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
The IDS has been considered by the examiner.
The specification and drawings have been accepted by the examiner.
Election/Restriction
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claims 1-4 and 11-14 drawn to methods and apparatus for handover including the steps of monitoring an ambient audio signal acquired by a citizen communication device associated with a citizen, detecting, based on the ambient audio signal, an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency, responsive to detecting the interaction of the citizen with the public safety agency, causing an alert to be transmitted to a device associated with the public safety agency, the alert comprising data related to the citizen interaction limitation.
II. Claims 5-10 and 15-20 drawn to methods and apparatus for handover including the steps of determining a location of the citizen, identifying an in-field first responder associated with the location of the citizen, causing a notification to be provided to a communication device associated with the identified in-field first responder, the notification comprising the data related to the citizen interaction limitation or instructions associated with the citizen interaction limitation.
The inventions are distinct, each from the other because of the following reasons:
Inventions I and II are related as combination and subcombination. Inventions in this relationship are distinct if it can be shown that (1) the combination as claimed does not require the particulars of the subcombination as claimed for patentability, and (2) that the subcombination has utility by itself or in other combinations (MPEP § 806.05(c)).
In the instant case, the combination as claimed does not require the particulars of the subcombination as claimed because the subcombination requires the particular feature of “determining a location of the citizen, identifying an in-field first responder associated with the location of the citizen, causing a notification to be provided to a communication device associated with the identified in-field first responder, the notification comprising the data related to the citizen interaction limitation or instructions associated with the citizen interaction limitation”, while the combination does not require such “determining a location of the citizen, identifying an in-field first responder associated with the location of the citizen, causing a notification to be provided to a communication device associated with the identified in-field first responder, the notification comprising the data related to the citizen interaction limitation or instructions associated with the citizen interaction limitation.
The subcombination has separate utility such as determining a location of the citizen, identifying an in-field first responder associated with the location of the citizen, causing a notification to be provided to a communication device associated with the identified in-field first responder, the notification comprising the data related to the citizen interaction limitation or instructions associated with the citizen interaction limitation.
Further, the sub-combination as claimed does not require the particulars of the combination as claimed because the combination requires the particular feature of “monitoring an ambient audio signal acquired by a citizen communication device associated with a citizen, detecting, based on the ambient audio signal, an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency, responsive to detecting the interaction of the citizen with the public safety agency, causing an alert to be transmitted to a device associated with the public safety agency, the alert comprising data related to the citizen interaction limitation".
The examiner has required restriction between combination and subcombination inventions. Where applicant elects a subcombination, and claims thereto are subsequently found allowable, any claim(s) depending from or otherwise requiring all the limitations of the allowable subcombination will be examined for patentability in accordance with 37 CFR 1.104. See MPEP § 821.04(a).
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all these inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because at least the following reason(s) apply:
The combination requires an independent search for finding the concept of “monitoring an ambient audio signal acquired by a citizen communication device associated with a citizen, detecting, based on the ambient audio signal, an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency, responsive to detecting the interaction of the citizen with the public safety agency, causing an alert to be transmitted to a device associated with the public safety agency, the alert comprising data related to the citizen interaction limitation”, while the subcombination requires a search for finding the features of “determining a location of the citizen, identifying an in-field first responder associated with the location of the citizen, causing a notification to be provided to a communication device associated with the identified in-field first responder, the notification comprising the data related to the citizen interaction limitation or instructions associated with the citizen interaction limitation”.
The election of an invention may be made with or without traverse. To reserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverses on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
Applicant is reminded that upon the cancellation of claims to a non-elected invention, the inventorship must be amended in compliance with 37 CFR 1.48(b) if one or more of the currently named inventors is no longer an inventor of at least one claim remaining in the application. Any amendment of inventorship must be accompanied by a request under 37 CFR 1.48(b) and by the fee required under 37 CFR 1.17(i).
Applicant is advised that if any claim presented in a continuation or divisional application is anticipated by, or includes all the limitations of, a claim that is allowable in the present application, such claim may be subject to provisional statutory and/or nonstatutory double patenting rejections over the claims of the instant application.
