Ex Parte Sun et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 14, 2019

14469117 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 14, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/469,117 08/26/2014 Jing Sun
27572 7590 03/18/2019
Harness Dickey (Troy)
P.O. BOX 828
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI 48303
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www .uspto.gov
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
2115-005519-US 8963
EXAMINER
PELTON, NATHANIEL R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2859
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/18/2019 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
troymailroom@hdp.com
sto-ptomail@hdp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JING SUN, HUEI PENG, and CAIHAO WENG 1
Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
Technology Center 2800
Before BRADLEY R. GARRIS, MONTE T. SQUIRE, and
SHELDON M. McGEE, Administrative Patent Judges.
GARRIS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner's
decision rejecting claims 1-19. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6.
We REVERSE.
1 Appellant is the Applicant, "The Regents of The University of Michigan,"
which is identified as the real party in interest (App. Br. 3).
Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
Appellant claims a method for monitoring the state of health of a
battery, that is, by determining the capacity of the battery comprising
defining a model for the battery, where the model relates terminal voltage to
charged capacity of the battery and is defined in accordance with support
vector regression (independent claims 1, 10). The method further comprises
measuring voltage of the battery, determining parameters of the model by
fitting the voltage measures to the model, determining an incremental
capacity curve for the battery by taking a derivative of the model, and
quantifying a peak of the incremental capacity curve to determine a state of
health or capacity of the battery (id.). Appellant also claims a battery
monitoring device comprising a data store for storing the aforementioned
model and a battery monitor for performing the aforementioned measuring,
determining, and quantifying steps (remaining independent claim 15).
A copy of representative claims 1, 10, and 15, taken from the Claims
Appendix of the Appeal Brief, appears below.
1. A method for monitoring state of health of a battery,
compnsmg:
defining a model for a battery, where the model relates
terminal voltage of the battery to charged capacity of the battery
and defined in accordance with support vector regression;
measuring voltage of the battery through a range of states
of charge, where the range excludes the battery being fully
charged and fully discharged;
determining parameters of the model by fitting the
voltage measures to the model;
determining an incremental capacity curve for the battery
by taking derivative of the model; and
quantifying a peak of the incremental capacity curve,
thereby determining a state of health for the battery.
2
Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
10. A method for determining capacity of a battery,
compnsmg:
defining a model for a battery, where the model relates
terminal voltage of the battery to charged capacity of the battery
and is defined in accordance with support vector regression;
receiving a plurality of voltage measures of the battery,
where the voltage measures were taken through a range of
states of charge and the range excludes the battery being fully
charged and fully discharged;
determining parameters of the model by fitting the
plurality of voltage measures to the model;
determining an incremental capacity curve for the battery
by taking derivative of the model; and
quantifying a peak of the incremental capacity curve to
thereby determine a capacity of the battery, where the steps of
determining the parameters, determining the incremental
capacity curve and quantifying the peak are implemented by
computer executable instructions executed by a computer
processor.
15. A battery monitoring device, comprising:
a data store for storing a model for a battery, where the
model relates terminal voltage of the battery to charged
capacity of the battery and is defined in accordance with
support vector regression;
a battery monitor interfaced with a battery to measure
voltage of the battery through a range of states of charge, where
the range excludes the battery being fully charged and fully
discharged,
the battery monitor determines parameters of the model
by fitting the voltage measures to the model, determines an
incremental capacity curve for the battery by taking derivative
of the model, and quantifies a peak of the incremental capacity
curve to thereby determine a capacity of the battery, wherein
the battery monitor is implemented by computer executable
instructions executed by a computer processor.
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Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
The Examiner rejects claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to a judicial exception without significantly more (Final Action 3).
According to the Examiner, the claims "are directed to the abstract idea of
defining a model for a battery relating terminal voltage to charged capacity
of the battery and/or a data store for storing the model [and] ... do not
include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly
more than the judicial exception" (id.). In responding to Appellant's
argument that the claims do not recite any mathematical concept or mental
process, the Examiner states, "[a]nalyzing information by mathematical
algorithms without more is treated as essentially mental processes within the
abstract-idea category" (id. at 4).
