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 .
This non-final office action is responsive to Applicants' application filed on 03/06/25. Claims 1-8 are presented for examination and are pending for the reasons indicated herein below.
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1-2, 5-6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Koertzen (US 20060255777 A1)
Regarding claim 1. Koertzen teaches a direct current to direct current (DC-DC) converter with parallel switches [fig 3], comprising: a switching DC-DC conversion circuit [s1-s4] comprising at least one switch unit [s1-s2] each comprising N [2] switches connected in parallel, wherein the N switches comprise an ith [th being order] switch [i.e. first switch s1] and an (i+1)th switch [i.e. 2nd switch s2], N is a positive integer higher than or equal to 2, and i is a positive integer from 1 to N-1; and
a control unit [32] electrically connected to the N switches of the at least one switch unit to respectively turn on or off the N switches of the at least one switch unit;
wherein the control unit outputs an ith driving signal [function of 32] and an (i+1)th driving signal to the ith switch and the (i+1)th switch respectively,
and conduction phases of the ith driving signal and the (i+1)th driving signal are alternate with each other [implicit in ¶15, it’s disclose that one switch is disabled, thus the other is enabled].
Regarding claim 2. Koertzen teaches the DC-DC converter as claimed in claim 1, wherein a phase difference between the conduction phases of the ith driving signal and the (i+1)th driving signal is 360/N degrees [interpreting N as 2 360 gives 180 deg in offset, which is similar to the period were one switch is enabled and the other switch is disabled].
Regarding method claims 5-6, note that under MPEP 2112.02, the principles of inherency, if a prior art device, in its normal and usual operation, would necessarily perform the method claimed, then the method claimed will be considered to be anticipated by the prior art device. When the prior art device is the same as a device described in the specification for carrying out the claimed method, it can be assumed the device "inherently performs the claimed process. In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 231 USPQ 136 (Fed Cir. 1986). Therefore the previous rejections based on the apparatus will not be repeated.
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 of this title, 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 3-4, 7-8 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koertzen (US 20060255777 A1) in view of Krishnamurthy et al. (US 20220374060 A1)
Regarding claim 3. Koertzen teaches the DC-DC converter as claimed in claim 1.
However, Koertzen does not explicitly mention a circuit wherein the ith driving signal and the (i+1)th driving signal are pulse-width modulation signals having duty cycles lower than (1/N)x100% respectively.
Krishnamurthy teaches a circuit wherein the ith driving signal and the (i+1)th driving signal are pulse-width modulation signals having duty cycles lower than (1/N)x100% respectively [¶19].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the features of Krishnamurthy in order to provide a controller using PWM which keeps the switch ON or OFF as intended to drive the efficiency towards higher than 85%.
Regarding claim 4. Koertzen teaches the DC-DC converter as claimed in claim 2.
However, Koertzen does not explicitly mention a circuit wherein the ith driving signal and the (i+1)th driving signal are pulse-width modulation signals having duty cycles lower than (1 /N)x 100% respectively.
Krishnamurthy teaches a circuit wherein the ith driving signal and the (i+1)th driving signal are pulse-width modulation signals having duty cycles lower than (1 /N)x 100% respectively [¶19].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the features of Krishnamurthy in order to provide a controller using PWM which keeps the switch ON or OFF as intended to drive the efficiency towards higher than 85%.
Regarding method claims 7-8, note that under MPEP 2112.02, the principles of inherency, if a prior art device, in its normal and usual operation, would necessarily perform the method claimed, then the method claimed will be considered to be anticipated by the prior art device. When the prior art device is the same as a device described in the specification for carrying out the claimed method, it can be assumed the device "inherently performs the claimed process. In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 231 USPQ 136 (Fed Cir. 1986). Therefore the previous rejections based on the apparatus will not be repeated.
Examiner Note
The examiner cites particular columns and lines numbers in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bryan Perez whose telephone number is (571)272-8837. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon.-Fri. (7:30 – 5:00).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Crystal Hammond, can be reached on (571) 270-1682. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/BRYAN R PEREZ/Examiner, Art Unit 2838
Prosecution Insights