DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1, 13 and 20 have been amended. examined and are pending.
Claims 3 and 10 have been cancelled.
Claims 1-2, 4-9 and 11-20 have been examined and are pending.
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.
Claims 1 – 2, 4 – 9 and 11 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0043064 to Wright et al. (hereinafter Wright), in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0208546 to Locke et al. (hereinafter Locke) and in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 2020/0380623 to Ranjan et al. (hereinafter Ranjan).
Claim 1, Wright discloses (Fig. 1, 7B, ¶4 and ¶12) a Network Intelligent Notification & Configuration Engine (NINCE) for individual monitoring of controlled space for transitory uses with at least one monitoring hardware device, and further it discloses:
facility management environment (Wright discloses (Fig. 1 and ¶13) controlled spaces such as a facility or a property) having a plurality of sensors disposed around a facility (Wright discloses ¶12 monitoring devices with sensor(s) and radio(s) for a given controlled space), each sensor in communication with a facility manager for reporting sensed conditions (Wright discloses (¶12) monitoring devices with sensors communicate motion, activity, events, occurrences, to various authorized stakeholders such as the facility operator i.e. facility manager)
a method for resolving a sensed anomaly in the facility, comprising: (Wright discloses (¶242) the event/alert/incident/status change/information update may be of a possible fire, flooding, break-in, natural disaster, intrusion, device malfunction, sensor data (e.g., motion, temperature, humidity, water, etc.) that exceeds established real-time sensor data thresholds, combinations thereof, and/or the like)
receiving an alert from a sensor, the alert indicative of an anomaly in the facility (Wright discloses (Fig. 1, ¶157) monitoring device 100 (with sensor(s) and radio(s) for a given controlled space) generate alerts and notifications (¶242, Fig. 1) of a possible device malfunction, sensor data (e.g., motion, temperature, humidity, water, etc.) that exceeds established real-time sensor data thresholds)
identifying one or more responsible entities based on the anomaly (Wright discloses ¶157 monitoring device 100 generate alerts and notifications (Fig. 1) to one or more responsible entities (authorized stakeholders), for example: facility operator 405, tenant 401, worker 405, (¶195) worker/management of insurance companies, first responder, law enforcement, government entity, (¶220) on/off-site maintenance staff. Wright discloses (¶312) to automatically escalate (i.e. meaning not every responsible entity is notified at the same time) based on the data received and an escalation command from one or more authorized persons) each responsible entity associated with an interactive device operable for communication with others of the responsible entities (Wright discloses (¶182) smartphone or a tablet device associated with responsible entities e.g. tenant (device 303) or facility operator (device 305) or provider (device 309) for interactive communication (¶337) e.g. instant messaging, web messaging, chat with other personnel)
establishing a communication thread based on the received alert (Wright discloses (¶242) the NINCE 367 may communicate some event/alert/incident/information/status change updates to Tenant 401, Tenant N+1 403, and/or with the Facility Operator 405 for the given storage unit 101.)
the communication thread responsive to participants associated with the received alert, the participants including at least the one or more responsible entities and the facility manager (Wright discloses (¶249) that in response of the received interaction (yes, no, acknowledgement etc.) the system (e.g., NINCE 367) provide interaction/communications (notices, messaging, alerts, responses) to other authorized persons (e.g. Tenant 401, Tenant N+1 403, Facility Operator (i.e. facility manager), insurance personnel, law enforcement personnel, fire department personnel, first responder personnel, etc.), with optional escalation or de-escalation, for increased real-time responsiveness and/or intelligence)
Wright does not explicitly disclose the anomaly further defined by establishing a range of values for each sensor of the plurality of sensors, designating, for each sensor, values in the range deemed to define a current anomaly and periodically polling each of the sensors for determining an existence of the anomaly. However, in an analogous art, Locke teaches:
the anomaly further defined by (Locke teaches (¶90) responses to detected or diagnosed faults can include providing an alert message to a user) establishing a range of values for each sensor of the plurality of sensors (Locke teaches (¶15) predefined threshold values, and setting adjustment range values and adjustment time values (¶85), a range of values of the data point (¶186) for e.g. set-point temperature range (¶68) to maintain the temperature of supply air)
designating, for each sensor, values in the range deemed to define a current anomaly (Locke teaches (¶212) abnormal indoor temperature results from an analytic operation to determine an abnormal temperature e.g., exceeds or falls below a threshold value)
and periodically polling each of the sensors for determining an existence of the anomaly (Locke teaches (¶199) data is updated (e.g., during predetermined intervals) such as periodic temperature readings are received from a thermostat, and it determine/monitor (¶212) for an abnormal temperature.)