A telephone call was made to Daniel Bestor (reg. No. 58439 on February 20, 2026 to request an oral election to the above restriction requirement. Mr. Bestor elected the invention of Group I corresponding to claims 1-4 and 11-14, without traverse.
Accordingly, claims 5-10 and 15-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 11-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin (US 2020/0274962) in view of Bordareva (US 10,306059).
Referring to claim 1, Martin discloses a device for alerting about a citizen interaction limitation (FIG. 1, Abstract, “devices, methods, and media for facilitating emergency communications by an emergency management system”) comprising:
a controller (FIG. 1A, processor 112); and a memory (FIG. 1A, memory 113) coupled to the controller, the memory containing a set of instructions thereon (FIG. 1A and Par. 18, “non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with at least one computer program including instructions executable by at least one processor to perform steps comprising: a) identifying a user potentially affected by an emergency; b) providing an emergency response message to a communication device associated with the user”) that when executed by the controller cause the controller to:
detect an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency (Par. 8, “detecting an emergency alert generated by the communication device”. Par. 10, “present an emergency response prompt at a communication device associated with the user; iii) receive confirmation of the emergency;) in response to receiving confirmation of the emergency, initiate an autonomous communication session with the user through the communication device”. Par. 18, “detecting a message indicative of a potential emergency sent from the communication device. In some embodiments, the message indicative of a potential emergency is an SMS message sent from the communication device to the ESP”, “detecting one or more social media posts indicative of the emergency; and b) wherein the user potentially affected by the emergency is identified based on the one or more social media posts”. Also see Par 105, “A woman in the living room with the collapsed man calls 9-1-1, such as by speaking a voice command to a smart speaker 1975 also situated in the living room. In response to receiving the voice command, the smart speaker 1975 connects to 9-1-1 and generates an emergency alert for the emergency”. Note that a user’s devices either autonomously or via the user sends emergency message requesting an emergency center (e.g., PSAP or ESP) for help. This detecting of messaging of the user device with ESP is equivalent to detecting an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency),
responsive to detecting the interaction of the citizen with the public safety agency, cause an alert to be transmitted to a device associated with the public safety agency, the alert comprising data related to the citizen interaction limitation (Par. 69, 105, “In response to detecting a potential emergency response anomaly, the EMS 220 can initiate an autonomous communication session with an electronic device that generated an emergency alert for which no query for emergency data was received”, “In response to detecting the emergency alert, in some embodiments, the emergency management system can identify the smart camera 1874 depicted in FIG. 18 as associated with the device used to call 9-1-1”, “In another example, FIG. 19 depicts a medical emergency. A man 1976 has collapsed and is bleeding on the floor of a living room. A woman in the living room with the collapsed man calls 9-1-1, such as by speaking a voice command to a smart speaker 1975 also situated in the living room. In response to receiving the voice command, the smart speaker 1975 connects to 9-1-1 and generates an emergency alert for the emergency (e.g., the collapsed and bleeding man 1976) that is sent to the emergency management system.” Note response to detecting an emergency, an emergency alert to the EMS is created and the emergency is processed).
Martin is not relied on for disclosing the limitation, monitor an ambient audio signal acquired by a citizen communication device associated with a citizen and detect, based on the ambient audio signal, an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency
in an analogous art, Bondareva discloses monitor an ambient audio signal acquired by a citizen communication device associated with a citizen and detect, based on the ambient audio signal, an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency (“Col. 7, lines 60-67 and Col. 8, lines 1-5, “AI Bot 280 may monitor incoming audio from PSAP caller 212 received over telephone network 220. For example, in a straightforward case, call taker 260 may provide PSAP caller with an emergency word or phrase (e.g. “Emergency Escalation”) that the PSAP caller 212 may use to indicate that the PSAP caller's situation AI bot 280 may monitor the PSAP caller's communication in order to detect the emergency word or phrase, and if detected, may trigger a process to take the caller off hold and reconnect the caller to a call taker”, note that monitoring audio communication or spoken phrases of the caller with the PSAP is equivalent to monitoring of ambient audio signals since audio is the natural language or spoken phrases, and also note that in response to monitoring the AI Bot detects interaction of a citizen speaking emergency matters with a PSAP).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the invention of Martin by incorporating the teachings of Bondareva for the purpose of allowing an emergency system to automatically extract the audio phrases from a conversation associated to an emergency and automatically alert the emergency response team. Further, this an example of use of known technique to improve similar devices, methods or products in the same way. MPEP 2143.
