DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to Applicant communication filed on
01/27/2026. Applicant’s response amended claims 1, 4, 8, and 10-20. Claims 1-20 are pending of which claims 1-9, 11, 13-20 are rejected and claims 10 and 12 are objected to.
This action has been made non-final in order to add prior art rejections of claims 4, 9, 11, and 16 previously not rejected over prior art.
Response to Amendment
The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection of claims 14-19 is withdrawn in view of the amendments.
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection of claims 1-20 is withdrawn. In light of the amendments and Applicant’s remarks, the claims when considered as a whole are found to be directed to a particular way of automating building diagnostics and control that includes particular steps that enable the computer system to automate this process which is distinct from the steps which a human operator would take to diagnose and control the equipment, similar to the claims found eligible in McRO. The claimed invention provides a technological solution to a problem in the technical field of building automation systems.
The 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection over Wilkinson and Makker is withdrawn. However, a new grounds of rejection is set forth below to address the amendments to the claims. Applicant’s arguments are unpersuasive and/or moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
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.
Claims 1-8 and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilkinson (WO 2021113896 A1); in view of Makker (WO 2021211798 A1), in further view of Strand et al. US 20190107832 A1 (hereinafter “Strand”).
Regarding claim 1, Wilkinson teaches a building system (Wilkinson: FIG. 1; Abstract.)
comprising:
one or more memory devices storing instructions thereon (Wilkinson: FIG. 1; pg. 15, ln 8-14 [“…the cloud server 22 also includes a reality engine 30 that manages the data stored at the cloud server 22…”]) that, when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
store a digital twin for a piece of building equipment, the digital twin comprising a virtual representation of the piece of building equipment, wherein the digital twin communicates with the piece of building equipment to operate the piece of building equipment (Wilkinson: FIG. 1; pg. 11, ln 26, to pg. 12, ln14 [“…the system 10 is arranged to store a virtual representation of an asset that includes a visual representation of the asset and a digital twin of each operative component of the asset. A digital twin of a component is a digital replica of the actual component that includes accessible data associated with characteristics of the component, including operative data associated with the component…The system collates the digital twin data associated with the asset components, and facilitates access to the visual representation and the digital twin data. In this way, since the digital twin data is representative of the actual components of the asset, and importantly the actual functionality of the components, it is possible to appropriately manage, observe, and analyse operation of the asset components and the asset as a whole from a remote location without the need for a person to be physically present at the asset. In other words, a user interacting with the asset in the cyber world through a user interface of the asset management system is provided with an experience and the ability to interact with the asset in a way that is similar to a user interaction with the asset in the physical (real) world.”]);
determine, based on the identification, one or more diagnostic messages based on the virtual representation of the piece of building equipment (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; Page 11, line 25 - page 12 line 15: “The system collates the digital twin data associated with the asset components, and facilitates access to the visual representation and the digital twin data. In this way, since the digital twin data is representative of the actual components of the asset, and importantly the actual functionality of the components, it is possible to appropriately manage, observe, and analyse operation of the asset components”; pg. 28, ln 16, to pg. 29, ln 11 [“…user applications 34 also include a process awareness application 83 usable to enable an operator to view a representation of a production process or portion of a production process…process awareness application 83 may also be used to view a timelapse view of a process wherein representations of the process over a defined time period are played back, for example at a user defined speed. For example, if a problem is identified as part of a diagnostic process…The process awareness application 83 may also provide the user with the option during the diagnostic process to add additional time synchronised data points to the process representation 118.”]);
receive one or more diagnostic message responses from the piece of building equipment indicating the control of the at least one environmental condition of the building by the piece of building equipment (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; pg. 15, ln 25-33 [“…the asset location 12 includes sensors 40 that are each separate to an asset component and dedicated to sensing at least one characteristic of the component of the asset, such as vibration and/or temperature of a pump. Each sensor 40 may be connected to a component or disposed adjacent the component 40, depending on the characteristic desired to be sensed. Each of the sensors 40 produces data indicative of the sensed characteristic, and in this example the sensed data is communicated to the cloud server 22 for storage as component data 28 using a dedicated local low power long range wireless network 42 that in this example is based on a LoRaWAN protocol.”]; page 17, lines 24-30: “Using the digital twin information associated with a component, an operator is able to gain situational awareness of the component that is sufficient for the operator to determine the state of the component, performance of the component and whether any current or potential future issues exist.”); and
generate a diagnostics report for the piece of building equipment, the diagnostics report indicating a performance of the piece of building equipment based on the one or more diagnostic message responses (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; pg. 17, ln 21-33 [“… sensors 40, cameras 46, microphones 47, process component sensors 50, PLC devices 52 and/or other data generating components 54 - produce data associated with operation of the asset, and in particular, data indicative of operation of each component of the asset, and the combined data enables a digital twin of each component to be produced. Using the digital twin information associated with a component, an operator is able to gain situational awareness of the component that is sufficient for the operator to determine the state of the component, performance of the component and whether any current or potential future issues exist. In addition, since the captured component data 28 stored at the cloud server 22 is time stamped, it is possible for the operator to view and analyse historical component data, view trends in component performance over a defined time period…”]).
