DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-14 are pending in the present 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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in European Patent Office (EPO) on 22 March 2024. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the 24165611 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 20 March 2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement has been considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because descriptive textual labels are requested in figures 3 and 4 for proper understanding at a glance.. 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.
INFORMATION ON HOW TO EFFECT DRAWING CHANGES
Replacement Drawing Sheets
Drawing changes must be made by presenting replacement sheets which incorporate the desired changes and which comply with 37 CFR 1.84. An explanation of the changes made must be presented either in the drawing amendments section, or remarks, section of the amendment paper. 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). A replacement sheet must 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 the amended drawing(s) must not be labeled as “amended.” If the changes to the drawing figure(s) are not accepted by the examiner, applicant will be notified of any required corrective action in the next Office action. No further drawing submission will be required, unless applicant is notified.
Identifying indicia, if provided, should include the title of the invention, inventor’s name, and application number, or docket number (if any) if an application number has not been assigned to the application. If this information is provided, it must be placed on the front of each sheet and within the top margin.
Annotated Drawing Sheets
A marked-up copy of any amended drawing figure, including annotations indicating the changes made, may be submitted or required by the examiner. The annotated drawing sheet(s) must be clearly labeled as “Annotated Sheet” and must be presented in the amendment or remarks section that explains the change(s) to the drawings.
Timing of Corrections
Applicant is required to submit acceptable corrected drawings within the time period set in the Office action. See 37 CFR 1.85(a). Failure to take corrective action within the set period will result in ABANDONMENT of the application.
If corrected drawings are required in a Notice of Allowability (PTOL-37), the new drawings MUST be filed within the THREE MONTH shortened statutory period set for reply in the “Notice of Allowability.” Extensions of time may NOT be obtained under the provisions of 37 CFR 1.136 for filing the corrected drawings after the mailing of a Notice of Allowability.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 1, the following limitation is not clearly written: “the determination comprising searching the database to select the one or more files comprising utilization of the base query” [see claim 1 lines 7-9]. The disclosure does not appear to clearly describe how the system determines utilization of the base query.
The limitations of claim 12 parallel claim 1; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale. Claims 2-9, and 13 are rejected based on dependency.-
Regarding claim 10, the following limitation is not described clearly: validation system and virtual setup. The disclosure does not appear to describe how the validation process is implemented or describe specific test scenarios (see claim 11)..
The limitations of claim 14 parallel claim10; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale. Claim 11 is rejected based on dependency.
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 1-14 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential structural cooperative relationships of elements, such omission amounting to a gap between the necessary structural connections. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted structural cooperative relationships are: the independent claims omit an AI based approach or an AI engine. Note support for this feature can be found at paragraphs 0053 through 0055, and paragraph 0078..
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gopalakrishnan et al. International Publication No. WO 2021/074914 A1. (The examiner notes reference was cited on form PTO-1449)
Regarding claim 1, Gopalakrishnan et al. teaches the following:
A substation automation engineering system [note: Abstract, figure 1; paragraph 0094 automation process], comprising:
an input unit [note: figure 1]; and
a processing unit [note: figure 1; paragraph 0094];
wherein the input unit is configured to receive a base query, wherein the base query comprises details of a substation project [note: paragraphs 0011-0014, configuration, training, and algorithms];
wherein the input unit is configured to provide the base query to the processing unit [note: paragraphs 0011-0014 ];
wherein the processing unit is configured to determine one or more files in a database, the determination comprising searching the database to select the one or more files comprising utilization of the base query [note: paragraph 0072 search the database; paragraph 0086 usage; figure 5, (230a) search similar conf ]; and
wherein the processing unit is configured to determine configuration description information for the substation project, the determination comprising utilization of the base query and the one or more files [note: paragraphs 0046-0060 substation automation system].
Claim 2: The substation automation engineering system of claim 1, wherein the determination of at least one file of the one or more files comprises utilization of one or more of: a text similarity algorithm, an image similarity algorithm, a multimodal similarity algorithm, a semantic and structure-based similarity algorithm [note: paragraph 0086-0087 prediction algorithms].
Claim 3: The substation automation engineering system of claim 1, wherein the determination of at least one file of the one or more files comprises a determination of the at least one file based on a similarity with at least a part of the base query [note: paragraph 0060, similarity].
Claim 4: The substation automation engineering system of claim 1, wherein the determination of at least one file of the one or more files comprises a determination of at least one device or unit based on a similarity with at least a part of the base query, and wherein the at least one file is associated with the at least one device or unit.
Claim 5: The substation automation engineering system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to implement a trained AI engine to determine the configuration description information for the substation project [note: paragraphs 0063-0064 alternate embodiments virtual agent or assistant, also referred to as chatbot’ paragraph 0069 various artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning].
Claim 6: The substation automation engineering system of claim 1, wherein the input unit is configured to provide information from a user to the processing unit, and wherein the determination of the configuration description information for the substation project comprises utilization of the information from the user [note figure 1].
Claim 7: The substation automation engineering system of claim 6, wherein the processing unit is configured to determine intermediate information, the determination comprising utilization of the base query and the one or more files, wherein the processing unit is configured to present a query to the user, wherein the processing unit is configured to determine the query based on the intermediate information, and wherein the information from the user is provided from the user in response to the query being presented to the user [note: paragraph 0086 usage predictions].
Claim 8: The substation automation engineering system of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to implement a virtual setup of a substation, the implementation comprising utilization of the configuration description information for the substation project.
Claim 9: The substation automation engineering system of claim 8, wherein the implementation of the virtual setup of the substation comprises a determination of one or more substation test scenarios, the determination comprising utilization of the configuration description information for the substation project [note: paragraph 0052 system may be customized; paragraph 0028, virtual models and test scenarios].
Claim 10: A substation automation engineering deployment and validation system, comprising: an input unit; and a processing unit; wherein the input unit is configured to receive a configuration description information for a substation project from a substation automation engineering system; wherein the input unit is configured to provide the configuration description information for the substation project to the processing unit; and wherein the processing unit is configured to implement a virtual setup of a substation, the implementation comprising utilization of the configuration description information for the substation project [note: Abstract, figure 1; paragraph 0060 system performs similarity checks; paragraph 0094 automation process; paragraph 0028, virtual models and test scenarios; paragraph 0072 search the database; paragraph 0086 usage; figure 5, (230a) search similar conf].
Claim 11: The system according to claim 10, wherein the implementation of the virtual setup of the substation comprises a determination of one or more substation test scenarios, the determination comprising utilization of the configuration description information for the substation project [note: paragraph 0028, virtual models and test scenarios].
The limitations of claim 12 parallels claim 1; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
The limitations of claim 14 parallels claim 10; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Note attached form PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GRETA ROBINSON whose telephone number is (571)272-4118. The examiner can normally be reached Mon.-Fri. 9:30AM-6:00PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hassan Mahmoudi can be reached at 571-272-4078. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GRETA L ROBINSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2163
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