DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because paragraph [0001] contains application cross–references in need of updated information. Applicant is required to update such information.
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 1-20 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 applicant regards as the invention.
As to claim 1, the term "accurately modeling real-time resources" in line 9 is a relative term, which renders the claim indefinite. The term is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The subject matter description of “accurately modeling” in the specification amounts to repetitions of accurately modeling, i.e. no definition of accurately modeling is elaborated in the description. As to the limitation "real-time resources", the subject matter description of such limitation in the specification is non-existent. Furthermore, Examiner notes that the specification is mute about real-time resources. For examination purposes, Examiner interprets the limitation claim as "real-time operational data corresponding to at least the resources".
As to claim(s) 8, 15, the same deficiency applies.
Dependent claims inherit the defect of the claim from which they depend.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Examiner would like to point out that any reference to specific figures, pages, columns and lines should not be considered limiting in any way, the entire reference is considered to provide disclosure relating to the claimed invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Klein, (Klein hereinafter), U.S. Pre–Grant publication 20120143576, taken in view of Padmanabhan et al., (Padmanabhan hereinafter), U.S. Pre–Grant publication 20170185904, and further in view of Hawe et al., (Hawe hereinafter), “Agent-Based Simulation for Large-Scale Emergency Response: A Survey of Usage and Implementation” (see IDS dated 06/05/2023).
As to claim 1, Klein discloses a system for visualizing data, the system comprising: a computing device deployed within a communications network (see "[0053]… data processing system… located and/or otherwise operate at any node of a computer network"), wherein the computing device is configured to: use prediction logic to process historical operational data (see "[0017]… prediction being a short term validity prediction, which relies on a combination of statistical data. The prediction contains an extrapolation of data based on past behavior") and thereby generate a simulation of resources of a mass participation event (see "[0016]… by an emergency scenario is understood a situation when the density function and the velocity of movement of entities increases exponentially in a short amount of time"; "[0041]… predicting the behavior of entities, whose movement may be approximated via a model such as the cellular automaton model, contains as well a second step of narrowing the plurality of entities to a plurality of entities of interest based on a scenario. [0042]… An example of such scenario indicative of a temporal constraint is… an emergency situation"); receive real-time operational data corresponding to at least the resources during the mass participation event (see "[0048] The assignment of targets or attraction points to which people walk to and identification of sources where people come from depends on the topology and must be defined. From video data, where people are traced, a distribution of the goals and sources can be extracted. Radio technologies may also be used. One can assign targets and sources in the simulations stochastically. That is, in an area of measurement a simulated person is assigned to a certain goal with a probability that corresponds to the statistical distribution extracted from the measurement")…
Klein does not disclose, but Padmanabhan discloses based on the simulation and the real-time operational data (see "[0058]… monitor a real-time usage behavior of the published predictive model subsequent to the publishing of the predictive model"), verify that the simulation is accurately modeling real-time resources at the mass participation event; based on verifying the simulation, train the prediction logic using the real-time operational data to obtain refined prediction logic (see "[0062]… At operation 212, the apparatus 100 runs simulations, which mimic real-time customer behavior, on the predictive model to generate scores and/or metrics corresponding to the predictive model… At operation 216, the apparatus 100 is configured to monitor a usage behavior of the published predictive model. At operation 218, the apparatus 100 is configured to retrain the published predictive model based on monitoring of the usage behavior upon publishing the predictive model in the real-time prediction platform")…
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Padmanabhan with Klein, because Padmanabhan generates "[0056]… at least one score corresponding to each predictive model… using the testing data sample… used for evaluating the developed predictive models on metrics specified by the user… Some examples of such metrics include, but are not limited to, metrics such as maximum accuracy, optimal cutoff, sensitivity, true positive rate, false positive rate, and F2-score", and as a result, Padmanabhan publishes "[0057]… a predictive model… based on the scores… … publish the predictive model with the highest score… the model to be published may be optimized for user requirement using an optimization method selected from among FScore based optimization, Optimal probability threshold based optimization method, and Optimal probability and time of page threshold based optimization method".