However, Wilkinson fails to explicitly teach a digital twin which communicates one or more messages, such as diagnostic messages, to a piece of building equipment for causing the piece of building equipment to perform one or more operations controlling at least one environmental condition of the building. Wilkinson also fails to teach: identify, using a diagnostic template received from a user, the virtual representation of the piece of the building equipment represented by the digital twin.
Makker however, in an analogous art of building component control using digital twins, teaches:
…and communicate the one or more diagnostic messages, by the digital twin, to the piece of building equipment causing the piece of building equipment to perform one or more operations controlling at least one environmental condition of the building; ([0005]: “for manipulating (e.g., controlling) targets (e.g., devices) that are communicatively coupled to a network, e.g., by manipulating a digital twin (e.g., representative virtual model) of a facility.”; [0007]: “the current state being altered comprises a command setting of an environmental control unit. In some embodiments, the environmental control unit controls an environment of the facility. In some embodiments, the command setting comprises (i) a tint density of a tintable window, (ii) a temperature setting of an HVAC unit, (iii) a fan setting of an HVAC unit, or (iv) an on/off setting of a lighting unit. In some embodiments, the digital twin represents a plurality of structural features.”; [0078]: “diagnostics”; [0091]: “the MC issues communications including tint commands, status request commands, data (for example, sensor data) request commands or other instructions.”; FIGS. 8-10, 11A, 20; ¶¶202-203)
identify, using a …template received from a user, the virtual representation of the piece of the building equipment represented by the digital twin; (Makker: [0007]: “configuring the digital twin according to a building information modeling data file according to which the facility was or is constructed.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to implement the feature of providing a digital twin which communicates one or more messages, including diagnostic messages, to a piece of building equipment for causing the piece of building equipment to perform one or more operations controlling environmental condition of the building and configuring the digital twin based on a building file, as disclosed by Makker, into Wilkinson, with the motivation and expected benefit of remotely managing building systems and subsystems and for verifying whether the piece of building equipment meets the one or more operating standards that indicate whether the piece of building equipment is partially or fully functional or not. This method for improving Wilkinson was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Makker. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Wilkinson and Makker to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Wilkinson in view of Makker fails to clearly articulate, however Strand in analogous art of building management systems clearly teaches using a template for diagnostics including to identify the virtual representation of equipment and determining the diagnostic messages based on the identification of the virtual representation and template, i.e.:
identify, using a diagnostic template received from a user, the virtual representation of the piece of the building equipment represented by the digital twin; ([0019], [0258]: “The equipment model template may define all of the points associated with the corresponding item of equipment.”; [0226]: “The reported network tree may identify all of the equipment 1002 connected with system manager 302, either directly or indirectly. Data adaptor 1026 can use the reported network tree in combination with equipment model templates for the identified equipment 1002 to determine which properties (i.e., data points, attributes, etc.) of equipment to bind (step 1506).”; [0195]: “data adaptor 1026 uses the reported network tree and equipment model templates provided by system manager 302 to extract system information, points, and create a device-system-point hierarchy…Data adaptor 1026 can create reported points and get bound points for the connected systems and can update bound points in the device's shadow.”)
determine, based on the identification, one or more diagnostic messages based on the virtual representation of the piece of building equipment; ([0226]: “Data adaptor 1026 can then create timeseries for the identified properties with timeseries service 1316 (step 1508) and update the shadow bound list with security service 1312 (step 1510). The timeseries may initially be empty, but can be updated as data samples are collected from system manager 302 and/or equipment 1002. In some embodiments, data adaptor 1026 updates the shadow bound list to identify all of the properties that data adaptor 1026 is interested in receiving change-of-value (COV) updates from system manager 302 and/or equipment 1002.”; [0227]: “System manager 302 can evaluate the shadow bound list (step 1516) to identify one or more properties specified by the shadow. System manager 302 can then subscribe to COV updates for any properties specified by the shadow (step 1518) and unsubscribe from COB updates for any properties not specified by the shadow (step 1520). When a COV for a subscribed property occurs, equipment 1002 can send a COV notification to system manager 302 (step 1522). The COV notification may identify the property for which a COV has occurred and may include the current value of the property.”)
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the building management system and method of Wilkinson in view of Makker, as described above, to further include using a diagnostic template to identify the virtual representation and to determine the diagnostic messages based on the identification in view of Strand with the motivation to provide more flexibility and plug & play functionality to the system by using templates which define equipment properties to be monitored (e.g. Strand [0180], [0194]).
