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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4-9, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fischell et al. (US 12,521,071) in view of Ng et al. (US 2020/0374952).
Referring to Claim 1, Fischell teaches a first wireless network device (see wand 145 in fig. 3), comprising:
a far-field transceiver (see antenna 146 in fig. 3);
a near-field transceiver (see antenna 144 in fig. 3);
wherein the first wireless network device is configured to be wirelessly near-field coupled to a second wireless network device that also includes a far-field transceiver and a near-field transceiver (see col. 15, lines 27-44 which shows the wand 145 communicating with IMD 10 using either near field or far field communication);
wherein the first wireless network device is further configured to be wirelessly near-field coupled to a set of near-field wireless network devices using the near-field transceiver (see col. 15, lines 27-44 which shows the wand 145 communicating with SSMD 800 and SCM 900 using near field communication);
wherein first wireless network device, the second wireless network device, and the set of near-field wireless network devices are configured to be in physical contact with a body (see col. 12, lines 31-46 which shows the IMD, SSMD, and SCM all in physical contact with the body and col. 15, lines 27-31 which shows the wand 144 being held by a user); and
wherein the first wireless network device is configured to be wirelessly far-field coupled to a third wireless network device only if the second wireless network device is not wirelessly far-field coupled to the third wireless network device (see col. 15, lines 32-34 which shows the wand 145 wirelessly coupled to programmer 140 and fig. 3 which shows IMD 10 not communicating at all with programmer 140).
Fischell does not teach wherein the first wireless network device is further configured to be wirelessly near-field coupled to a set of near-field wireless network devices using only the near-field transceiver. Ng teaches the first wireless network device is further configured to be wirelessly near-field coupled to a set of near-field wireless network devices using only the near-field transceiver (see paragraph 91 which shows how only near-field is used between devices connected to the body). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Ng to the device of Fischell in order to more efficiently allocate power in order to better conserve energy.
Referring to Claim 2, Ng also teaches wherein the first wireless network device, the second network device, and the set of near-field wireless network devices together form a wireless near-field body area network (WBAN) (see paragraph 77 which shows the WBAN network) according to an IEEE 802.15.6 standard (see paragraph 71 which shows the IEEE standard).
Referring to Claim 4, Fischell also teaches wherein if the first wireless network device is far-field coupled to the third wireless network device, then the second wireless network device is blocked from being far-field coupled to the third wireless network device (see fig. 3 which shows IMD 10 not communicating at all with programmer 140 which implies that the IMD is blocked from being far-field coupled to the programmer).
Referring to Claim 5, Fischell also teaches the third wireless network device far-field coupled to only one of the wireless network devices that are in physical contact with the body (see 140 of fig. 3 only connected to wand 144).
Referring to Claim 6, Fischell also teaches only one of either the first wireless network device and the second wireless network device far-field coupled to the third wireless network device at a time (see fig. 3 which shows IMD 10 not communicating at all with programmer 140 which implies that only the wand is coupled to the programmer).
Referring to Claim 7, Fischell also teaches the third wireless network device communicating with all on-body devices using only the far-field coupling with either the first wireless network device or the second wireless network device (see programmer 140 of fig. 3 coupled with wand 144 which communicates with other on body devices 10, 800, and 900).
Referring to Claim 8, Ng also teaches the far-field coupling uses plane wave RF signals; and wherein the near-field coupling uses quasi-static electric signals (see paragraph 76 which shows communication using RF plane waves and NFEMI quasi-static fields).
Referring to Claim 9, Fischell also teaches the first and second wireless network devices are on-body devices (see col. 12, lines 31-46 which shows the IMD in physical contact with the body and col. 15, lines 27-31 which shows the wand 144 being held by a user); wherein the third wireless network devices is an off-body device (see programmer 140 of fig. 3 not in contact with a body); wherein if the first wireless network device is wirelessly far-field coupled to the third wireless network device then the first wireless network device is a Leader device (see fig. 3 which shows wand 144 coupled to programmer 140); and wherein if the second wireless network device is not wirelessly far-field coupled to the third wireless network device then the second wireless network device is a Follower device (see fig. 3 which shows IMD 10 unable to connect with programmer 140).
