Patent 7404289 was granted and assigned to Toyota on July, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An engine ECU executes a program including the steps of: if it is necessary to take an anti catalytic odor approach and the engine should be warmed up, resetting an engine warm up request flag to cut fuel for the approach; cutting the fuel and determining whether the approach has completed; and if so, setting the flag.