Klein and Padmanabhan do not disclose, but Hawe discloses use the refined prediction logic to generate an updated simulation of the resources (see "[t]he ultimate purpose of each ABS reviewed… is to help answer some question pertaining to large-scale emergency response. Each ABS does this by predicting, through simulation, the consequences of a particular course of action, with a particular level of resources, to a particular large-scale emergency, at a particular location" in page 11, §2.6; "ABS… WIPER, is designed for real-time response. WIPER (wireless integrated phone-based emergency response)… is a dynamic-data driven application system… which couples ABS with real-time data… A real-time data source provides real-time data regarding cell-phone usage from cell-phone providers. Using a historical data source (a repository of normal cell-phone usage), a detection and alert system detects possible anomalies in cell-phone usage patterns. Hypotheses explaining these possible anomalies are produced by a simulation and prediction system (SPS), which are validated or rejected using streaming real-time data. Emergency response managers interact with these components through a web-based front end decision support system. The SPS operates by creating a batch of agent-based simulations, which is run in parallel… Using the real-time data source, the progression of each ABS is compared to that of the real event. The ABSs with the greatest predictive power are identified, and used both to infer the cause of the anomalous behavior, and make future predictions about civilian movements" in page 20, 2nd paragraph) of the mass participation event (see "Anthrax attack at a sports stadium" in page 22, BIOWAR).
Klein, Padmanabhan, and Hawe are analogous art because they are related to events simulations.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, because Hawe discloses that "[t]he ultimate purpose of each ABS reviewed… is to help answer some question pertaining to large-scale emergency response. Each ABS does this by predicting, through simulation, the consequences of a particular course of action, with a particular level of resources, to a particular large-scale emergency, at a particular location. The question posed defines which aspects of the ABS may vary in order to optimize the response (as well as the objective function(s) being optimized), and which aspects are required to mimic reality. From the real-world perspective, the response is the actions taken. These (1) are selected as a consequence of the behaviors of the real-world agents executing them; and (2) are constrained by the resources available…", and as a result, Hawe reports that "… the actions that define the response may be altered by either changing agent behavior or changing the levels of resources, or both. In an ABS, determining optimal resource levels is a standard optimization problem, with resource levels as the design variables" (see page 11, §2.6).
As to claim 2, Hawe discloses wherein the computing device is further configured to obtain at least a portion of the real-time operational data from medical supply areas during the mass participation event (see "RoboCup Rescue also makes use of agentification… it used a centralized kernel to update its virtual environment from a set of simulators. Also connected to this kernel was an agents component. It contains… center agents: fire stations, police offices, and ambulance centers. These send and receive messages to and from their corresponding platoons in order to aid their coordination" in page 34, last paragraph to page 35, 1st paragraph).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, (see supra).
As to claim 3, while Klein discloses wherein the computing device is further configured to generate a graphical user interface to display (see "[0057]… display 314 provides a mechanism to display information"); Hawe discloses event prediction analytics comprising a predicted demand for resources at the mass participation event or a predicted consumption of resources at the mass participation event (see "The ultimate purpose of each ABS… is to help answer some question pertaining to large-scale emergency response. Each ABS does this by predicting, through simulation, the consequences of a particular course of action, with a particular level of resources… From the real-world perspective, the response is the actions taken. These (1) are selected as a consequence of the behaviors of the real-world agents executing them; and (2) are constrained by the resources available" in page 11, 4th paragraph).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, (see supra).
As to claim 4, Klein discloses wherein the computing device is further configured to receive at least a portion of the real-time operational data from one or more sensors physically located at the mass participation event (see "[0040] The identification of parameters is carried out via… video analytics or information provided by other sensors, such as audio, infrared camera, intelligent floor plates").