It would have been obvious as of the effective filing date to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine facility management environment having a plurality of sensors disposed around a facility, each sensor in communication with a facility manager for reporting sensed conditions, a method for resolving a sensed anomaly in the facility, comprising: receiving an alert from a sensor, the alert indicative of an anomaly in the facility, the anomaly further defined by: establishing a range of values for each sensor of the plurality of sensors, designating, for each sensor, values in the range deemed to define a current anomaly, and periodically polling each of the sensors for determining an existence of the anomaly, identifying one or more responsible entities based on the anomaly each responsible entity associated with an interactive device operable for communication with others of the responsible entities, establishing a communication thread based on the received alert, the communication thread responsive to participants associated with the received alert, the participants including at least the one or more responsible entities and the facility manager, as disclosed by Wright, and the anomaly further defined by establishing a range of values for each sensor of the plurality of sensors, designating, for each sensor, values in the range deemed to define a current anomaly and periodically polling each of the sensors for determining an existence of the anomaly, as taught by Locke, for the purpose of implementing (¶5) building management system with artificial intelligence based control of a building.
Wright in view of Locke does not explicitly disclose the communication thread defining an interactive messaging exchange between each participant of a plurality of the participants, including; sending a communication from an initiating participant of the participants; and receiving the sent communication at each of the other participants of the plurality of participants, the sent communication including at least one of a narrative and a graphical component, the narrative component rendered on the interactive device of the participant visually or audibly, receiving a communication from one of a plurality of the participants, and delivering, via the communication thread, the communication to the interactive device associated with each of the respective participants. However, in an analogous art, Ranjan teaches:
the communication thread defining an interactive messaging exchange between each participant of a plurality of the participants (Ranjan discloses (¶195) technicians in a live chat interface), including;
sending a communication from an initiating participant of the participants (Ranjan discloses cloud implemented incident management system (Figs. 16, 18-19 and ¶180-¶182) where incident workflow provides acknowledge/assign/verify sequence via communication between devices connected to cloud system 102); and
receiving the sent communication at each of the other participants of the plurality of participants (Ranjan discloses (¶195) technicians in a live chat interface),
the sent communication including at least one of a narrative and a graphical component, the narrative component rendered on the interactive device of the participant visually or audibly (Ranjan discloses (¶183 and Fig. 21:2100) graphical user interface (GUI) display interfaces showing incident details, status indicators and graphical equipment images)
receiving a communication from one of a plurality of the participants (Ranjan discloses (¶181) an administrator receive a call and/or an incident ticket which describes the incident and the administrator feed a transcript of the call and/or the incident description and picture into incident management system)
and delivering, via the communication thread, the communication to the interactive device associated with each of the respective participants (Ranjan discloses (Fig. 19 and ¶181) the incident workflow depicts bidirectional exchanges: the user device, administrator, and technician exchange messages (incident occurs … acknowledgement … assign the incident to a technician … incident resolved by the technician … verify and close the incident). The BMS server receives and forwards these communications between the participants)
It would have been obvious as of the effective filing date to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine facility management environment having a plurality of sensors disposed around a facility, each sensor in communication with a facility manager for reporting sensed conditions, a method for resolving a sensed anomaly in the facility, comprising: receiving an alert from a sensor, the alert indicative of an anomaly in the facility, the anomaly further defined by: establishing a range of values for each sensor of the plurality of sensors, designating, for each sensor, values in the range deemed to define a current anomaly, and periodically polling each of the sensors for determining an existence of the anomaly, identifying one or more responsible entities based on the anomaly each responsible entity associated with an interactive device operable for communication with others of the responsible entities, establishing a communication thread based on the received alert, the communication thread responsive to participants associated with the received alert, the participants including at least the one or more responsible entities and the facility manager, and the anomaly further defined by establishing a range of values for each sensor of the plurality of sensors, designating, for each sensor, values in the range deemed to define a current anomaly and periodically polling each of the sensors for determining an existence of the anomaly, as disclosed by Wright in view of Locke, and the communication thread defining an interactive messaging exchange between each participant of a plurality of the participants, including; sending a communication from an initiating participant of the participants; and receiving the sent communication at each of the other participants of the plurality of participants, the sent communication including at least one of a narrative and a graphical component, the narrative component rendered on the interactive device of the participant visually or audibly, receiving a communication from one of a plurality of the participants, and delivering, via the communication thread, the communication to the interactive device associated with each of the respective participants, as taught by Ranjan, for the purpose of implementing a building management system (¶2) that is configured to identify the domain entities based on data specific to a particular building management system.