Regarding claims 13 and 20, each claim recites limitations found within claim 1, and is rejected under the same rationale applied to the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, Wilkinson further teaches: comparing the one or more operations of the piece of building equipment to one or more expected operations associated with the one or more diagnostic messages, determine a functionality of the piece of building equipment based on a result of comparing the one or more operations of the piece of building equipment to the one or more expected operations, and cause the diagnostics report to include the functionality of the piece of building equipment (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; pg. 20, ln 31, to pg. 21, ln 11 [“…the analysis engine 70 may be arranged to automatically learn normal ranges of behaviours for components of the asset and take appropriate action when component behaviour is determined to deviate from normal, to perform predictive analysis of digital twin data, and/or to analyse performance and reliability of a particular type of component based on the collective knowledge of all similar components, and for example maintenance history. Such action may include creation of an automated task or workflow, issuing of a notification to an operator, and/or instigation of a maintenance action. In a particular example, the analysis engine 70 may automatically analyse captured audio and determine that a particular pump may have or be shortly about to fail based on a comparison of the captured audio for the pump with previously captured audio for a different pump that failed. In response to the automatic determination in relation to the failing pump, the analysis engine 70 may be arranged to instigate a maintenance action.”]).
Regarding claim 14, the claim recites limitations found within Claim 2, and is rejected under the same rationale applied to the rejection of Claim 2.
Regarding claim 3, Wilkinson further teaches: wherein the diagnostics report indicates a state of the piece of building equipment and a confidence level that the state determined for the piece of building equipment is correct (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; pg. 20, ln 31, to pg. 21, ln 11 [“…the analysis engine 70 may be arranged to automatically learn normal ranges of behaviours for components of the asset and take appropriate action when component behaviour is determined to deviate from normal, to perform predictive analysis of digital twin data, and/or to analyse performance and reliability of a particular type of component based on the collective knowledge of all similar components, and for example maintenance history.”] {See above.}).
Regarding claim 15, the claim recites limitations found within Claim 3, and is rejected under the same rationale applied to the rejection of Claim 3.
Regarding claims 4 and 16,
Wilkinson/Makker fails to disclose however Strand further teaches: wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to: detect an absence of one or more particular diagnostic message responses that were expected to be received from the piece of building equipment responsive to the one or more diagnostic messages; and generate the diagnostics report for the piece of building equipment based on an indication of the absence of the one or more particular diagnostic message responses. (Strand: [0228]: “However, if a subscribed property is not present in equipment 1002, system manager 302 can notify data adaptor 1026 that the bound property is not present (step 1526). Data adaptor 1026 can then update the shadow with security service 1312 (step 1528) to remove the property that is not present. If a subscribed property is not reliable (e.g., equipment 1002 is offline), system manager 302 can remove the offline device from the reported network tree (step 1530) and post the updated reported network tree to data adaptor 1026 (step 1532). Data adaptor 1026 can then update the shadow with security service 1312 (step 1534) to remove any properties associated with the offline device.”)
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the building management system and method of Wilkinson in view of Makker, as described above, to further include detecting an absence of a particular diagnostic response expected to be received and generating a report based on the indicated absence in view of Strand with the motivation to report accurate device status, such as equipment that has changed or been taken offline.
Regarding claim 5, Wilkinson further teaches: wherein the piece of building equipment is provisioned with one or more software functions configured to test the piece of building equipment responsive to receiving a particular diagnostics message from the digital twin (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; pg. 17, ln 4-8 [“The asset location 12 may also include one or more programmable logic controller (PLC) devices 52 that are present at the asset to manage control of specific aspects of the asset. Each PLC device 52 may produce data indicative of the controlled aspect of the asset for communication through the WiFi network 48 to the cloud server 22 for storage as component data 28.”]; pg. 31, ln 14-22 [“…user applications 34 also include an engineering awareness application 88 that enables an operator to assess and monitor asset design; and assess and monitor planned and actual performance of an asset, in this example by facilitating diagnostic operations and analysis of real-time and historic data. Using the engineering awareness application 88, an operator is able to create a custom asset representation based on engineering data, process data, event data and situational data…”] {See above.}).
Regarding claim 17, the claim recites limitations found within Claim 5, and is rejected under the same rationale applied to the rejection of Claim 5.
Regarding claim 6, Wilkinson further teaches: monitor data of one or more data points of the piece of building equipment, and generate the one or more diagnostic message responses based on the data (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; pg. 17, ln 4-8 [“The asset location 12 may also include one or more programmable logic controller (PLC) devices 52 that are present at the asset to manage control of specific aspects of the asset. Each PLC device 52 may produce data indicative of the controlled aspect of the asset for communication through the WiFi network 48 to the cloud server 22 for storage as component data 28.”]; pg. 31, ln 14-22 [“…user applications 34 also include an engineering awareness application 88 that enables an operator to assess and monitor asset design; and assess and monitor planned and actual performance of an asset, in this example by facilitating diagnostic operations and analysis of real-time and historic data. Using the engineering awareness application 88, an operator is able to create a custom asset representation based on engineering data, process data, event data and situational data…”] {See above.}).
