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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/4/26 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-11 and 17-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Newly submitted claims 21-23 are directed to an invention that is independent or distinct from the invention originally claimed for the following reasons: The claims are directed to approving or unapproving the electronic device based on the identification of the electronic device associated with the received data. The data is routed and forwarded to a protocol decoder selected from among a plurality of protocol decoders, the payload of the data is decoded using the selected protocol decoder and converted from a first format to a second format. These steps are newly submitted with the added claims 21-23 submitted with the RCE dated 3/4/26. The subject matter of the newly, added claims are not patentably distinct from the original claims submitted, already considered and rejected therefore, causing a burden.
Since applicant has received an action on the merits for the originally presented invention, this invention has been constructively elected by original presentation for prosecution on the merits. Accordingly, claims 21-23 are withdrawn from consideration as being directed to a non-elected invention. See 37 CFR 1.142(b) and MPEP § 821.03.
To preserve a right to petition, the reply to this action must distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement. Otherwise, the election shall be treated as a final election without traverse. Traversal must be timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are subsequently added, applicant must indicate which of the subsequently added claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
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) 1-5, 7-11 and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mokady et al. (Mokady), U.S. Patent No. 10,887,764 in view of Lamb et al. (Lamb), U.S. Publication No. 2020/0260237.
Regarding Claims 1 and 17, Mokady discloses a computer system,
comprising:
a computation device; and
memory that stores program instructions, wherein, when executed by the computation device, causes the computer system to perform operations comprising:
obtaining data associated with an electronic device, wherein the data is a payload and has a first format (in other words, an application on the device 115 (e.g., a speech-detection application) may generate text to be received by the server shown in figure 1A; see col. 4, lines 22-23 and col. 4, lines 11-13);
computing a context of the data (i.e., auto populate a message, along with a recipient address or phone number. The user may then be asked to press the send button to send the message data… Receipt of the message data by the server 120b may trigger a verification service and/or verification domain on the server 120b. Responsive to receiving the message data, the server 120b may generate a verification code therefore, considered as computing a context of the data for receipt and triggering verification; see col. 4, lines 24-31);
based at least in part on the context, identifying the electronic device associated with the data (i.e., the server 120b may generate message data (e.g., a response message) comprising the audio data (e.g., audio verification data) or a link to the audio data, and sends the message data to the phone number from which the initial message data was received. The communication router devices 125 may then send the message data to the device associated with the phone number, which is the device 115 that generated the initial text message therefore, the electronic device associated with the data is identified; see col. 4, line 63-col. 5, line 4); and
translating, based at least in part on the identified electronic device, the data from the first format to a second format (i.e., the message data may be included in a text message (e.g., an SMS or MMS message) that includes the audio data or a link to the audio data; see col. 5, lines 4-6), wherein the second format is common to additional data associated with multiple different types of electronic devices, wherein the additional data is stored in or is associated with the computer system (i.e., Other examples of protocols that may be used to send and receive the message data include hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), hypertext transport protocol secure (HTTPS), simple object access protocol (SOAP), and so on. The message data may include a header and a payload, which may vary based on the messaging protocol used. FIG. 1C illustrates transmission of the message data from the server(s) 120a-b to the device 115; see col. 5, lines 6-14),
wherein the translating comprises decoding the data (in other words, an audio decoder that processes the audio and decodes the audio into a non-audio (e.g., text or alphanumeric) representation of the verification code.; see col. 14, lines 13-17).
Mokady fails to disclose in a packet associated with an IoT communication protocol and through a multi-protocol payload translation into a common structured data representation.
Lamb discloses in a packet associated with an IoT communication protocol and
through a multi-protocol payload translation into a common structured data representation (see paragraph [0003] and figure 1).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to consider Lamb’s invention with Mokady’s invention to instantly simplify and expand connectivity options as described throughout Lamb.
Regarding Claims 2 and 18, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system and method as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the computer system comprises an interface circuit configured to communicate with the electronic device, the obtaining comprises receiving the data associated with the electronic device, and the electronic device is at an arbitrary location relative to the computer system, the first format comprises one of a set of formats or both (see col. 3, lines 51-67 and figure 1A).
Regarding Claim 3, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the set of formats is associated with multiple different communication protocols (see col. 4, lines 1-13).
Regarding Claims 4 and 19, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system and method as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the context comprises one or more of: a type of the data (see col. 4, lines 20-25), a type of the electronic device, the first format, a gateway that forwards the data associated with the electronic device to the computer system.
Regarding Claims 5 and 20, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system and method as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the identifying is based at least in part on one or more of: an identifier of the electronic device (see col. 4, line 63-col. 5, line 4), a subset of the data, a name of the electronic device, or additional data associated with a second electronic device, which is different from the electronic device.
Regarding Claim 7, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the subset of the data comprises a payload in a packet or a frame (see col. 8, lines 15-32).
Regarding Claim 8, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the second format is associated with multiple different applications that provide services based at least in part on the data having the second format (see col. 5, lines 6-14).
Regarding Claim 9, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the operations comprise automatically learning the first format when the electronic device, the data or both have not been previously encountered by the computer system (see col. 4, lines 22-27).
Regarding Claim 10, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein one or more of the computing, identifying or translating is performed using a pretrained model (see col. 17, lines 7-11).
Regarding Claim 11, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system as described above. Mokady further discloses wherein the pretrained model comprises a machine-learning model or a neural network (see col. 17, lines 7-11).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mokady and Lamb in view of Gupta et al. (Gupta), U.S. Publication No. 2024/0251239.
Regarding Claim 6, Mokady and Lamb disclose the computer system as
described above. Mokady and Lamb fail to disclose wherein the identifier of the electronic device comprises a media access control (MAC) address or an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number. Gupta discloses wherein the identifier of the electronic device comprises a media access control (MAC) address or an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number (see paragraphs [0073] and [0074]). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to consider Gupta’s invention with Mokady’s and Lamb’s invention to minimize risks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use (see paragraph [0167] of Gupta).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHANTELL LAKETA HEIBER whose telephone number is (571)272-0886. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9am to 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Anthony Addy, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-7795. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHANTELL L HEIBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2645
August 19, 2026