Claim 2, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan in view of Locke discloses all the elements of claim 1. Further, they disclose:
reporting the alert to at least one of the responsible entities (Ranjan discloses (¶181) an administrator may receive a call and/or an incident ticket which describes the incident); and
commencing the communication thread after reporting the alert (Ranjan discloses (Fig. 19:1910, ¶181) incident management system 1604 may verify the incident was resolved and close the incident.) The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 3, (Cancelled).
Claim 4, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 1. Further, they disclose:
identifying the interactive device associated with each participant (Ranjan discloses (Fig. 13) communication with any user device or client device (e.g. mobile phone or ethernet card/port) using the communication interface) and commencing the communication thread from a network identifier of a telecommunications network accessible to each of the interactive devices (Ranjan discloses (¶103) communications interface can include cellular or mobile phone communications transceivers.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 5, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 1. Further, they disclose:
recognizing the received communication as directed to the facility manager (Wright discloses monitoring device 100 generate alerts and notifications (Fig. 1 and ¶157, ¶195) to one or more responsible entities (authorized stakeholders), for example: facility operator 405)
generating a response based on the received communication (Wright discloses ¶157 monitoring device 100 (with sensor(s) and radio(s) for a given controlled space) and generate alerts and notifications (¶242, Fig. 1) based on possible device malfunction, sensor data (e.g., motion, temperature, humidity, water, etc.) that exceeds established real-time sensor data thresholds) and
delivering, via the communication thread, the generated response to the interactive device associated with each of the respective participants (Wright discloses delivering to facility operator 405 via the smartphone or a tablet device (¶182) associated with responsible entities e.g. facility operator device 305).
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 6, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 1. Further, they disclose:
parsing the received communication for identification of keywords (Ranjan discloses (¶165) building management system with incident management and natural language processing (NLP) where the NLP module 1616 may parse the phone call transcript description of the incident to identify keywords)
recognizing keywords forming a query directed to the facility manager (Ranjan discloses (¶159) NLP module 1616 may identify a group or chunk of words in a text segment as an intent based on parts of speech of each of the words)
performing the query based on data gathered from the plurality of sensors (Wright discloses performing data gathering and generating alert based on a plurality of sensors as shown in ¶273-¶277 and Fig. 5B: 505)
generating a response based on the gathered data (Ranjan discloses (¶172) NLP module identify the outlet as burnt and determine that the issue is severe based on an entity, keywords and/or intents from the phone call)
and delivering, via the communication thread, the generated response to the interactive device associated with the each of the respective participants (Ranjan discloses (¶175) entity matcher 1622 identify the second entity (e.g. a technician) that has the most experience with the identified type and aspects of the incident and transmit a signal to a computing device (e.g., user device 1602) of the second entity indicating for the second entity to fix or resolve the incident.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 7, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 1. Further, they disclose:
wherein the keywords include phrases recognizable by a Natural Language Processing (NLP) module at the facility manager (Ranjan discloses (Fig. 16) a building management system with a NLP module and (¶155) NLP module is configured to identify entities, intents, keywords, and/or contexts of text segments provided to incident management system using natural language processing techniques.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 8, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 7. Further, they disclose:
storing a repository of NLP phrases recognizable by the facility manager (Ranjan discloses ( (¶153) storing the identified entities, intents, keywords, and/or contexts in incident database 1624); and recognizing the keywords based on a correspondence to the repository (Ranjan discloses (¶160) NLP module 1616 compare the words of the text segment to a table of incident database 1624 to determine if any of the words have a match within the table.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 9, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 7. Further, they disclose:
training a model of phrases receivable by the facility manager (Ranjan discloses (¶101) language processing system use the text as an input and the selected intent and domain to train an internal machine learning model of the language processing system. Further, Rajan discloses (Fig. 13 and ¶134) the data processing system ensures that the data being sent to the language processing service for training is accurate and the language processing service can be trained properly)
computing a candidate query from applying the keywords to the model (Ranjan ¶120 the data processing system may compare the words of the candidate entities to words in a database 1005)
generating a probability that the computed candidate query corresponds to the communication (Ranjan ¶121 determine similarity scores between the candidate entities and each stored entity of the database based on how close the spellings and phonetic spelling are between the candidate entities and the stored entities to a first threshold e.g., 70%)
and employing the candidate query for performing the query (Ranjan ¶121 data processing system compare the similarity scores and identifies one matching stored entity).