As to claim 5, Hawe discloses wherein the computing device is further configured to validate the simulation based on a comparison of simulation data to the real-time operational data, and wherein the simulation is deemed valid based on the comparison satisfying a data matching threshold (see "validation of SimGenis.20 During conceptual validation, which aimed to validate the adequacy of the underlying model in representing reality… external validation, which aimed to validate the adequacy and accuracy of SimGenis results with real-world data, results from fieldwork (attending a four-hour simulated plane crash, and discussing rescue plans with firefighters and medical staff) were used" in page 21, 2nd paragraph).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, (see supra).
As to claim 6, Hawe discloses wherein the mass participation event comprises at least one of (see "Anthrax attack at a sports stadium" in page 22, BIOWAR).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, (see supra).
As to claim 7, Hawe discloses wherein the resources comprise medical resources (see "ABS… optimal response was generalized to different scenarios by varying the following control variables… the number of rescuers (doctors, nurses and fire-fighter" in page 19, last paragraph).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, (see supra).
Claims 8, 9, 11 and 15-20 are substantially similar in scope and spirit as claims 1-6. Therefore, the rejection of claims 1-6 is applied accordingly. Klein discloses a "[0053]… data processing system… located and/or otherwise operate at any node of a computer network".
As to claim 10, Klein discloses wherein the simulation models at least one of a flow of resources (see "[0016]… by an emergency scenario is understood a situation when the density function and the velocity of movement of entities increases exponentially in a short amount of time"; "[0041]… predicting the behavior of entities, whose movement may be approximated via a model such as the cellular automaton model, contains as well a second step of narrowing the plurality of entities to a plurality of entities of interest based on a scenario. [0042]… An example of such scenario indicative of a temporal constraint is… an emergency situation")
As to claim 12, Hawe discloses wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the computing device to: generate, based on the prediction logic, an instruction for at least one medical supply area of the mass participation event; and send an instruction to a device associated with the medical supply area of the mass participation event (see "RoboCup Rescue also makes use of agentification… it used a centralized kernel to update its virtual environment from a set of simulators. Also connected to this kernel was an agents component. It contains… center agents: fire stations, police offices, and ambulance centers. These send and receive messages to and from their corresponding platoons in order to aid their coordination" in page 34, last paragraph to page 35, 1st paragraph).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, (see supra).
As to claim 13, Klein discloses wherein the real-time operational data further corresponds to at least one of weather data, medical data, participant data, course information data, or environment data (see "[0040] The identification of parameters is carried out via at least one of observation, visualization, download of statistical data, video analytics or information provided by other sensors, such as audio, infrared camera, intelligent floor plates").
As to claim 14, Hawe discloses wherein the resources comprise medical supplies and wherein the computing device is further configured to use the prediction logic to process the historical operational data and thereby generate a prediction of where to locate medical supply areas at the mass participation event or a prediction of an amount of the medical supplies to allocate to each of the medical supply areas (see "In SimGenis, for example, a discrete-valued health-level parameter… transition probabilities between states depend on… (2) Whether or not the victim agent is receiving treatment from rescuer agents. In SimGenis, rescuer agents are used to represent doctors, nurses, fire-fighters and rescue chiefs (supervisors)" in page 28, last paragraph).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hawe with Klein and Padmanabhan, (see supra).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Roßnagel et al., "Agent-based simulation for evaluation of a mobile emergency management system", discloses "ABSTRACT Large public events such as sporting events, concerts, fairs and street festivals are quite common in metropolitan areas… a system design for mobile emergency management… an evaluating approach for this system design using a multi-agent based simulation, based on empirical data for a particular large event" (see page 1).
Examiner would like to point out that any reference to specific figures, pages, columns and lines should not be considered limiting in any way, the entire reference is considered to provide disclosure relating to the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUAN CARLOS OCHOA whose telephone number is (571)272-2625. The examiner can normally be reached Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays 9:30AM - 8:00 PM.
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/JUAN C OCHOA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2186
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