Appellant argues that the Examiner does not explain why the claims
are patent ineligible (App. Br. 11-12). In addition, Appellant argues that the
claims address the problem of extracting an incremental capacity curve from
voltage measurement data, namely, the problem wherein "extracting an
incremental capacity curve directly from the V-Q data is not a viable option
because of measurement noise" (see, e.g., id. at 12-13). Appellant explains
that the recited model and other claim elements enable an incremental
capacity curve to be extracted from V-Q data (id.). Appellant argues that
"the pending claims recite a process that effects an improvement in a
technical field by more accurately monitoring the state of health of a
battery" ( id. at 14).
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Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
OPINION
The PTO recently published revised guidance on the application of
§ 101. 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed.
Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019) ("Guidance"). 2 Under the Guidance, we first look to
whether the claim recites:
(1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings
of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods
of organizing human activity such as a fundamental economic
practice, or mental processes); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial
exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.0S(a}-
( c), (e }-(h)). 3
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not
integrate that exception into a practical application, do we then look to
whether the claim:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial
exception that is not "well-understood, routine, conventional"
in the field (see MPEP § 2106.0S(d)); or
( 4) simply appends well-understood, routine,
conventional activities previously known to the industry,
specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.
See Guidance.
In applying step (1) of the Guidance to the claims on appeal, we
determine that the independent claims recite an abstract idea by defining a
model relating terminal voltage to charged capacity of a battery wherein the
2 Neither the Examiner nor Appellant had benefit of this Guidance when
advocating their respective positions concerning subject matter eligibility.
3 The Examiner determines that certain claim elements are routine and
common in the industry (Ans. 4--7). This determination is not relevant to
steps (1) and (2) of the Guidance analysis. See Guidance.
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Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
model is defined in accordance with support vector regression. Appellant's
criticism of the Examiner's similar determination (i.e., that the claims are
directed to the aforementioned abstract idea) is not well taken. As
previously indicated, the Examiner explicitly identifies the abstract idea as
being the recited model wherein information is analyzed via mathematical
algorithms. Moreover, Appellant's Specification expressly discloses
performing the desired analysis by using support vector regression (SVR)
and defines the SVR model as a mathematical formula (i.e., a mathematical
concept or algorithm) (Spec. ,r,r 32-33).
However, our assessment of Guidance step (2) reveals that the
independent claims recite additional elements that integrate the abstract idea
of the recited SVR model into a practical application.
As correctly argued by Appellant, the claims address the problem of
extracting an incremental capacity curve from voltage measurement data.
According to the Specification, this problem manifests in an existing
incremental capacity analysis that transforms voltage plateaus on a V-Q
curve into peaks on an incremental capacity curve (Spec. ,r 7). These peaks
lie within a voltage plateau region of the V-Q curve that is relatively flat and
more sensitive to measurement noise whereby calculating the peaks directly
from the data set is difficult (id.). Therefore, "[b ]ecause of measurement
noise, performing the ICA [(i.e., incremental capacity analysis)] directly
from the V-Q curve has proven to be not a viable option" (id. ,r 31 ). As a
solution to this problem, Appellant teaches that "[t]he use of support vector
regression (SVR) to represent the V-Q relation and then using analytic
derivative to obtain the IC [(i.e., incremental capacity)] curve provides the
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Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
most consistent identification results with moderate computational load" (id.
,r 32).
These Specification disclosures evince that the recited SVR model in
combination with the other independent claim elements (i.e., the measuring,
determining and quantifying elements) solve the measurement noise
problem of an existing incremental capacity analysis technique. In this way,
the abstract idea recited in the independent claims improves the technical
field of monitoring or determining battery health or capacity. See MPEP
§ 2106.0S(a). The independent claims integrate the abstract idea of the
recited model into a practical application by expressly defining the model in
accordance with support vector regression whereby voltage measures are
fitted to the model in order to determine model parameters and thereby
determine the health or capacity of a battery. As a result, Appellant's claims
do not attempt to monopolize the abstract idea of an SVR model itself but
rather define a specific method or device that employs the abstract idea to
achieve an improvement in the technical field of determining battery health
or capacity.
To summarize, each of the independent claims as a whole applies,
relies on, or uses the abstract idea of an SVR model in a manner that
imposes a meaningful limit on the abstract idea and integrates the abstract
idea into a practical application of determining the health or capacity of a
battery. For this reason, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of
claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a judicial exception
without significantly more.
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Appeal2018-002447
Application 14/ 469, 117
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is reversed.
REVERSED
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