Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/278,412

METHOD FOR DETECTING DIAPER WETNESS BASED ON RATIO SIGNAL TECHNOLOGY

Final Rejection §101§112
Filed
Aug 23, 2023
Examiner
GOLDBERG, IVAN R
Art Unit
3619
Tech Center
3600 — Transportation & Electronic Commerce
Assignee
ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY
OA Round
2 (Final)
35%
Grant Probability
At Risk
3-4
OA Rounds
4y 8m
To Grant
72%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants only 35% of cases
35%
Career Allow Rate
128 granted / 365 resolved
-16.9% vs TC avg
Strong +37% interview lift
Without
With
+36.9%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
4y 8m
Avg Prosecution
57 currently pending
Career history
422
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
27.7%
-12.3% vs TC avg
§103
40.4%
+0.4% vs TC avg
§102
3.4%
-36.6% vs TC avg
§112
20.7%
-19.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 365 resolved cases

Office Action

§101 §112
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 . Notice to Applicant The following is a Final Office action. In response to Examiner’s Non-Final Rejection of 11/21/25, Applicant, on 1/21/26, amended claims. Claims 1-6 are pending in this application; claims 1-2 and 5 are allowed; and claims 3, 4, and 6 have been rejected below. Response to Amendment Applicant’s amendments are acknowledged. The 101 rejections are withdrawn in response to the amendments and Applicant’s remarks. The 103 rejections are withdrawn in response to the amendments and Applicant’s remarks. New 112(b) rejections are necessitated by the amendments. Examiner notes the amendment to the Title is accepted, where it will now be on page 1 in the Title: “METHOD FOR DETECTING DIAPER WETNESS BASED ON RADIO SIGNAL TECHNOLOGY” 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. Claim 3-4, 6 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 the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 3 recites many of the same limitations that are in claim 1. Claim 1 recites “filtering a part with the highest frequency to obtain a signal Sm1”; “detecting the static environment factor through range-fast Fourier transform to obtain a signal Sm2”; and claim 3 recites “filtering a part with a highest frequency to obtain a first signal Sm1”; “detecting the static environment factor through range-fast Fourier transform to obtain a signal Sm2” There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim 3. It appears the only portion in claim 3 not in claim 1 is the first equation in claim 3; it appears the other portions should be removed. Claim 4 recites many of the same limitations that are in claim 1. Claim 1 recites “a user lies on a bed without wearing the diaper”; and the third from last line in claim 4 recites “a user lies on a bed without wearing a diaper.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim 4. It appears the only portion in claim 4 not in claim 1 is the reference to “a background noise elimination method”; it appears the other portions should be removed. Claim 6 recites many of the same limitations that are in claim 1. Claim 6 and 1 recite “a migration difference”; “a Resent network”; “a generative adversarial network mechanism”; and “a loss function.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim 6. It appears the only portion in claim 6 not in claim 1 is the equation for loss function at the end along with the explanation of the variables; it appears the other portions should be removed. Reasons for Subject Matter Eligibility under 35 USC 101 The claim 1 overcomes the 101 rejections because the claim is now not directed to an abstract idea, and is directed to improving technology of signal processing (See MPEP 2106.05a and MPEP 2106.05e). Reasons for Overcoming 103 Rejections The following is a Reasons for Overcoming the Prior Art and the 103 Rejection. Claim 1 overcomes the prior art based on: 1) sending a frequency-modulated continuous wave signal to a diaper through a radar device, obtaining continuous radar snapshots comprising multiplying the transmission signal and the return signal and filtering a part with the highest frequency; 2) eliminating interference of the static environment factor and the dynamic environment factor by using a filtering template based on the continuous radar snapshots and an individual’s breath to obtain interference-eliminated continuous radar snapshots; 3) wherein eliminating interference comprises filtering multipath interference by collecting dot products of a CRS (continuous radar snapshots) filtering template on an empty bed and signals of the static continuous radar snapshots dot product; 4) obtaining based on the continuous radar snapshots after eliminating the interferences, an outline of the diaper by using wavelet synchronous compression transformation, and dividing outline of the diaper into a training sample and a testing sample set, and inputting the training sample set and the testing sample set into a heuristic mobility network by extracting feature representation by using a Resnet34 network and eliminating a migration difference by using a generative adversarial network mechanism, by an AdnNet, until the loss function of the heuristic mobility network is converged. Response to Arguments Applicant's arguments filed 1/21/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive and/or are moot in view of the new 112(b) rejections. 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 IVAN R GOLDBERG whose telephone number is (571)270-7949. The examiner can normally be reached 830AM - 430PM. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Anita Coupe can be reached at 571-270-3614. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /IVAN R GOLDBERG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3619
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Aug 23, 2023
Application Filed
Nov 19, 2025
Non-Final Rejection — §101, §112
Jan 21, 2026
Response Filed
Mar 24, 2026
Final Rejection — §101, §112 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
35%
Grant Probability
72%
With Interview (+36.9%)
4y 8m
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 365 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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