim 7.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Devon Lane whose telephone number is (571)270-1858. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th, 9-4.
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/DEVON LANE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3763
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