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
Claims 1, 10, 12, 16, 19, 28, and 33 are pending in the Amendments filed on 3/27/2026.
The amendments have changed the scope of the claims and a new ground of rejection is provided below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stein (WO2016/054440) in view of Thornton (US 9766356) and Kleijn (US 2014/0204716).
Regarding Claim 1 and 28, Stein teaches a wireless sensing network/system (Fig.10,Fig.5,Fig.6 and Par.67) comprising: a plurality of sensors (Par.65 and Par.67, sensor nodes 20); a gateway device configured to exchange data with the sensors (Par.65, Par.67 and Par.70, gateway node/full function node mapped to gateway); and a distributed decision engine comprising one or more sensor portions (Par.65:lines 4-8, sensors collect data, hence sensor portion) provided at one or more of the sensors (Par.70, sensor) and a gateway portion provided at the gateway device (Par.70, gateway, hence a gateway portion) (Par.70:lines 1-9: Distributed decision engine is interpreted as a system for making a decision where logic is spread across multiple systems. To this, the gateway and sensors work together to make a decision about frequency band to assign to each sensor); wherein each of the sensors is configurable to operate in a plurality of different transmission modes (Par.70, sensor 20 can operate on various modulation schemes), wherein the sensor transmits primary sensor data (Par.65:lines 4-8 and Par.70:lines 1-9, sensors collect data and send it to the gateway) and/or {optional language given no patentable weight); and wherein the gateway device is arranged to selectively control the operation of the sensors and to configure the sensor transmission mode (Par.70, gateway controls sensor nodes modulation scheme based on data received from sensor nodes). Stein further teaches that the gateway device aggregates (Par.65:lines 4-8 and Par.70) and communicates collected data to network elements of a network (Par.70 and Par.44)
However, Stein does not explicitly teach wherein the gateway device is configured to apply an intentional time delay to data received from the sensors or to a time-stamp associated with the data received from the sensors.
Thornton teaches that it is well known in the art to add intentional time delay to individual data received from the sensors (Col.6:lines 16-20 and Col.3:lines 46-62). A skilled artisan would recognize that it would be obvious for the gateway of Stein to add the selected time delay, as taught by Thornton, since Stein is already performing aggregation of the sensor data to be transmitted to a network element. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Stein such that the gateway that holds sensor data (i.e. aggregated data) can be modified, as taught by Thornton, to add an intentional time delay in order to provide an enhanced system which uses “beamforming” to maximize the response originating from a direction and further minimizes noise from the data. However, the combination of Stein and Thornton does not expressly teach the gateway device is further configured to estimate a source location of a significant event; and wherein estimating the source location of a significant event comprises: determining a relative spatial distribution of one or more sensors; measuring a time delay with which each of said sensors detects the significant event; and extrapolating the estimated source location of the significant event from the time delay correlation of the sensors and their relative spatial distribution.
Kleijn teaches a gateway device (Fig.3 and Par.81, computing device is gateway) is further configured to estimate a source location of a significant event (Fig.2:235 and Par.60: location of acoustic event); and wherein estimating the source location of a significant event comprises: determining a relative spatial distribution of one or more sensors (Par.60, location of sensors: Fig.2:230); measuring a time delay with which each of said sensors detects the significant event (Fig.2:200, 205 and Par.55-56, internal delay generated); and extrapolating the estimated source location of the significant event (Fig.2:235 and Par.60) from the time delay correlation of the sensors and their relative spatial distribution (Fig.2:230 and Par.59-60).
Examiner notes that Stein further teaches that it is well known that the sensors can collect various data from surroundings (Par.28: such as optical, magnetic, mechanical, thermal, biological, chemical, visual, infrared, and/or other type of sensors for monitoring various parameters, Par.51, such as optical, magnetic, mechanical, thermal, biological, chemical, visual, infrared, and/or other type of sensors for monitoring various parameters). A skilled artisan recognizes that Stein is not limited only to sensor measurements as listed in the cited paragraph and would recognize that that the gateway and sensor communication system in Stein and Thornton can obviously be modified to by the teachings of Kleijn to incorporate audio sensor measurement to determine a source location of a significant event based on delays. The combination provides an enhanced warning system where sensors detect data from the surrounding environment (detecting audio) in an aircraft can identify the source of a potential disruption such as an unexpected loud noise or loud person speaking.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stein (WO2016/054440), Thornton (US 9766356), and Kleijn (US 2014/0204716) in further view of Applicants Admitted Prior Art (AAPA).
Regarding Claim 10, dependent on Claim 2, Stein, Thorton, and Klein do not explicitly teach wherein each sensor has an internal time counter and all data are transmitted from the sensors to the gateway with a time-stamp.
AAPA teaches that it is well known for sensors to have an internal time counter and all data are transmitted from the sensors to the gateway with a time-stamp. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the combined invention of Stein, Thornton, and Klein with the further teachings of the AAPA such that an enhanced device can be provided which can utilize the timestamps to provide accurate event sequencing which aids in aligning the data accurately, hence enhancing the reliability of the information.
Claim 33 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stein (WO2016/054440), Thornton (US 9766356), and Kleijn (US 2014/0204716) in further view of Li (Distributed Data Mining Based on Deep Neural Network for Wireless Sensor Network)
Regarding Claim 33, Stein teaches that the gateway device aggregates (Par.65:lines 4-8 and Par.70) and communicates the collected data to network elements of a network (Par.70 and 44, gateway node transmits to network element), however the combination of Stein, Thornton, and Kleijn does not expressly teach wherein the decision engine comprises a distributed neural network with a plurality of layers and each of the one or more sensor portions of the decision engine comprises one or more of said layers, and the gateway portion comprises the remaining layers.
Li teaches a WSN comprises a distributed neural network with a plurality of layers and each of the one or more sensor portions of the decision engine comprises one or more of said layers, and the gateway portion comprises the remaining layers (Page 3:section 3 and Fig.3(c), “dividing the DNN into layers and putting them into different levels of the WSN. Figure 3(c) gives an example of dividing the DNN into two parts and putting them in the fusion center and all sensors”. Note: Fusion center is mapped to the gateway. Layers are put in the fusion center and all sensors, whatever is not in the sensors would obviously be in the gateway portion).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combined invention of Stein, Thornton, and Kleijn with the teachings of Li to provide layers within the gateway and sensors to provide an enhanced energy efficient network. By partitioning the layers, total energy can be reduced by avoiding heavy transmissions or heavy local computation
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12, 16, and 19 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 (Assuming the 112b issue in claim 10 is corrected)
Conclusion
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/WESLEY L KIM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2648
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