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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 March 27, 2026 has been entered.
Claim 15 has been newly added. Claims 1-15 are now pending for examination.
Priority
Applicant's claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged. As required by M.P.E.P. 201.14(c), acknowledgement is made of applicant's claim for priority based on application filed on February 09, 2021 (EP21156011).
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies retrieved under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which propriety documents have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 1/28/2026 has been considered by the examiner. Please see attached PTO-1449.
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 11 and 15 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 11, line 1, recites the limitation "the gateway". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 15, line 4, the phrase "e.g." renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation(s) following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
Claim 15, line 4, recites the limitation "the term". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Appropriate clarification and correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 of this title, 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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2021/0117425) in view of Heilig et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 2020/0395121).
Referring to claim 1, Rao et al. teaches a laboratory data management system comprising
a data source layer comprising at least one laboratory device as a data source (common storage 4602 may correspond to a storage area network (SAN), network attached storage (NAS), other network-accessible storage system (e.g., a hosted storage system, which may also be referred to as "cloud" storage), see Rao et al., Para. 844),
a data adapter layer comprising at least one data source agent configured to obtain data from the at least one data source (the search service 220 can start executing the search phases of the DAG that cause the worker nodes 214 to search the external data sources 209. Then, in step 2116, the worker nodes 214 collect the partial search results extracted from the external data sources 209, see Rao et al., Para. 438. The index cache components 254 are communicatively coupled to the cloud worker nodes 246, which can collect partial search results from the cloud storage 256 by applying a search query to the index cache components 254, see Rao et al., Para. 565)
and to convert the data from a data source format to a data-source independent format (the worker nodes receive the partial search results collected from the data sources and transform them into a specified format. As such, partial search results in diverse formats can be transformed into a common specified format….diverse data types obtained from diverse data sources can be transformed into a common format to facilitate subsequent aggregation across all the partial search results obtained in response to the search query, see Rao et al., Para. 465),
a consumer layer configured for installation and/or execution of consumer application software (a user may install a software application on server computers owned by the user and configure each server to operate as one or more of … an indexer, see Rao et al., Para. 165),
a data management layer between the data adapter layer and the consumer layer (the forwarders 204 can forward data from the data sources 203 to the indexers 206, see Rao et al., Para. 619) comprising
a data storage configured to store data (the aggregated partial search results can be stored in memory at worker nodes, see Rao et al., Para. 537) converted by the at least one data source agent (diverse data types obtained from diverse data sources can be transformed into a common format to facilitate subsequent aggregation across all the partial search results obtained in response to the search query, see Rao et al., Para. 465),
at least one data manager programmed to execute instructions from the consumer application software (each of the search heads 226 may also have an additional software or process that is installed and running on it (e.g., daemon 232), see Rao et al., Para. 510), a processor (one or more hardware processors configured to execute the instructions stored in the one or more memories, see Rao et al., Para. 143), and a memory to store instructions being executed by the processor to cause the at least one data manager to select application-specific data in the data storage (the indexers to which the query was distributed, search data stores associated with them for events that are responsive to the query, see Rao et al., Para. 263, the search head 210 can engage the search service 220 when a search query is to be applied to at least one external data system, see Rao et al., Para. 429).
However, Rao et al. does not explicitly teach
to make them accessible to a consumer via the consumer application software in a consumer format;
the data adapter layer and the data management layer are arranged in a laboratory gateway connected to the data-source layer and to the consumer layer.
Heilig et al. teaches
to make them accessible to a consumer via the consumer application software in a consumer format (a plug-in can be added to data router 208 each time a new producer is integrated into diagnostic laboratory network 200 where that new producer provides data in a unique format, i.e., a format that data router 208 does not have the ability to translate. Because data router 208 is configured to incorporate plug-ins specific to each new translation operation, diagnostic laboratory network 200 can be easily modified by integrating new producers, see Heilig et al., Para. 27);
the data adapter layer and the data management layer are arranged in a laboratory gateway (the data router provides a streaming and/or a query data access capability, see Heilig et al., Para. 24, data router 452, which translates the information into the common format, see Heilig et al., Para. 59) connected to the data-source layer (The data router may manage its memory and/or data storage resources, see Heilig et al., Para. 31) and to the consumer layer (the streaming model data is pushed from producers to the data router where it is translated into a predetermined format and stored pending retrieval for delivery to subscribers, see Heilig et al., Para. 24).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Rao et al., to have to make them accessible to a consumer via the consumer application software in a consumer format; the data adapter layer and the data management layer are arranged in a laboratory gateway connected to the data-source layer and to the consumer layer, as taught by Heilig et al., to have an improved ability to integrate additional producers into a system without having to make changes to the subscriber (Heilig et al., Para. 47).
As to claim 3, Rao et al. teaches the consumer layer comprises at least one consumer device as interface device configured for the installation and/or the execution of the consumer application software (a user may install a software application on server computers owned by the user and configure each server to operate as one or more of … an indexer, see Rao et al., Para. 165).
