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 remarks filed 01/13/2026 have been fully considered and are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection presented herein.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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 1-3, 5, 7-8, 10-13, 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170169699 to Will in view of US 20100037151 to Ackerman in view of US 20180316893 to Rosenberg in view of US 20190237204 to Huang.
Regarding claim 1,
Will teaches a method comprising:
receiving, by a video conference provider, a request to initiate an incident response system associated with a facility, the incident response system comprising a plurality of client devices within the facility, each of the client devices having a camera (abstract, ¶ 49-52, fig. 2, 4, ¶ 79-82, 116-117, receiving request for incident response by residents of the same house);
establishing, by the video conference provider, an incident response session with the incident response system; joining, by the video conference provider, active client device of the plurality of client devices to the incident response session (abstract, ¶ 13, 49-52 , 55-56, 79-82, 116-117, establishment of session/conference for alarm/incident response);
determining, by a video conference provider, an incident event associated with the incident response session (¶ 79-80, ascertaining alarm event);
determining, by the video conference provider, an authorized agency based on the incident event; transmitting, to the authorized agency, a request to join the incident response session (¶ 79-82, determining agency and transmitting request to join response session);
joining, by the video conference provider, an authorized agency device from the authorized agency to the incident response session (¶ 79-82, joining device to response session).
Will fails to teach: instructing the active client devices to activate the respective camera. However, Ackerman teaches: instructing active clients to activate a respective camera (Ackerman, ¶ 51).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Ackerman. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating a request for a participant to initiate video functionality (Ackerman, ¶ 51).
Will fails to teach “the joining and activating without user intervention”, However, Rosenberg discloses joining and activating without user intervention (Rosenberg, abstract, “The present technology allow for a user's portable device to automatically join a videoconference without any action by a user).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Rosenberg. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of Rosenberg would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating collaborative conferencing services (Rosenberg, abstract, ¶ 15).
Will fails to teach “a plurality of client devices installed within the facility”. However,
Huang discloses a plurality of client devices installed within a facility (Huang, ¶ 7, 26, 65, dedicated onsite devices).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Huang. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating dual functionality of dedicated onsite monitoring and on-demand webcam conferencing (Huang, 7).
Regarding claim 2,
Will teaches:
wherein the request to initiate an incident response system is from an administrator of a facility where an incident event has occurred (abstract, ¶ 49-52, fig. 2, ¶ 79, receiving request for incident response).*The limitations regarding the origin of the request and/or the role/title of the entity providing the request are afforded little patentable weight because they are non-functionally descriptive in nature.
Regarding claim 3, 11, 18,
Will teaches:
determining, by the video conference provider, a plurality of client devices associated with the incident response system (abstract, fig. 13, ¶ 55).
Regarding claim 5,
Will teaches:
transmitting, by the video conference provider, a message from the authorized agency device to the one or more client devices joined to the incident response session (¶ 55, 70-75, communication between joined parties, communicating medical conditions).
Regarding claim 7,
Will teaches:
wherein determining, by the video conference provider, the authorized agency based on the incident event further comprises determining, by the video conference provider, the authorized agency based on a location of the incident response system (¶ 66-67, determining incident including locations).
Regarding claim 8,
Will teaches:
receiving, from the authorized agency device, a request to join a second authorized agency device to the incident response session; and joining, by the video conference provider, the second authorized agency device to the incident response session (¶ 80-83, joining further authorized devices).
Regarding claim 12,
Will teaches:
determine, by the video conference provider, a location of at least one of the client devices joined to the incident response system; and transmit, to the authorized agency device, the determined location (¶ 52, 70-73).
Regarding claim 13,
Will teaches:
generate, by the video conference provider, a map of the location; and transmit, to the authorized agency device, the map of the location (¶ 70, navigation including waypoints is transmitted to devices/emergency responders).
