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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 1/23/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claim(s) have been considered but are moot because of the new grounds of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 4, 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. The Applicants specification states
“…An embodiment uses a presently available technique, such as a machine learning model, to combine received building profile data with usage data accumulated as a building management system manages environmental conditions within a building and derives one or more anticipated ambient temperatures, building usage patterns, and temperature gradients within a building under different weather conditions. An embodiment uses building usage patterns and temperature gradients to anticipate heating and cooling needs for portions of a building and assign users to workspaces accordingly (¶18).”
It is not clear from the specification how the deriving of “anticipated ambient temperatures” and “building usage patterns” are related to the adjusting of the ambient temperature of the workspace.
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, 5-9, 11, 12, 14-19 and 21-25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Verteletskyi et al. U.S. PGPub 2019/0172165 (hereinafter “Verteletskyi”) in view of Mohan et al. U.S. PGPub 2023/0316226 (hereinafter “Moon”).
Regarding claims 1, 8, 17, 24 and 25, Verteletskyi discloses a computer-implemented method comprising: receiving a workspace booking request (e.g. reservation request/space assignment request), the workspace booking request specifying a temperature preference (e.g. ¶49, 77 and 89, desired temperature), a time period (e.g. ¶34, 77 and 89, reserved time/requested time/specified time), and a set of equipment requirements (e.g. necessary/required devices/furniture/resources) (e.g. ¶32-33, 49, 77 and 89); assigning, according to the temperature preference and the set of equipment requirements, for the time period, a workspace (e.g. ¶32-33, 49, 51, 77 and 89); and adjusting, using a building management system (e.g. control module, HVAC system), during the time period, an ambient temperature of the workspace, the adjusting resulting in the ambient temperature matching, within a threshold amount, the temperature preference (e.g. ¶32-33, 48, 61, 94 and 105). Verteletskyi discloses assigning the workspace with a space that best matches requested parameters (e.g. ¶77-78 and 89), wherein one of the requested parameters is temperature for the space), which would minimize any required adjustments to achieve the desired parameters. Verteletsky does not explicitly disclose assigning to minimize the adjustments to the ambient temperature in particular.
Mohan explicitly discloses assigning a workspace to meet the needs of a booking request and specifically mentions matching the request with a workspace that matches closest to a desired environment temperature, thereby minimizing any potential adjustments needed to get the environment to the desired temperature (e.g. ¶62).
At the time the invention was filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to assign a workspace that is closest to a desired temperature. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to provide an occupant with a workspace that is the most comfortable for the occupant and requires minimal adjustments to get to the optimal condition.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to modify Verteletskyi with Mohan to obtain the invention as specified in claims 1-3, 5-9, 11, 12, 14-19 and 21-25.
Regarding claims 2, 11 and 18, Verteletskyi discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the temperature preference is extracted from a user profile (e.g. occupant profile), the user profile determined from a plurality of past workspace booking requests of a user (e.g. ¶32).
Regarding claims 3, 12 and 19, Verteletskyi discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: assigning, according to the temperature preference, for the time period, a second workspace (e.g. designated/other spaces), the second workspace assigned based on proximity to the workspace (e.g. ¶32).
Regarding claims 5, 14 and 21, Verteletskyi discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: assigning, according to a fourth temperature preference, for the time period, a fourth workspace, the fourth workspace assigned based on an anticipated ambient temperature of the fourth workspace during the time period (e.g. ¶57-58).
Regarding claims 6, 15 and 22, Verteletskyi discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: assigning, according to a fifth temperature preference, for the time period, a fifth workspace, the fifth workspace assigned to group a plurality of building occupants into an occupied portion of a building (e.g. ¶101-105).
Regarding claims 7, 16 and 23, Verteletskyi discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the fifth workspace is assigned using a building usage pattern (e.g. usage pattern, usage/location history) (e.g. ¶34, 55, 86 and 102).
Regarding claim 9, Verteletskyi discloses the computer program product of claim 8, wherein the stored program instructions are stored in a computer readable storage device in a data processing system, and wherein the stored program instructions are transferred over a network from a remote data processing system (e.g. ¶20-28; Fig. 1).
Regarding claims 24 and 25, Verteletskyi discloses a computing environment comprising: a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. ¶20-28; Fig. 1); at least one data processing system included in the configurable computing resources, the at least one data processing system comprising a processor unit and a data storage unit (e.g. ¶20-28; Fig. 1); a service delivery model to deliver on-demand access to the shared pool of resources (e.g. ¶20-28; Fig. 1); a metering capability to measure a service delivered via the service delivery model (e.g. ¶20-28; Fig. 1); and program instructions collectively stored on one or more computer readable storage media (e.g. ¶20-28; Fig. 1).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Verteletskyi and Mohan as applied to the claims above, and further in view of Salnikow CN-110073378-A (hereinafter “Salnikow”).
Regarding claim 10, Verteletskyi discloses the computer program product of claim 8, wherein the stored program instructions are stored in a computer readable storage device in a server data processing system (e.g. cloud computing environment), and wherein the stored program instructions are downloaded in response to a request over a network to a remote data processing system for use in a computer readable storage device associated with the remote data processing system (e.g. ¶18-28; Fig. 1), further comprising: program instructions to meter use of the program instructions associated with the request (e.g. ¶32-33, 49, 77 and 89). Verteletskyi discloses generating HVAC costs (e.g. ¶64 and 101), but does not explicitly discloses generating an invoice based on the metered use.
Salnikow discloses a system for booking spaces generating an invoice based on metered use (e.g. pg. 14, “the reservation server 102 is further able to generate invoice and the invoice is sent to the user device”).
At the time the invention was filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to generate an invoice of the HVAC costs. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this to provide the user a detailed document showing the cost of booking the space.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to modify Verteletskyi and Mohan with Salnikow to obtain the invention as specified in claim 10.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHARLES R KASENGE whose telephone number is (571)272-3743. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7:30am to 4pm EST.
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CK
March 10, 2026
/CHARLES R KASENGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2116