DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-10 of U.S. Patent Application No. 19/007,435, filed on 31 December, 2024, were presented for examination, and are currently pending in the application.
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.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because the filed copy has a solid black motor coil in figs. 1-4, resulting in the leader lines (i.e. for 12, 121, 122, 2, 7) being blocked by it, such that a viewer cannot tell what element is the bubble pump, the inside outer wall surface, the outside outer wall surface, etc. Further, the wick [6] is indistinguishable from the copper plate [5] in fig. 2. The individual elements of fig. 6 cannot be discerned.
The Examiner used the drawings of the Priority Application (CN 202410071393.9) to understand the invention. The Examiner presumes that the filed drawings are copies of the drawings of said Priority Application, and that the copying process removed the distinction between gray, black-hatching, and plain black, resulting in the overuse of plain black to the extent that the drawings do not lend to a reader being able to understand the invention very well – for instance, the wick in fig. 2 is white in the Priority Application, so it just disappeared during the copying.
Also, importantly, the liquid, and its filling level, cannot be discerned in the as-filed drawings. Because these items are claimed (i.e. claim 8), this feature must be included in the substitute drawing sheets or the limitation removed from the claims. The drawings in the Priority Application clearly show it so filing those drawings will do.
Because the drawings of the Priority Application sufficed for the Examiner to understand the claimed invention and examine the claims on the merits, Applicant clearly had possession of the claimed invention at the time of filing. Therefore, no rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are being made herein.
However, Applicant is required to file the drawings from the Priority Application, or the same drawings with the gray-scale properly adjusted, to advance to prosecution to issuance, because the currently-filed drawings likely do not provide a person of ordinary skill in the art to make the claimed invention.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the wall surface” in line 7. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The claim contains an “inner wall surface” in line 4 and an “outside outer wall surface” in line 6. A reader cannot tell if “the wall surface” in line 7 is referring to one of these or another wall surface.
Referring again to claim 1, the last line recites “the cooling working medium reaching a mounting position of the electric control chip”. A reader cannot be sure whether this limitation means that the liquid level of the medium vertically reaches the vertical height of the electric control chip or that the medium actually spatially reaches (and thereby touches or surrounds) the electric control chip. For examination on the merits the Examiner will interpret the claim using the former interpretation.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "the other side" in lines 1-2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Again, claim 1 has several sides mentioned already, and intervening claim has another one, such that there are three, or four, “sides” that the “other side” could be referring to.
Claim 6 recites the limitation “extend to a middle and upper portion of the airtight container…”. The airtight container cannot have a “middle” portion, other than the area directly adjacent the center-point (which is not where the elements are), because it is annular.
Claim 9 recites the limitation "the first bubble pump" in lines 1-2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The first bubble pump was introduced in claim 2 but this claim depends from claim 1.
Claims 2, 4-5, and 7-8, and 10 are rejected for depending from rejected claim 1.
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.
Claims 1-3 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Shimizu (JP 2023061299 A, provided with machine translation).
With respect to claim 1, Shimizu teaches an integrated cooling unit for an in-wheel motor (see title), comprising:
an airtight container [inverter case 17], which is arranged inside the in-wheel motor (represented by stator 6 in fig. 11), used for packaging a cooling working medium [23] (see ¶ 0038 – also, ¶ 0033 recites “cooling medium 23 that boils when heated by the heat of the inverters 19 is sealed inside the inverter case 17…”), and provided with a vapor outlet [steam line 24 and the pipe labeled by the Examiner in fig. 4] and a liquid return port [liquid return line 25 and the other pipe labeled by the Examiner in fig. 4] (see ¶ 0038 – it is noted that fig. 11 is alternate embodiment of that of figs. 1-4, the latter being part of the overall scheme of the cooling arrangement, fig. 11 being a special case/embodiment of the bubble generating arrangement, such that the Examiner takes for granted that the elements of figs. 1-4 that are not part of the bubble generating arrangement in fig. 11 are included in the embodiment of fig. 11, but not shown, for clarity sake);
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a bubble pump [wall 37 combined with bubbles B] (see ¶ 0045 which recites “the bubbles B push up ore pull up the liquid around the bubbles B by ascending in a limited narrow area. A pump utilizing such a function is a bubble pump, and such a bubble pump may be used in the embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 11…”), which is laid on an inner wall surface [17B] of the airtight container [17], and used for driving the cooling working medium [23] to be conveyed to an upper portion of the airtight container [17] (see ¶ 0046);
a motor coil [6], which is laid on an outside outer wall surface [17A] of the airtight container [17]; and
an electric control chip [electronic elements 20] (see ¶ 0032 which calls them “switching elements” and ¶ 0034 which recites “electronic elements 20 constituting the inverter 19 are an IGBT 20a, a ceramic capacitor 20b, a current sensor 20c…”), which is arranged on the wall surface { ¶ 0046 recites “the electronic elements 20 are disposed on the outer peripheral portion 17B – see rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) above, also} of the airtight container [17], and the cooling working medium [23] reaching a mounting position of the electric control chip {it “reaches” to above the mid-fill level, while the chips 20 are near the bottom -- see rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) above}.
With respect to claim 2/1, Shimizu teaches the cooling unit of claim 1, and further teaches wherein the bubble pump [17B] comprises a first bubble pump (labeled in the new annotated excerpt of fig. 11 attached below), and the first bubble pump is arranged on one side [side 1] (sides labeled by the Examiner) of the inner wall surface [17B] of the airtight container [17].
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With respect to claim 3/2/1, Shimizu teaches the cooling unit of claim 2, and further teaches wherein the other side [side 2] of the inner wall surface [17B] is provided with a second bubble pump (labeled by the Examiner in the fig. 11 excerpt above).