Regarding claim 7, Wilkinson further teaches: determining, based on the virtual representation of the piece of equipment, one or more operational capabilities of the piece of building equipment, the one or more operational capabilities indicating an ability of the piece of building equipment to perform the one or more operations, and communicate the one or more diagnostic messages to the piece of building equipment based on the one or more operational capabilities of the piece of building equipment (Wilkinson: FIGS. 1-2; pg. 17, ln 21-33 {See above.}).
Regarding claim 18, the claim recites limitations found within Claim 7, and is rejected under the same rationale applied to the rejection of Claim 7.
Regarding claim 8, Wilkinson further teaches: wherein the virtual representation of the piece of building equipment is a building graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges (Wilkinson: FIG. 1; pg. 13, ln 30-31 [“…the asset management system 10 is arranged to manage an asset that is disposed at an asset location 12.”]), wherein a first node of the plurality of nodes represents the piece of building equipment, wherein one or more second nodes of the plurality of nodes represent the one or more operational capabilities of the piece of building equipment (Wilkinson: FIG. 1; pg. 18, ln 13-20 [“…the WiFi Network 48 is also in communication with the edge server 44 and therefore the edge server 44 may also be used to carry out initial processing on the data received from the sensors 40 {analogous to the “a first node of the plurality of nodes”}, cameras 46, microphones 47, process component sensors 50, PLC devices 52 and/or other data generating components 54 {any of which is analogous to the “one or more second nodes of the plurality of nodes represent the one or more operational capabilities of the piece of building equipment”}”]), wherein one or more edges of the plurality of edges link the first node to the one or more second nodes (Wilkinson: FIG. 1; pg. 18, ln 13-20 [“…the WiFi Network 48 is also in communication with the edge server 44…”] { The edge server 44 links the first node to the one or more second nodes via the WiFi Network 48.} {See above.}).
Regarding claim 19, the claim recites limitations found within Claim 8, and is rejected under the same rationale applied to the rejection of Claim 8.
Claims 9 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilkinson (WO 2021113896 A1); in view of Makker (WO 2021211798 A1), in further view of Strand et al. US 20190107832 A1 (hereinafter “Strand”), and in further view of Mackay US 20110137853 A1 (hereinafter “Mackay”).
Claim 9,
Wilkinson fails to teach however Mackay teaches: wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to: generate an overall functionality indicator for the piece of building equipment based on the one or more diagnostic message responses. (Mackay: [0096]: “In an exemplary embodiment the air handling unit (AHU) may have multiple quality metrics such as: hours of time running, fan speed, output flow rate, and deviation from setpoint. Each of these metrics may have individual performance index values and an overall performance index value for the AHU may be calculated by, for example, averaging the performance index values for each metric.”; [0097])
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the building management system and method of Wilkinson in view of Makker, as described above, to further include generating an overall functionality indicator based on the diagnostic messages in view of Mackay with the motivation to better identify problematic equipment and provide appropriate suggestions for corrective action (e.g. Mackay: [0097]).
Claim 11,
Wilkinson fails to teach however Mackay teaches: wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to: generate a first functionality indicator for a first operational capability of the piece of building equipment and a second functionality indicator for a second operational capability of the piece of building equipment based on the one or more diagnostic message responses; and generate the overall functionality indicator based on the first functionality indicator and the second functionality indicator. ([0096]-[0097]: “In an exemplary embodiment the air handling unit (AHU) may have multiple quality metrics such as: hours of time running, fan speed, output flow rate, and deviation from setpoint. Each of these metrics may have individual performance index values and an overall performance index value for the AHU may be calculated by, for example, averaging the performance index values for each metric.”)
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the building management system and method of Wilkinson in view of Makker, as described above, to further include generating an overall functionality indicator based on the diagnostic messages in view of Mackay with the motivation to better identify problematic equipment, analyze performance, and provide appropriate suggestions for corrective action (e.g. Mackay: [0097]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10 and 12 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
With respect to claims 10 and 12, Mackay describes causal relationship graphs for fault root cause analysis (e.g. Fig. 1D “152”) and calculating performance indicators for use by the causal relationship analyzer in determining the cause of faults (e.g. [0109], [0096]). However Mackay, and the other prior art of record, fails to teach or reasonably suggest including the functionality indicators as nodes in the building graph connected by edges with respective equipment nodes (e.g. as reflected in Applicant’s Drawings Fig. 39), in combination with the other elements in the claim.
Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
Conclusion
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/SHELBY A TURNER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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