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
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election with traverse of Invention I and Species I in the reply filed on 6/10/26 is acknowledged.
As regards applicant’s traversal of the restriction,
Applicant asserts that the method and apparatus claims recite the same scope of invention. Accordingly, the restriction is withdrawn.
As regards applicant’s traversal of the election of species,
Applicant asserts that claims 1 and 12 are generic and thereby their allowance would negate the need for the election of species. After detailed examination and in view of applicant’s arguments, the election of species is withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) as being anticipated by Cadima (US 10,830,450), which shows all of the claimed limitations. Cadima shows:
1. (Original) A method of operating a cooking appliance 100, the method comprising: enabling a geofencing mode 268 defining a geofence condition 310 (fig. 1,11 - temperature setting); determining a status of the geo fence condition 330; and implementing a responsive action based on the determined status of the geofence condition 340,350.
12. (Withdrawn - Currently Amended) A cooking appliance defining a vertical direction, a lateral direction, and a transverse direction, the cooking appliance comprising: a cooktop 100 comprising one or more heating elements 104; a user interface panel 110 mounted to the cooktop for facilitating user interaction with the cooking appliance (fig. 1); and a controller 268 in operative communication with the user interface panel, the controller being configured for the controller be configured to execute operations (fig. 1) comprising: enabling a geofencing mode defining a geofence condition; determining a status of the geofence condition; and implementing a responsive action based on the determined status of the geofence condition (see previous claim).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-11 and 13-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Plos (US 2025/0150299) teaches detecting a user’s position inside or outside an area/boundary, but fails to recite the user list as recited in the claims.
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. These references disclose devices with many of the claimed components. Nevertheless, in order to avoid overburdening the applicant with redundant rejections, these references were not applied.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALFRED BASICHAS whose telephone number is 571 272 4871. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday during regular business hours.
To contact the examiner’s supervisor please call MICHAEL HOANG whose telephone number is 571 272 6460.
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the Tech Center telephone number is 571 272 3700.
June 17, 2026
/ALFRED BASICHAS/Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3762
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