With respect to claim 8/1, Shimizu teaches the cooling unit of claim 1, and further teaches wherein a filling level amount of the cooling working medium [23] is 30% to 70% of a height of the airtight container [17] (it appears from fig. 11 to be approximately 55% -- although the reference does not describe the figure as being drawn to-scale, no person of ordinary skill in the art would be able to reasonably interpret the reference as falling outside the 30-70% range for any reason, based on fig. 11).
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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 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shimizu.
With respect to claim 9/1, Shimizu teaches the cooling unit of claim 1, but omits explicitly teaching wherein the first bubble pump consists of a plurality of parallel narrow flow paths.
However, fig. 11 shows elements 37 with bubbles B spread evenly along their arc-span, while ¶ 0045 describes the combination as a bubble pump. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use a plurality of parallel narrow flow paths to place the bubbles in the positions in which they are shown in fig. 11 – fig. 11 is apparently attempting to show the bubbles as they emerge from the bubble pump, and one of ordinary skill in the art would find it obvious to try axial pin-holes to create the effect conceptualized by the invention, in order to evenly distribute the bubbles to prohibit them from conglomerating into larger, less-useful ones.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 and 10 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
With respect to claim 4 and all claims depending therefrom, the prior art of record does not show or reasonably suggest, inter alia,
an integrated cooling unit for an in-wheel motor, comprising: an airtight container, which is arranged inside the in-wheel motor, used for packaging a cooling working medium, and provided with a vapor outlet and a liquid return port;
a bubble pump, which is laid on an inner wall surface of the airtight container, and used for driving the cooling working medium to be conveyed to an upper portion of the airtight container;
a motor coil, which is laid on an outside outer wall surface of the airtight container; and
an electric control chip, which is arranged on the wall surface of the airtight container, and the cooling working medium reaching a mounting position of the electric control chip;
wherein the electric control chip is laid on an inside outer wall surface of the airtight container, and a high thermal conductivity copper plate is laid on an outer side of the electric control chip.
Shimizu teaches (¶ 0035) that “a member having high thermal conductivity such as thermal grease or the like may be interposed between the inverter case 17 and the stator as a ‘thermal conduction member’”. Further, copper is a well-known heat conductor, so it does not seem groundbreaking to state that it would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use copper as the “member having high thermal conductivity” suggested by Shimizu. However, the claim is specific as to the arrangement – the chip is laid on an inside outer wall surface of the container and the copper plate is laid on an outer side of the electric control chip – such that the Examiner does not believe there is evidence to suggest it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to make the claimed invention based on just this one suggestion of Shimizu.
There of course are references – if the prior art would be extended they would surface –
that show electric control chips sinking heat into copper mass. The Examiner has concluded that Shimizu is alone in teaching this type of device (there seems to be no analogous art that the Examiner could find), such that the reasoning for suggesting that other references that teach copper draining heat from a chip would be obvious for use in modifying Shimizu is as groundless as making such an allegation based on the fact that it is known that copper would serve as the heat-conductive material mentioned by Shimizu. Thus, such an extension of the prior art search has been deemed a waste of resources.
With respect to claim 7, the prior art of record does not show or reasonably suggest, inter alia, an integrated cooling unit for an in-wheel motor, comprising:
an airtight container, which is arranged inside the in-wheel motor, used for packaging a cooling working medium, and provided with a vapor outlet and a liquid return port;
a bubble pump, which is laid on an inner wall surface of the airtight container, and used for driving the cooling working medium to be conveyed to an upper portion of the airtight container;
a motor coil, which is laid on an outside outer wall surface of the airtight container; and
an electric control chip, which is arranged on the wall surface of the airtight container, and the cooling working medium reaching a mounting position of the electric control chip;
wherein the airtight container is provided with an inserting hole for inserting the electric control chip, and the inserting hole is immersed in the cooling working medium.
Shimizu does not teach an inserting hole immersed in the cooling working medium. As discussed in the Reasons for Allowance of claim 4, Shimizu seems to be the only analogous art for this type of device, such that even if the Examiner went searching for electric control chips that are in holes, wherein the holes are in a coolant bath, and found some reference teaching exactly that, the reference would not be applicable for combination with Shimizu because it would not be analogous art. Thus, such an extension of the prior art search has been deemed a waste of resources.
With respect to claim 10, the prior art of record does not show or reasonably suggest, inter alia, an integrated cooling unit for an in-wheel motor, comprising:
an airtight container, which is arranged inside the in-wheel motor, used for packaging a cooling working medium, and provided with a vapor outlet and a liquid return port;
a bubble pump, which is laid on an inner wall surface of the airtight container, and used for driving the cooling working medium to be conveyed to an upper portion of the airtight container;
a motor coil, which is laid on an outside outer wall surface of the airtight container; and
an electric control chip, which is arranged on the wall surface of the airtight container, and the cooling working medium reaching a mounting position of the electric control chip;
wherein two sides of the electric control chip are coated with a thermally conductive grease.
Shimizu teaches (¶ 0035) that “a member having high thermal conductivity such as thermal grease or the like may be interposed between the inverter case 17 and the stator as a ‘thermal conduction member’”.
This only establishes grease on one side of the electric control chip of Shimizu, while claim 10 requires grease on two sides. The Examiner can find no evidence to suggest that it would be obvious to apply grease to a second side of the electric control chip of Shimizu, except hindsight reasoning in light of the present application.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
As discussed above, Shimizu appears to be the only analogous art for this type of device. However, attached PTO Form 892 does contain some references generally relevant to the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL K SCHLAK whose telephone number is (703)756-1685. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 6:00 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Seye Iwarere can be reached at (571) 270 - 5112. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Daniel K Schlak/Examiner, Art Unit 2834
/OLUSEYE IWARERE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2834
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