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 11, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 1. Further, they disclose:
associating, for each sensor, at least one responsible entity (Wright discloses (¶207) NINCE 367 deploy a decision making and communication algorithm to automatically provide authorized users/stakeholders two-way communication of useful sensor 505 data, alerts, notices and events)
determining the responsible entity associated with the sensor from which the alert was received (Wright discloses (¶254), the sensors 505 measure, read, determine, generate, and/or capture sensor data, and that detected sensor 505 data/reading is communicated (wirelessly) to one or more of: NINCE 367, computing-device 373, tenant device 303, facility operator device 305, provider device 309, vvv communications 507 of the monitoring-device 100 whose sensors 505 detected the event or occurrence)
receiving a request to add a new participant to the established communication thread (Ranjan discloses (¶51) an administrative workflow for acknowledging an incident reported by a user and assigning the incident to a second technician) and adding the new participant to a plurality of participants in the established communication thread (Ranjan discloses (¶51) plurality of technicians in a live chat interface).
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 12, Wright in view of Locke in view of Ranjan discloses all the elements of claim 1. Further, they disclose:
identifying one or more related sensors to the sensor from this the alert was received (Wright discloses (¶277 and Fig. 5B) identifying and activating at least one secondary sensor depends upon the at least one primary sensor obtaining a sensor reading above a predetermined threshold)
generating, by the facility manager, a response including data received from the related sensors (Rajan discloses incident management system 1604 can be configured to identify an incident (e.g., an incident involving a building device or space) based on data determined using natural language processing techniques. Incident management system 1604 can identify the incident and determine a second entity (e.g., a technician) to assign to the incident to resolve it. (¶148). Rajan as discussed above, discloses using sensors to control systems and users report incidents.)
delivering, via the communication thread, the generated response to the interactive device associated with the each of the respective participants (Ranjan discloses (¶12) the system transmits the indication of the satisfied incident to a computing device of the second entity. Incident workflow enables communications (Fig. 19 and ¶182) between user, administrator, and technicians until the incident is verified and closed. Together these passages establish that the generated incident response is sent to all participants (¶58) through the collaborative communication thread related to the incident workflow.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 1.
Claim 13, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 1. Therefore, claim 13 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 1.
Claim 14, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 2. Therefore, claim 14 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 2.
Claim 15, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 3. Therefore, claim 15 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 3.
Claim 16, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 4. Therefore, claim 16 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 4.
Claim 17, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 5. Therefore, claim 17 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 5.
Claim 18, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 6. Therefore, claim 18 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 6.
Claim 19, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 7. Therefore, claim 19 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 7.
Claim 20, do not teach or further define over the limitations in Claim 1. Therefore, claim 20 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in Claim 1.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Applicant’s arguments and amendments, filed on 04/27/2026 with respect to the Claims 1-2, 4-9 and 11-20 have been fully considered and they are not persuasive. Hence, the 35 USC § 103 rejection is maintained.
In response to the applicant’s argument, (Pg. 1), “… the claimed approach monitors installations required in real time for information and computing capabilities of an enterprise,” the Examiner notes Wright clearly discloses (¶207) sensor 505 data in real time (or near real time), from one or more monitoring-devices.
In response to the applicant’s argument, (Pg. 2), “… the anomaly detected need not be injurious to people or property but may be a technical problem such as higher than normal operation temperature, or a physical storage device malfunctioning,” the Examiner notes Wright clearly discloses (¶160) a given storage space 101 may have environmental controls, such as, for controlling temperature, humidity, air pressure, combinations thereof, and/or the like within the given storage space.
In response to the applicant’s argument, (Pg. 2), “… Ranjan '623, shows an administrative workflow for a "ticket" system, not an exigent matter for urgent resolution,” the Examiner notes that Ranjan clearly discloses involving (¶195) technicians in a live chat interface to implement (¶58) systems and methods for resolving incidents quickly to restore services in a building back to normal quickly and mitigate any adverse effects of critical incidents on business operations.
In response to the applicant’s argument, (Pg. 2), “… Locke '546 suggests temperature set points and other HVAC based parameters, but does not show, teach or suggest sensors covering malfunction of networking or computer systems … since Locke '546 anticipates only HVAC related issues, there is no way to allocate or map the Locke '546 sensor to a particular entity, since Locke presumes all problems are HVAC,” the Examiner notes that Locke clearly discloses a variety of controllable equipment and/or monitoring and controlling sensors (¶73, ¶101) that includes temperature sensors, lighting sensors, occupancy sensors, video surveillance cameras, digital video recorders, video processing servers, intrusion detection devices, microphones, voltage and current sensors (¶159), heat and thermal sensors, access devices (e.g., RFID locks, biometric locks, etc.) thermostats, valves, switches, actuators, door locks, fire alarms, motion sensors access control devices (e.g., card access, etc.), or other security-related devices.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HASSAN ABDUR-RAHMAN KHAN whose telephone number is (313)446-6574. The examiner can normally be reached TEAPP - (M-Sa) 9/30/17-9/30/18, 6am-10pm IFP.
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/H. A. K./
Examiner, Art Unit 2451
/Chris Parry/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2451
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