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 .
The examiner acknowledges receipt of request for extension of time, request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, amendment and remarks, all filed 01/26/2026.
Claims 1-7 are canceled.
Claim 8 is amended.
Claims 8-13 are pending.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/26/2026 has been entered.
Priority
This application is a DIV of 16765142 filed 05/18/2020, now abandoned, which is a 371 of PCT/US2019/013594 filed 01/15/2019, and which claims benefit of 62/586,858 filed 11/15/2017.
Response to Arguments
For rejection under 35 USC 102, the rejection is withdrawn in light of the amendment to claim 8.
Applicant has not presented arguments as to why the rejection under 35 USC 103 should be withdrawn. Thus the examiner is unable to address arguments that have not been presented.
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.
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(s) 8-9, 11, 12 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yehenew et al., “AutoHydrate: A Wearable Hydration Monitoring System” in 2016 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2016, 1857-1862.
For claims 8-9, 11, 12 and 13, Yehenew teaches wearable hydration monitoring system that monitors hydration using embedded computer, throat microphone, smartwatch and smartphone application that signals hydration levels in a subject (see the whole document, sections II-III). The wearable hydration monitoring system monitors/recognizes drinking activity and body hydration level and that would trigger drinking from recommendation from the recognized hydration level of the body (see the whole document with emphasis on sections IV and V) teaching the requirement of claim 9. The throat microphone is used to collect acoustic signals from the throat area, smartwatch is used to collect body activity, hydration information is sent to the smartphone using a blue tooth; the smartphone application displays the amount of fluid taken, daily activity, and amount of fluid that should be taken for the day (see section VI) as required by claims 12 and 13 in that amount of fluid taken and amount of fluid to be taken daily is displayed on the smartphone application display with the fluid being the hydration composition, and the display meet the requirement of claim 11.
Yehenew differs from claim 8 by not specifically teaching that the fluid discharged is detected. However, in the introduction, Yehenew teaches that the healthy adult has 45-75% body water composition and that the body adapts to changes in water intake and losses to keep its water balance (left column, second full paragraph under introduction on page 1857). Since the wearable hydration monitoring system monitors/recognizes drinking activity and body hydration level and that would trigger drinking from recommendation from the recognized hydration level of the body (see the whole document with emphasis on sections IV and V) and since the body adapts to water intake and loses to keep water balance (left column, second full paragraph under introduction on page 1857), it would be reasonable that the detection system of the wearable hydration monitoring system would be expected to predictably detect water loss, which is the same as amount of fluid discharged. Thus, it would be reasonable to expect that the wearable hydration monitoring system would predictably also detect loss of fluid or discharged fluid with the expectation that the system will send the message to the subject to trigger drinking from recommendation from the recognized hydration level of the body.
Therefore, Yehenew renders claims 8-9, 11, 12 and 13 prima facie obvious.
Claim(s) 8, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yehenew et al., “AutoHydrate: A Wearable Hydration Monitoring System” in 2016 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2016, 1857-1862, as applied to claims 8 and 9, in view of Intravenous fluid therapy in adults in hospital in clinical guideline, 2013.
Claim 9 depends on claim 8. Claim 10 depends on claim 9.
Yehenew has been described above to render claims 8 and 9 prima facie obvious.
For claim 10, Yehenew does not teach the sensor being coupled to element that is capable of holding fluid. In the clinical guideline of December 2013, intravenous (IV) fluid therapy is known to be applied to hydrate a subject (see the whole document with emphasis on pages 8 of 27 to 15 or 27). Before the effective date of the invention, the artisan could apply what is done for hydration/dehydration in Yehenew to use the continuous delivery of hydration fluid in the IV process based on design incentive to achieve the goal of hydrating the subject.
Yehenew in view of 2013 clinical guideline renders claim 10 prima facie obvious.
No claim is allowed.
Prior art of Interest: Saravazyan et al., “Acoustical Method of Whole-Body Hydration Status Monitoring” in Acoust Phys. 2016 July; 62(4):514-522 discloses method of monitoring whole body hydration using hydration monitor for accessing water balance of the human body that uses ultrasound velocity in muscle (see the whole document with emphasis on the abstract and conclusions under section 6). The ultrasonic detection of water imbalance in the subject reads on sensor detecting level of hydration in a subject.
The specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Conclusion
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/BLESSING M FUBARA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1613