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
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 9-12, 16, 18, and 21-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guangzhou Sen Polytron Technologies Inc. (CN 109919284A hereinafter “Polytron”), as cited by the Applicant, in view of Jiaxing Hanteng Networking Technology Co Ltd., hereinafter Jiaxing, (CN 105809218), as cited by the Applicant, in view of Moon et al. (US 20160004891), Zeine (US 20200127704), and Rodrigues (US 20120191802).
Re claim 1, Polytron teaches:
An electronic shelf label, comprising:
an NB-IOT network module configured to:
receive task data from a server and/or send electronic shelf label data to the server through an NB-IoT network; and
send the task data received through the NB-IoT network to a controller and/or receive the electronic shelf label data sent by the controller; and
the controller, which is configured to execute a task based on the task data, and/or send the electronic shelf label data to the NB-IoT network module (FIG. 1+ wherein the main control chip/ NB-IOT module of the PCBA 03 and realizes two way communication with the background server, and wherein the main control chip is registered to the network and attached to the clous and server and the specific information is transmitted to the main control chip in the device database for subsequent displaying). Thus, the Examiner has interpreted that the module and chip read on the limitations of the module and controller as discussed above. Though silent to explicitly reciting an NB-IoT network, the Examiner notes it would have been obvious to have a network to send and receive information as recited in order to execute the tasks such as related to the shelf label data.
Polytron is silent to the NFC module as recited.
Jiaxing teaches an NFC module (abstract+) that is interpreted to send data to an NFC device (phone/ terminal). It would have been obvious to send the data to the controller or receive the data from the controller as part of communicating with the NFC device.
Prior to the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings for the known benefits of NFC communications, such as acceptance and security.
Polytron/ Jiaxing is silent to the controller putting the shelf label into a lower power communication state or wake up state, and that the NFC module is further configured to wake up the label upon a preset wakeup condition when the label is in the low power state.
Moon et al. teaches a low power state and wakeup in the label upon a preset wakeup condition (paragraph [0077]+) which teaches the NFC tag wakes up the processor of the label in a sleep mode (upon NFC communication). As the controller/ processor is part of the label it would have been obvious to put it in a low power state to save energy as part of waking and sleeping.
Prior to the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings for energy savings.
Re the limitation of a wake up state, the Examiner has interpreted this as the non-sleep/ active state, as known in the art. Wherein wakeup based on time or periodic is an obvious expedient to control wake up as part of energy management.
Polytron/ Jiaxing/ Moon et al. is silent to performing the compression process (Previous claim 4), stop receiving and sending in low powering and receiving in wakeup state (previous claim 6), receiving the compressed package (previous claim 7) and obtaining the compressed package corresponding to a breakpoint (previous claim 8).
Zeine teaches compression by the CPU of the ESL (paragraph [0070]+).
Prior to the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings for storage benefits.
The Examiner notes it is within the ordinary skill in the art to receive/ send in a wake state and not send/ receive in a sleep/ low power state, as part of known energy management. Nonetheless, the prior art is silent to the transmission breakpoint and resuming transmission in a wakeup state.
Rodrigues teaches generally that interrupted data exchange processes with servers and clients can resume at a breakpoint in order to save time and costs by not having to restart transmissions (paragraph [0027]+).
Prior to the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings to permit resuming in cases of disruption of transmission to save time/ energy/ bandwidth.
Re claim 2, in the description “As shown in FIGs 1-4, PCBA03…”, registration is automatically performed with the network. As the price tag displays content and is set by the background server database so that content data is transmitted to the main control chip to change the display content information of the specific price tag, the Examiner notes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art send the information to server and forward data to the controller and receive data from the server/ send data to the server after a successful registration, in order for the networked price tag system to function in a secure and predictable way to update/ change displays after registering.
Polytron is silent to the NFC module as recited.
Jiaxing teaches an NFC module (abstract+) that is interpreted to send data to an NFC device (phone/ terminal). It would have been obvious to send the data to the controller or receive the data from the controller as part of communicating with the NFC device.
Prior to the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings for the known benefits of NFC communications, such as acceptance and security.
Re claims 9-10, as discussed above re the low power/ sleep state, it would have been obvious to send/ receive only when in an active state, such as for conserving energy.
Re claim 11, a breakpoint has been discussed above, as has transmission/ reception in a wake up and not a sleep/ low powered state.
Re claim 12, claim 9 of the prior art (Polytron) teaches the use of a flash lamp lighting up. It would have been obvious for the controller to control the light when the light/ display is to be activated as such.
Re claim 16, the limitations have been discussed above re claim 1.
Re claim 18 and 23, a device to send/ receive the data has been discussed above.
Re claim 21, the limtaitons have been discussed above re claim 1, wherein a task can be displaying/ updating.
Re claim 22, the limitations have been discussed above re claim 2.
Response to Arguments
The Examiner has provided new art above. The Examiner also notes that the First through Third Office Actions for “Spontials of Electronics, Systems” submitted by the Applicant on 3-4-25 also rejects all claims over a combination of references. The Examiner suggests that any future amendments should be crafted with those rejections provided by the Applicants submission in mind to expedite prosecution, so that such actions would not be providing a blueprint to an alternative rejection on the current claims. The Third Office Action also indicates that breakpoint data sending is customary.
Conclusion
Troxel (US 8493906) teaches generally that interrupted data exchange processes with servers can resume at a breakpoint in order to save time and costs by not having to restart transmissions (col 2, lines 45+).
Tseng et al. (US 20120326846) teaches resuming wireless tags from a sleep status.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL I WALSH whose telephone number is (571)272-2409. The examiner can normally be reached 7-9pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Steven Paik can be reached on 571-272-2404. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DANIEL I WALSH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876