Referring to Claim 19, Fischell also teaches wherein body includes at least: a human’s body, an animal’s body, a body of a living organism, a body structure of an inanimate object, a robot, a vehicle, a docking system, a physical computing system, a station on an assembly line, an edge device, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) device (see col. 15, lines 27-44 which shows the body as a human body).
Referring to Claim 20, Fischell also teaches the body between the first wireless network device and the second wireless network device (see col. 15, lines 27-44 which shows the wand outside the body and the IMD implanted inside the body).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fischell and Ng and further in view of Lynch (US 2023/0210458).
Referring to Claim 3, the combination of Fischell and Ng does not teach wherein the first wireless network device, the second network device, and the third wireless network device together form a wireless far-field personal area network (WPAN) according to an IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Lynch teaches wherein the first wireless network device, the second network device, and the third wireless network device together form a wireless far-field personal area network (WPAN) according to an IEEE 802.15.4 standard (see paragraph 118 which shows body worn devices and an external device operating under WPAN according to an IEEE 802.15.4 standard). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Lynch to the modified device of Fischell and Ng in order to provide a more reliable network for the device to operate.
Claim(s) 10-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fischell and Ng and further in view of Srivastava et al. (US 2020/0252993).
Referring to Claim 10, the combination of Fischell and Ng does not teach wherein either the on-body leader device, the on-body Follower device, or the off-body device is configured to switch the far-field coupling from the leader deice to the follower device in response to a trigger condition. Srivastava teaches wherein either the on-body leader device, the on-body Follower device, or the off-body device is configured to switch the far-field coupling from the leader deice to the follower device in response to a trigger condition (see fig. 1 which shows a master and slave earphone 112 and 114 in which only the master communicates with the external device 102 and paragraph 45 which shows the devices switching master and slave roles). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Srivastava to the modified device of Fischell and Ng in order to expand the capabilities of the device.
Referring to Claim 11, Srivastava also teaches wherein the trigger condition occurs if the leader device is not able to far-field couple with the off-body device (see paragraph 59 which shows a role switch based on link quality where a master device unable to couple with external device is implied to be due to poor link quality).
Referring to Claim 12, Srivastava also teaches wherein the trigger condition occurs if the leader device consumes more power to wirelessly couple to the off-body device than the follower device (see paragraph 37 which shows the master device consuming more power than the slave device).
Referring to Claim 13, Srivastava also teaches wherein the trigger condition occurs if the leader device has a lower battery energy level than the follower device (see paragraph 40 which shows the battery charge of the master being lower than a threshold triggering a swap).
Referring to Claim 14, Srivastava also teaches wherein the trigger condition occurs if the leader device has a lower remaining battery capacity than the follower device (see paragraph 40 which shows the battery charge of the master being lower than a threshold triggering a swap).
Referring to Claim 15, Srivastava also teaches wherein the trigger condition occurs if the leader device at least one of reaches an end-of-life, fails, or is disabled (see paragraph 59 which shows waning battery life where a fully drained battery implies end-of-life).
Referring to Claim 16, Srivastava also teaches wherein the trigger condition occurs if the leader device has a weaker signal connection to the off-body device than the follower device (see paragraph 40 which shows a swap based on link quality of the master device being worse than the slave).
Referring to Claim 17, Srivastava also teaches wherein after the trigger condition and a threshold period of time the far-field coupling switches back to the leader device from the follower device (see paragraph 71 which shows a swap occurring based on the time period of the role).
Referring to Claim 18, Srivastava also teaches wherein either the on-body leader device, the on-body follower device, or the off-body device is configured to ping or poll each other to check if a far-field coupling is possible (see paragraph 37 which shows polling by the slave device). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Srivastava to the modified device of Fischell and Ng in order to expand the capabilities of the device.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EUGENE YUN whose telephone number is (571)272-7860. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm.
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/EUGENE YUN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648