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.
Claims 1-8, 10-17,19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meyer-Teruel (US 2021/0127332) in view of Sugawa (US 2021/0061194)
As to claim 1 Meyer-Teruel discloses a method comprising:
setting, responsive to a vehicle entering a sleep mode, first and second processing cores of an electronic control unit of the vehicle to a sleep state(Paragraph 59 “Generally, the agent controller 34 takes instructions from the master controller 24 when the master controller 24 is in the nominal mode, and therefore, the agent controller 34 may be referred to as a slave controller. When the master controller 24 is going to the sleep mode, the master controller 24 communicates that information to the agent controller 34. The agent controller 34 also includes a processor (P) and a memory (M), and the memory (M) may be programmed with computer-executable logic for monitoring the sensors 30 and determining whether to wake the master controller 24 from the sleep mode. Generally, the agent controller 34 is configured to monitor the sensors 30 when the master controller 24 is in the sleep mode.”);
determining, by the first processing core during the first fraction of the time interval and based on sensor data from a sensor of the vehicle, whether a thermal event is occurring in the vehicle (Paragraph 55 “As non-limiting examples, the event 32 may include a thermal event 32, such as thermal runaway, a high temperature, or a low temperature, a voltage event 32, such as a high voltage or a low voltage, a pressure event 32, such as a high pressure or a low pressure, a leakage of material, other off-nominal battery event 32, etc.”); and
Meyer-Teruel does not explicitly disclose waking the first processing core to a run state from the sleep state without waking the second processing core to the run state for a first fraction of a time interval during which the vehicle is in the sleep mode;
Sugawa teaches waking the first processing core to a run state from the sleep state without waking the second processing core to the run state for a first fraction of a time interval during which the vehicle is in the sleep mode (Paragraph 75 “The sleep instruction control unit 5013 determines a device to be a sleep target and a sleep period based on the operation mode determined by the mode management unit 5011.”, Paragraph 117 “Next, when the ECU 1 determines the operation mode and the sleep range, the ECU 1 notifies the ECU 2 of the determined mode and shares the mode to be operated by the ECU 1 and the ECU 2. Next, the ECU 1 transmits a sleep instruction frame to the gateway 2F and the gateway 2R which are the sleep target gateways. The sleep period specified in this sleep instruction frame is from time t1s to time t1e.”, Paragraph 121 “When the gateway 2F and the gateway 2R detect that the time is a predetermined time before the time t1e, which is the sleep end time, the WUP signal is transmitted to all the ports. The sensor device 10 and the ECU device 50 that have received the WUP signal return to the normal state.”);
returning the first processing core from the run state to the sleep state for a remaining second fraction of the time interval during which the vehicle is in the sleep mode(Paragraph 75 “The sleep instruction control unit 5013 determines a device to be a sleep target and a sleep period based on the operation mode determined by the mode management unit 5011.”, Paragraph 117 “Next, when the ECU 1 determines the operation mode and the sleep range, the ECU 1 notifies the ECU 2 of the determined mode and shares the mode to be operated by the ECU 1 and the ECU 2. Next, the ECU 1 transmits a sleep instruction frame to the gateway 2F and the gateway 2R which are the sleep target gateways. The sleep period specified in this sleep instruction frame is from time t1s to time t1e.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to modify Meyer-Teruel to include the teachings of managing the times when in the sleep and wake period for the purpose of conserving power.
As to claim 2 Sugawa teaches a method wherein the time interval is at least ten times smaller than a known duration of a thermal event signature in the sensor data (Paragraph 75).
As to claim 3 Meyer-Teruel discloses a method wherein the sensor comprises a pressure sensor, and wherein the thermal event signature comprises a pressure variation signature associated with the thermal event (Paragraph 55).
As to claim 4 Sugawa teaches a method wherein the first fraction is less than ten percent of the remaining second fraction (Paragraph 75).
As to claim 5 Sugawa teaches a method wherein the time interval is based on the known duration and a sleep mode power budget for the sleep mode of the vehicle (Paragraph 75).
As to claim 6 Sugawa teaches a method wherein the first fraction is based on the sleep mode power budget, a first time allocation for communicating with the sensor, a second time allocation for processing the sensor data, and a third time allocation for performing detection operations using the processed sensor data (Paragraph 142).
As to claim 7 Meyer-Teruel discloses a method further comprising:
waking the second processing core to an idle state from the sleep state for the first fraction of the time interval during which the vehicle is in the sleep mode (Paragraph 59); and
returning the second processing core from the idle state to the sleep state for the remaining second fraction of the time interval during which the vehicle is in the sleep mode(Paragraph 59).
As to claim 8 Sugawa teaches a method further comprising:
waking a third processing core to the idle state from the sleep state for the first fraction of the time interval during which the vehicle is in the sleep mode (Paragraph 113); and
returning the third processing core from the idle state to the sleep state for the remaining second fraction of the time interval during which the vehicle is in the sleep mode (Paragraph 113).
As to claim 10 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 1.
As to claim 11 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 2.
As to claim 12 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 3.
As to claim 13 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 4.
As to claim 14 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 5.
As to claim 15 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 6.
As to claim 16 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 7.
As to claim 17 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 8.
As to claim 19 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 1.
Claims 9, 18, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meyer-Teruel (US 2021/0127332) in view of Sugawa (US 2021/0061194) as applied to claim 1 above, and in further view of Shpati (US 2023/0347777)
As to claim 9 Shpati teaches a method further comprising: responsive to determining, by the first processing core during the first fraction of the time interval and based on sensor data from the sensor of the vehicle, that the thermal event is occurring in the vehicle, providing an alert from the vehicle to a device of a user (Paragraph 18, 35).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to modify Meyer-Teruel to include the teachings of alerting the driver for the purpose of alerting if the thermal event is occurring.
As to claim 18 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 9.
As to claim 20 the claim is interpreted and rejected as in claim 9.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to IMRAN K MUSTAFA whose telephone number is (571)270-1471. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-5.
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, James J Lee can be reached at 571-270-5965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
IMRAN K. MUSTAFA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3668
/IMRAN K MUSTAFA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3668
6/22/2026
Prosecution Insights