As to claim 4, Rao et al. teaches the consumer application software and the application-specific data made accessible by the consumer application software are subscription-based (a user may install a software application on server computers owned by the user and configure each server to operate as one or more of a forwarder, an indexer, a search head, etc., see Rao et al., Para. 165. These input data sources and forwarders may be in a subscriber's private computing environment, see Rao et al., Para. 167).
As to claim 6, Rao et al. teaches the application-specific data comprise any one or more of events occurred during laboratory device use or maintenance, event-triggered alerts or messages, use and/or consumption data, laboratory device status or configuration data, laboratory device operational parameters, QC data, laboratory device test result data (The system stores the events in a data store. The system enables users to run queries against the stored events, see Rao et al., Para. 137, the IT monitoring application can recognize notable events that may indicate a service performance problem or other situation of interest. These notable events can be recognized by a "correlation search" specifying trigger criteria for a notable event, see Rao et al., Para. 395).
As to claim 7, Rao et al. teaches the consumer format comprises a report or display of application-specific data as such and/or after being elaborated into statistical, analytical or predictive data (One or more report formats can be associated with a particular data model and be made available to run against the data model, see Rao et al., Para. 321. The report generator allows the user to specify one or more fields within events and apply statistical analysis on values extracted from the specified one or more fields. The report generator may aggregate search results across sets of events and generate statistics based on aggregated search results, see Rao et al., Para. 322).
As to claim 8, Rao et al. teaches the at least one data manager or the consumer application software includes a comparison function for comparing the application-specific data with predetermined reference or threshold values and an alert function or action trigger function in response to the application- specific data deviating from the reference or threshold values (datasets which are determined to be frequently accessed by a user can be stored in the lower-latency memory. Similarly, datasets of less than a threshold size can be stored in the lower-latency memory, see Rao et al., Para. 628).
As to claim 11, Rao et al. teaches the gateway is scalable by locally or remotely adding/removing/updating data source agents md/or data managers and/or services (additional indexers may be added to the system, on which additional worker nodes can be instantiated on, see Rao et al., Para. 558).
As to claim 13, Rao et al. teaches the at least one consumer device is a mobile hand-held device (104. Examples of client devices 102 may include, without limitation, smart phones, see Rao et al., Para. 148).
As to claim 15, Rao et al. teaches the at least one laboratory device is an apparatus or module within a larger connected system involved in sample processing for in- vitro-diagnostics (the system 16 can apply the same processing task or rule to data from different indexes and time ranges to determine a record generation estimate for different combinations of the processing task, see Rao et al., Para. 1207),
wherein the term sample processing refers to detection, e.g., qualitative and/or quantitative evaluation of samples for diagnostic purposes, and/or sorting and/or preparation of samples before detection, and/or storing and/or disposal of samples after detection (the sample set of data can correspond to data within a particular time range that is obtained from a particular index, and/or has a particular sourcetype, see Rao et al., Para. 1206),
wherein the at least one laboratory device is related to analytical and/or to pre- analytical and/or to post-analytical sample processing (obtains a sample set of data. The sample set of data can be identified and obtained based on one or more data criteria. For example, the sample set of data can be identified and retrieved based on a determined range of time and index (or data store partition), see Rao et al., Para. 1236), and
wherein the application-specific data comprising any one or more of events occurred during laboratory device use or maintenance, event-triggered alerts or messages, use and/or consumption data, laboratory device status or configuration data, laboratory device operational parameters, QC data, and laboratory device test result data (The system stores the events in a data store. The system enables users to run queries against the stored events, see Rao et al., Para. 137, the IT monitoring application can recognize notable events that may indicate a service performance problem or other situation of interest. These notable events can be recognized by a "correlation search" specifying trigger criteria for a notable event, see Rao et al., Para. 395).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2021/0117425) in view of Heilig et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 2020/0395121) as applied to claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13 and 15 above, and in further view of Datta (U.S. Pat. No. 10296594).
As to claim 2, Rao et al. teaches the at least one data source agent is programmed to receive data as direct messages from the at least one data source or to query the at least one data source about specific data (a data intake and query system may cause output of the search results or data indicative of the search results on a display device, see Rao et al., Para. 576).
However, Rao et al. does not explicitly teach either in response to a particular one or more data-source events or at regular time intervals and to determine data changes between queries.
Datta teaches either in response to a particular one or more data-source events or at regular time intervals and to determine data changes between queries (a client device 304 can transmit a request for determining updates made during a specific time period, see Datta, Col. 8, lines 64-65).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Rao et al. as modified, to have either in response to a particular one or more data-source events or at regular time intervals and to determine data changes between queries, as taught by Datta, to allows customers to selectively and thus, efficiently retrieve only such files from Network Attached Storage (NAS) storage (Datta, Para. Col. 1, lines 27-29).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2021/0117425) in view of Heilig et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 2020/0395121) as applied to claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13 and 15 above, and in further view of Hanna (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2015/0347096).
As to claim 5, Rao et al. as modified does not explicitly teach the consumer application software is downloadable from a cloud and installed onto the at least one consumer device or wherein the consumer application software is a cloud-based progressive web application (PWA) executable via the at least one consumer device.