Regarding claim 19,
Will teaches:
receive, by the video conference provider, one or more multimedia streams from each of the one or more plurality of client devices joined to the incident response session; and transmit, to the authorized agency device, the one or more multimedia streams from each of the one or more plurality of client devices joined to the incident response session (¶ 69, transmitting video streams related to incident).
Claim 10, 17 are addressed by similar rationale as claim 1.
Claim 4, 6, 9, 14-16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Will, Ackerman, Rosenberg, Huang in view of US 20230144781 to Han.
Regarding claim 6,
Will fails to teach: receiving, from the authorized agency device, a request to create one or more breakout rooms for the incident response session; receiving, from the authorized agency device, an assignment of participants for each of the one or more breakout rooms; generating, by the video conference provider, the one or more breakout rooms; and joining, by the video conference provider, client devices based on the assignment of participants to a respective breakout room of the one or more breakout rooms as indicated by the authorized agency device.
However, Han teaches:
receiving, from a device, a request to create one or more breakout rooms for a response session; receiving, from the device, an assignment of participants for each of the one or more breakout rooms; generating, by the video conference provider, the one or more breakout rooms; and joining, by the video conference provider, client devices based on the assignment of participants to a respective breakout room of the one or more breakout rooms as indicated by the device (abstract, ¶ 4, 16, 19-20, receiving request for breakout room session; assignment of participants; generation of breakout room; joining client devices based on assignment of participants).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Han. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of Han would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating video conferencing management including assigning smaller group sessions (Han, ¶ 16, 20).
Regarding claim 4, 14,
Will fails to teach:
granting, by the video conference provider, host controls for the incident response session to the authorized agency device; and transmitting, to the one or more client devices, a notification that the authorized agency device is the host of the incident response session.
However, Han teaches: granting, by the video conference provider, host controls for session to an authorized device (¶ 55, granting host control). Motivation to include Han is the same as presented above and additional to facilitate conference control.
Although Han does not explicitly disclose “transmitting, to the one or more client devices, a notification that the authorized device is the host of the session” it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include “transmitting, to the one or more client devices, a notification that the authorized device is the host of the session” because it would be advantageous to identify the host to conference participants.
Regarding claim 9,
Will teaches:
wherein the second authorized agency device corresponds to a second authorized agency that is different from the authorized agency corresponding to the authorized agency device (¶ 83, 163, escalations to emergency dispatch, control center), and the method further comprising: granting, by the video conference provider, host controls to the second authorized agency device based on predefined criteria for the second authorized agency having higher authority than the authorized agency (¶ 83, granting control to escalated/higher authorities).
Will discloses granting control but not granting “host control”. Nevertheless, Han discloses the technology to grant host controls (¶ 55). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Han with the system of Will to enable the granting of host controls to the various parties of Will such as the second authorized agency device. The motivation to include the teachings of Han is the same as presented above.
Claim 15 is addressed by similar rationale as claim 9.
Regarding claim 16,
Will does not explicitly disclose: “update, by the video conference provider, the notification to indicate that the second authorized agency device is the host of the incident response session”. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include “update, by the video conference provider, the notification to indicate that the second authorized agency device is the host of the incident response session” because it would be advantageous to identify the host to conference participants.
Regarding claim 20,
Will fails to teach:
grant, by the video conference provider, host controls of the incident response session to the authorized agency device, wherein the host controls allow the authorized agency device to control the one or more multimedia streams received from each of the one or more plurality of client devices joined to the incident response session.
However, Han teaches:
grant, by the video conference provider, host controls of the session to an authorized device, wherein the host controls allow a device to control the one or more multimedia streams received from each of the one or more plurality of client devices joined to the session (¶ 55, granting host controls). The motivation to include the teachings of Han is the same as presented above.
CONCLUSION
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN J JAKOVAC whose telephone number is (571)270-5003. The examiner can normally be reached on 8-4 PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Oscar A. Louie can be reached on 572-270-1684. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RYAN J JAKOVAC/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445