DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
This Office action is responsive to the Amendment After Final Rejection filed January 20, 2026. The amendments to the claims have been entered. Claims 1, 3, 13, 14, 23 and 24 are amended. Claims 1 and 3-26 remain pending, while claims 8, 9, 11, 12 and 22 are withdrawn from consideration.
Applicant's request for reconsideration of the finality of the rejection of the last Office action is persuasive and, therefore, the finality of that action is withdrawn.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see at least pages 9-13 of the Remarks filed January 20, 2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 1, 23 and 24 under 35 USC 103 as being obvious over Hauenstein et al. in view of Tadi et al. have been fully considered and are persuasive at least because the cited portions of Hauenstein et al. do not disclose extracting the device’s bodily position relative to the end-user from said raw sensor data. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of at least Chang et al. (US 2018/0264320).
Claim Objections
Claims 18 and 24 are objected to because of the following informalities:
At claim 18, line 6, “through” should read --though--.
At claim 24, line 3, --by a [computer/processor] to cause the [computer/processor]-- should be inserted following “to be executed”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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, 3-7, 10, 13-21 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation “which yields at least parameter, characterizing the
end-user’s motion” which renders the claim indefinite. The amendment has deleted the word “one” such that it is unclear whether the limitation is intended to recite “at least one parameter”, a singular parameter, or has some other meaning. The limitation “said parameter is activity-specific” is the recited at lines 15-16, which does not provide sufficient antecedent basis for the limitation “said at least one activity-specific parameter” as recited at lines 17-18 of the claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1, 3-7, 10, 13-18, 20, 21 and 23-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chang et al. (US 2018/0264320).
Regarding claims 1, 23 and 24, Chang et al . teach a motion monitoring system and method operative to monitor motion of an end-user bearing a wearable device (100, see at least paragraphs [0031]-[0032]) equipped with at least one magneto-inertial sensor (see at least paragraphs [0033] and [0036]-[0037]), the system comprising: a processor (200) configured to receive raw sensor data (see at least paragraph [0047]) from the wearable device's at least one magneto-inertial sensor, to extract situational data from said raw sensor data, the situational data including at least the device's bodily position relative to the end-user (see at least paragraphs [0044]-[0086], especially paragraphs [0051], [0054]-[0056], [0074] and [0077]); and a classification of a physical activity in which the end-user is engaging (see at least paragraphs [0044]-[0086], especially paragraphs [0061]-[0066] and [0073]-[0077]) while the magneto-inertial sensor is recording said raw sensor data, to determine, depending at least on said device's bodily position as extracted, a motion analysis process which yields at least one activity-specific parameter characterizing the end-user's motion (including velocity, displacement, rotation, stride, etc, see at least paragraphs [0044]-[0144], especially paragraph [0050]), and to compute, and to generate an output indication of, said at least one activity-specific parameter characterizing the end-user's motion, by running said motion analysis process (see at least paragraphs [0039] and [0146]). The systems and methods can be embodied and/implemented as a computer program product on a computer-readable medium storing instructions (see at least paragraph [0154]).
Regarding claim 3, Chang et al. teach the processor operates a classifier which receives inputs including a stream of motion data or device acceleration data which may be derived from the magneto-inertial sensor and outputs one of plural classes for each input, and wherein at least some of said classes include an (end-user physical activity, device's bodily position) pair (see at least paragraphs [0061], [0062], and [0074]-[0078]).
Regarding claim 4, Chang et al. teach the wearable device comprises a networked communication device (see at least paragraphs [0032]-[0033] and Figure 1).
Regarding claims 5-7 and 21, Chang et al. teach processor includes logic which is responsive to each receipt of said raw sensor data and wherein said processor is operative to extract, select, and compute, triggered by said logic either continuously or selectively in less than all instances of receipt. (see at least Fig. 4, and paragraphs [0040], [0046], [0047] [0062] and [0099]-[0104]).
Regarding claim 10, Chang et al. teach the parameter characterizing the end-user's motion comprises the end-user's asymmetry (see at least paragraphs [0114]- [0116] and [0125]-[0126]).
Regarding claim 13, Chang et al. teach the motion analysis process, selected for when the wearable device's system-extracted position on the end-user's body comprises a first bodily position, extracts at least one parameter characterizing the end-user's motion, which is not extracted by the motion analysis process selected for when the wearable device's system-extracted position on the end-user's body comprises a second bodily position (see at least paragraphs [0074], [0085], [0093] and [0094]).
Regarding claims 14-16, Chang et al. teach the system stores an activity-specific baseline value for at least one parameter characterizing the end-user's motion, the device’s bodily position, or activity-bodily position pairs, and wherein said output indication comprises an indication of whether an end-user's motion's current value for the parameter differs from the activity-specific, the device’s body position-specific, or activity-bodily position pair baseline values stored specifically for the end-user (see at least paragraphs [0042]-[0082]) and [0151]-[0152]).
Regarding claim 17, Chang et al. teach the wearable device comprises a cellular phone (see at least paragraph [0037]).
Regarding claims 18 and 20, Chang et al. teach that an output indication includes and a graph, in at least one spatial dimension, of the end-user's average stride (see Figure 6) as though the end-user were striding on a treadmill. The output may comprise 3 two-dimensional graphs (four illustrated in Figure 6 - transitional phase “comprising” does not exclude additional elements).
Regarding claims 25 and 26, Chang et al. teach the processor is configured to: extract situational data only from said raw sensor data ([0046]-[0047]) which is supplied by said at least one magneto-inertial sensor, wherein the situational data extracted only from said raw sensor data supplied by said at least one magneto-inertial sensor includes at least the device's bodily position relative to the end-user (([0044]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chang et al. Chang et al. teach all of the limitations of the claim except that the graph comprises a closed curve. At the time the invention was effectively filed, it would have been an obvious matter design choice to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use a graph including a closed curve as an output indication of a subject’s stride, as Applicant has not disclosed that using a closed curved graph as an output indication provides an advantage, is used for a particular purpose, or solves a stated problem. One of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the output indicator of Chang et al. to perform equally well using any type of graph to output measured stride data. Moreover, since the output indicator (closed curve graph) is not functionally related to the structure of motion monitoring system, the claimed invention does not patentably distinguish from the prior art reference(s). In order for the output indicator (closed curve graph) to impart patentability to the system, there must be a new and non-obvious functional relationship between the output indicator and some element of the motion monitoring system.
Conclusion
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/CHARLES A MARMOR II/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3791