However, Hanna teaches the consumer application software is downloadable from a cloud and installed onto the at least one consumer device or wherein the consumer application software is a cloud-based progressive web application (PWA) executable via the at least one consumer device (one or more third-party software packages are downloaded from the cloud to be integrated into a model, see Hanna, Para.88).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Rao et al. as modified, to have the consumer application software is downloadable from a cloud and installed onto the at least one consumer device or wherein the consumer application software is a cloud-based progressive web application (PWA) executable via the at least one consumer device, as taught by Hanna, to allows a novice level user lacking computer coding skills to develop complex algorithms (Hanna, Para. 4).
Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2021/0117425) in view of Heilig et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 2020/0395121) as applied to claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13 and 15 above, and in further view of Yung et al. (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2004/0039531).
As to claim 9, , Rao et al. as modified does not explicitly teach the data source layer comprises a plurality of laboratory devices as data sources, including at least one analytical device and at least one robotic device configured to interact with the at least one analytical device.
However, Yung et al. teaches the data source layer comprises a plurality of laboratory devices as data sources, including at least one analytical device and at least one robotic device configured to interact with the at least one analytical device (analytical system having a control system 100 in communication with some possible types of devices associated with biological measurements. Such devices may include, by way example, one or more sample storage device 102, one or more sample transfer device 104, see Yung et al., Para. 34).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Rao et al. as modified, to have the data source layer comprises a plurality of laboratory devices as data sources, including at least one analytical device and at least one robotic device configured to interact with the at least one analytical device, as taught by Yung et al., to allow effective management of relatively large numbers of different types of devices (Yung et al., Para. 37).
As to claim 10, Rao et al. as modified teaches the at least one data manager is programmed to process data from the at least one analytical device and responsive to the processed data to instruct the at least one robotic device directly or via the respective data source agent to interact with the at least one analytical device (issue standardized commands to a given device in response to the standardized states monitored, see Yung et al., Para. 60. FIG. SC illustrates a state 410 of the robotics device. The device state 410 comprises a normal state 412 having a standby state 414 and a "transporting" state 416, and a fault state 420, see Yung et al., Para. 83. If the control system issues the STANDBY command, the device is instructed to go into its standby state (via the idle state) if not in the standby state. If the device is already in the standby state, then the device is instructed to continue its standby operation, see Yung et al., Para. 97).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2021/0117425) in view of Heilig et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 2020/0395121) as applied to claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13 and 15 above, and in further view of Allen (U.S. Pat. No. 10,049,222).
As to claim 12, Rao et al. as modified does not explicitly teach adding new services comprises adding at least one new data manager a priori, which can then be activated at any time by installing and/or subscribing to new consumer application software that communicates with the at least one previously added data manager thereby granting the consumer access to additional application-specific data in the data storage.
However, Allen teaches adding new services comprises adding at least one new data manager a priori, which can then be activated at any time by installing and/or subscribing to new consumer application software that communicates with the at least one previously added data manager (Execution of the application by the mobile device 108 may require an operating system of the mobile device 108 to provide the application access to various components of the mobile device, including other applications., see Allen, Col. 3, lines 48-52) thereby granting the consumer access to additional application-specific data in the data storage (receiving an application image corresponding to an application to be installed on a mobile device;… granting a set of permissions to the application of the mobile device, the set of permissions enabling the application to access data marked as sensitive data by an operating system of the mobile device, see Allen, Col. 21, lines 49-58).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Rao et al. as modified, to have adding new services comprises adding at least one new data manager a priori, which can then be activated at any time by installing and/or subscribing to new consumer application software that communicates with the at least one previously added data manager thereby granting the consumer access to additional application-specific data in the data storage, as taught by Allen, to have improvements in application security for mobile devices or other devices containing sensitive or private information. (Allen, Col. 2, lines 3-5).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2021/0117425) in view of Heilig et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 2020/0395121) as applied to claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13 and 15 above, and in further view of Bradley (U.S. Pat. Pub. 2006/0238919).
As to claim 14, Rao et al. teaches one or more gatekeepers configured for filtering data converted by the at least one data source agent (selecting a bin may cause the GUI to display the events of the search results that are timestamped within a range of the corresponding group, see Rao et al., Para. 598).
However, Rao et al. as modified does not explicitly teach validating data converted by the at least one data source agent.
Bradley teaches validating data converted by the at least one data source agent (data validating step further includes the steps of: normalizing said data loaded from at least two source systems to a common format; adjusting unique data identifiers to a common format; flagging invalid, unrecognized, and missing item identifiers for review, see Bradley, claim 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Rao et al. as modified, to have validating data converted by the at least one data source agent, as taught by Bradley, to enable consistent analysis, eliminates one time database coding, and reduces the time required to adjust to changing data sources (Bradley, Para. 22).
Response to Argument
Applicant’s remarks filed on 3/02/2026 with respect to claims 1 has been considered but they are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAU SHYA MENG whose telephone number is (571)270-1634. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM EST M-F.
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/JAU SHYA MENG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2168
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