DETAILED ACTION
Applicant's election without traverse of Group I by Ms. Danica Harbaugh dated 12/9/25 is acknowledged.
Claims 9-10, 12-14, 16, 18-21, 23, 30-31, and 39 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to nonelected groups, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3, 6, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
It is unclear if the claim requires “filtering and truncating” or “filtering or truncating”. It is also unclear if this is a low-pass or high-pass filter. The examiner will interpret this as a low pass filter according to par. 61 of the Applicant’s Specification. Similarly, it is unclear if the filter is “6kHz and 7kHz” or “6kHz or 7kHz”. Examiner will examine this claim in the “or” interpretation.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The order in which the upsampling and downsampling matters. The claim, as written, does not include downsampling is followed by upsampling. Therefore, it would not be clear to one of ordinary skill in the world whether these steps happen simultaneously or in the opposite order.
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) 1-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guay et al. (US Patent 12,059,565) in view of Buddha et al. (PG Pub. 2022/0118251).
Regarding Claim 1, Guay discloses a method of producing a drug-simulating signal to simulate a physiological effect of a drug on a living organism, the method comprising:
measuring an electrostatic potential associated with a physiological system of the living organism under effect of the drug (see col. 1, lines 44-50);
recording the measurement of the electrostatic potential of the physiological system (see col. 5, lines 29-31);
generating the drug-simulating signal that is configured based on the recording of the measurement of the electrostatic potential of the physiological system (see col. 6, lines 32-46),
wherein the drug-simulating signal is controlled with an amplifier circuit of the closed system (see col. 3, lines 23-41), and
wherein the drug-simulating signal includes an electromagnetic signal configured to simulate the effect of the drug on the living organism (see col. 2, lines 19-22);
causing the amplifier circuit of the closed system to manipulate the drug-simulating signal based on feedback including measures of electrostatic potentials associated with the physiological system while being radiated with the drug-simulating signal to cause a desired physiological effect (see col. 6, line 60-col. 7, line 6);
controlling delivery of the drug-simulating signal in the closed system in response to the feedback and based on a computer program stored in the memory within the closed system (see col. 7, lines 11-26). Guay does not explicitly disclose recording to a memory of a closed system and responding to the feedback collected by the closed system to dynamically adapt efficacy of the drug-simulating signal toward the desired physiological effect. Buddha discloses a similar magnetic field stimulation apparatus (see par. 244) wherein the electrostatic potential is recorded to a memory of a closed system (see par. 590) and responding to the feedback collected to dynamically adapt the efficacy of the stimulation (see par. 584). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to dynamically adapt the stimulation based on feedback because Buddha teaches it helps optimize therapeutic benefit to the patient and minimize undesired effects (see par. 313).
Regarding Claim 2, The method of claim 1, wherein the closed system comprises a wearable device, a handheld device, or a combination thereof (see col. 27, lines 55-66).
Regarding Claim 3, Guay discloses low frequency stimulation (see Claim 11), but does not specifically disclose a 6kHz and/or 7kHz filter. Buddha discloses a lowpass filter for providing the stimulation current at various frequency ranges (see par. 189 and 191). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to filter the drug-simulating signal causing the physiological effect through a 6kHz or 7kHz filter because it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routing skill in the art (In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980)).
Claim(s) 5-6 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guay et al. (US Patent 12,059,565) in view of Buddha et al. (PG Pub. 2022/0118251) as applied to Claims 1-3 above, and further in view of Howard (PG Pub. 2022/0118258).
Regarding Claim 5, Guay discloses the signal is (1) down-sampled from about 44.1 kHz to 11 kHz or less (see col. 47, lines 30-34), but does not disclose up-sampling to 44.1kHz. Howard discloses a similar stimulation system that maximizes the sampling frequency to 96kHz (see par. 633). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to up-sample to 44.1 KHz because it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routing skill in the art (In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980)).
Regarding Claims 6 and 8, the removal of unnecessary RF energy and the reduction of a file size for the drug simulating signal are recited as intended results of the low-pass filtering and down-sampling steps of claims 3 and 5 above. In other words, since the prior art meets the limitations of claim 5, then it would be readily understood that the results of claims 6 and 8 would be achieved. By filtering out signals in claim 3 and down-sampling, the amount of data would be reduced which, in turn, would reduce any file size associated with the reduced amount of data. The claims as written do not require any other steps for accomplishing this function.
Conclusion
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/N.P/Examiner, Art Unit 3792
/ALLEN PORTER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3796