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 § 103
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 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) 1-4 and 7-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bollinger et al. (U.S. 20220145840), hereinafter “Bollinger” in view of Bernard (FR 3053396 A1), hereinafter “Bernard”.
Regarding claims 1, 10, and 15, Bollinger discloses the same invention substantially as claimed such as a method for determining an injected quantity of a fluid of interest in an engine system of a vehicle of interest, said quantity not being measured directly by a sensor, the engine system comprising at least a fluid tank (140), a pump (110), a fluid injection member (130), with a fluid flow path from the pump to an injected zone (shown in figure 1) downstream of the injection member, and an electronic control unit (180) that is able to command opening of the injection member, which is otherwise closed in the absence of a command, the method comprising the following steps: - providing a supervised-learning loss estimation module (paragraph 10), taking as input a plurality of parameters and supplying as output a hydraulic loss coefficient CP relating to a hydraulic loss introduced by the fluid injection member (paragraph 9), /b/- carrying out a plurality of N sequences of fluid injection, during which values of said plurality of parameters are collected (paragraphs 40 and 52 and shown in figure 6), /c/- calculating a theoretical quantity (Qpred) of fluid injected during these N sequences of fluid injection, with the aid of at least some of said values of the plurality of parameters (paragraph 54), /d/- transmitting, to the loss estimation module, said values of the plurality of parameters, and obtaining, at the output of the loss estimation module, the loss coefficient CP,/e/- calculating an estimated actual quantity (Q) of fluid injected during the N sequences of fluid injection, by applying the loss coefficient CP to the calculation of the theoretical quantity of fluid (implicit in figure 6), but is silent to disclose the theoretical calculation using a so-called Bernoulli module for an incompressible fluid. However, Bernard teaches the use of providing the theoretical calculation using the Bernoulli model (page 13, line 7 – page 23, line 19) for the purpose of simplifying analysis by neglecting viscosity and friction losses to make calculations faster and easier. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Bollinger by incorporating the theoretical calculations using the Bernoulli model as taught by Bernard for the purpose of simplifying analysis by neglecting viscosity and friction losses to make calculations faster and easier.
Regarding claims 2 and 11, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the method as claimed in claimed 1, comprising a prior step of: /a/- carrying out, in advance, a learning operation of the supervised-learning loss estimation module by means of a series of test injection members having known flow cross section characteristics, which are placed successively as injection member on a similar flow path of a test vehicle in order to simulate the hydraulic loss introduced by the injection member on the flow path in the vehicle of interest depending on the plurality of parameters (Bollinger, paragraph 14), and while measuring, during an opening sequence of the injection member, the values of the parameters of the plurality of parameters, the loss estimation module taking as input said plurality of parameters and supplying as output the hydraulic loss coefficient CP (Bollinger, paragraph 14).
Regarding claim 3, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein, in step /e/ the loss coefficient CP is applied by multiplying it by the calculation of the theoretical quantity (Bollinger, Qpred) of fluid in order to obtain the estimated actual quantity of fluid injected during the N sequences of fluid injection (Bollinger, implicit in figure 6).
Regarding claim 4, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the loss coefficient CP (Bollinger, pressure drop, paragraph 20) is between 0 and 1 (shown in figure 6).
Regarding claims 7 and 14, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the method as claimed in claim 1,wherein the loss estimation module comprises a neural network (Bollinger, paragraph 10), and preferably the neural network takes up a memory size less than 5 kilobytes (It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of when the invention was made to provide such a range, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.).
Regarding claim 8, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the method as claimed in claim 1,wherein the values of the plurality of parameters are filtered and/or smoothed over the N injection sequences for use in the loss estimation module (Bollinger, trivial in figure 6).
Regarding claim 9, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of parameters comprises a first parameter representative of an increase in pressure on closure of the injector (Bollinger, paragraphs 47-52).
Regarding claim 12, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the fluid is a urea-based liquid intended to reduce nitrogen oxides (obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that a urea-based liquid is used in a diesel engine).
Regarding claim 13, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the injection member is a needle injector (Bollinger, paragraph 39).
Claim(s) 5-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bollinger and Bernard as applied above, and further in view of Pierre (FR 2896542 A1), hereinafter “Pierre”.
Regarding claims 5-6, Bollinger and Bernard disclose the same invention substantially as claimed but is silent to activate an alert if the loss coefficient CP is below a first predetermined threshold and/or above a second predetermined threshold OR if a variation in the value of the loss coefficient CP, after a predetermined number of injections, is above a predetermined variation threshold. However, the examiner takes Official Notice that it is well known in the art to provide an alert to the driver to prompt him to visit a garage as soon as possible (page 13, lines 26-33) for the purpose of preventing further engine damage. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of when the invention was made to modify Bollinger and Bernard by incorporating an alert system as taught by Pierre for the purpose of preventing further engine damage.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Refer to PTO-892.
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/SYED O HASAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3747 4/29/2026
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