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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 4/17/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 10/16/2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of the claim(s) under 35 U.S.C. have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Longinotti-Buitoni et al. U.S. PGPub 2017/0196513.
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, 2, 4, 6, 8, 16-22, 24 and 25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jost et al. U.S. PGPub 2021/0241125 (hereinafter “Jost”) in view of Longinotti-Buitoni et al. U.S. PGPub 2017/0196513 (hereinafter “Longinotti-Buitoni”).
Regarding claims 1, 9, 16 and 21, Jost discloses a system for controlling an environment of interest: a primary electronic device (i.e. user computing device, TPPP) having a memory to store executable instructions and one or more processors (e.g. Fig. 2-4), when implementing the executable instructions, to: obtain context data (e.g. external/internal temperature, weather) within an environment of interest (e.g. ¶16, 20-21, 24, 27 and 30); determine a condition (e.g. temperature, level of comfort via thermal comfort score) within the environment of interest related to a user based on the context data (e.g. pg. 1-2, ¶79; pg. 4, ¶35-36; pg. 10, ¶88-90); and dynamically adjust a characteristic (e.g. adjusting temperature of clothing) of a wearable environmental electronic device (e.g. article computing device) based on the condition within the environment (e.g. ¶31, 71 and 100). Regarding claim 21, Jost discloses a display; and a memory to store executable instructions and one or more processors (e.g. ¶163, 228-233 and 239; Fig. 1A). Jost discloses a display of a primary electronic device displaying messages related to the user (e.g. ¶13 and 27-28), but does not explicitly disclose displaying a message to the user related to moving to a location in the environment of interest, wherein the message is displayed on a display of the primary electronic device.
Longinotti-Buitoni discloses an intelligent garment connected to a display device that displays a message to a user related to moving to a location in the environment of interest, wherein the message is displayed on a display of the primary electronic device (e.g. ¶163, 228-233 and 239; Fig. 1A).
At the time the invention was filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to display a message related to moving to a location in an environment. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to inform the user whether a desired or target location has been reached.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to modify Jost with Longinotti-Buitoni to obtain the invention as specified in claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 16-22, 24 and 25.
Regarding claims 2, 17 and 22, Jost discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the primary electronic device obtains the context data from at least one of a sensor of the primary electronic device (e.g. ¶22-23 and 68) or a communication from a secondary electronic device (e.g. sensor, TPPP) (e.g. ¶16, 18, 21, 24 and 30).
Regarding claim 4, Jost discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the wearable environmental electronic device is at least one of a cooling sock, jewelry, a head band, a shirt, or pants (e.g. ¶16; Fig. 1).
Regarding claims 6 and 24, Jost discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the condition is a temperature of a location within the environment of interest (e.g. ¶16, 20-21, 24, 27 and 30).
Regarding claim 18, Jost discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors further to communicate a message from the primary electronic device to the user, the message is displayed on a display of the primary electronic device (e.g. ¶27-28, 66-67 and 74-75).
Regarding claims 8, 19 and 25, Jost discloses the system of claim 1, wherein dynamically adjusting the characteristic of the environmental electronic device comprises varying a temperature of the environmental electronic device (e.g. ¶31, 71 and 100).
Regarding claim 20, Jost discloses the method of claim 9, wherein to determine the condition an artificial intelligence algorithm (via machine learning) utilizes the context data (e.g. ¶51, 68, 90 and 103).
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) 5 and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jost as applied to the claims above, and further in view of Roehr U.S. Patent 4,457,295 (hereinafter “Roehr”).
Jost discloses using a wearable device to improve a temperature condition for a user in an environment, but does not explicitly disclose the environment being a vehicle.
Roehr discloses using a wearable device to improve a temperature condition for a user in a vehicle (e.g. abstract).
At the time the invention was filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use Jost’s wearable device in a vehicle. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to ensure the user in the vehicle is at a comfortable temperature.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to modify Jost with Roehr to obtain the invention as specified in claims 5 and 23.
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
May 1, 2026
/CHARLES R KASENGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2116
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