Referring to claim 2, the combination of Martin/Bondareva discloses the device of claim 1, and further discloses to detect the interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency by identifying an audio potentially associated with a public safety personnel or an audio potentially associated with a public safety equipment (Martine, Par 105, “by speaking a voice command to a smart speaker 1975 also situated in the living room. In response to receiving the voice command, the smart speaker 1975 connects to 9-1-1 and generates an emergency alert for the emergency”. Note that a user’s devices either autonomously or via the user sends emergency message requesting an emergency center (e.g., PSAP or ESP) for help. This detecting of messaging of the user device with ESP is equivalent to detecting an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency).
Referring to claim 3, the combination of Martin/Bondareva discloses the device of claim 1, wherein the alert further comprises one or more of: a citizen location, a part of the ambient audio signal acquired by the citizen communication device (Martin, Par. 12, “receiving a location from the communication device; d) confirming that the location is within the affected area; and e) providing the emergency response message to the communication device in response to confirming that the location is within the affected area”. Par. 15, “providing the emergency response message to the communication device in response to confirming that the location is within the affected area”).
Referring to claim 11, Martin discloses a method for alerting about a citizen interaction limitation (Abstract, “devices, methods, and media for facilitating emergency communications by an emergency management system. FIG. 1A and Par. 18, “non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with at least one computer program including instructions executable by at least one processor to perform steps comprising: a) identifying a user potentially affected by an emergency; b) providing an emergency response message to a communication device associated with the user) comprising:
detecting an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency (Par. 8, “detecting an emergency alert generated by the communication device”. Par. 10, “present an emergency response prompt at a communication device associated with the user; iii) receive confirmation of the emergency; ) in response to receiving confirmation of the emergency, initiate an autonomous communication session with the user through the communication device”. Par. 18, “detecting a message indicative of a potential emergency sent from the communication device. In some embodiments, the message indicative of a potential emergency is an SMS message sent from the communication device to the ESP”, “detecting one or more social media posts indicative of the emergency; and b) wherein the user potentially affected by the emergency is identified based on the one or more social media posts”. Also see Par 105, “A woman in the living room with the collapsed man calls 9-1-1, such as by speaking a voice command to a smart speaker 1975 also situated in the living room. In response to receiving the voice command, the smart speaker 1975 connects to 9-1-1 and generates an emergency alert for the emergency”. Note that a user’s devices either autonomously or via the user sends emergency message requesting an emergency center (e.g., PSAP or ESP) for help. This detecting of messaging of the user device with ESP is equivalent to detecting an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency),
responsive to detecting the interaction of the citizen with the public safety agency, causing an alert to be transmitted to a device associated with the public safety agency, the alert comprising data related to the citizen interaction limitation (Par. 69, 105, “In response to detecting a potential emergency response anomaly, the EMS 220 can initiate an autonomous communication session with an electronic device that generated an emergency alert for which no query for emergency data was received”, “In response to detecting the emergency alert, in some embodiments, the emergency management system can identify the smart camera 1874 depicted in FIG. 18 as associated with the device used to call 9-1-1”, “In another example, FIG. 19 depicts a medical emergency. A man 1976 has collapsed and is bleeding on the floor of a living room. A woman in the living room with the collapsed man calls 9-1-1, such as by speaking a voice command to a smart speaker 1975 also situated in the living room. In response to receiving the voice command, the smart speaker 1975 connects to 9-1-1 and generates an emergency alert for the emergency (e.g., the collapsed and bleeding man 1976) that is sent to the emergency management system.” Note response to detecting an emergency, an emergency alert to the EMS is created and the emergency is processed).
Martin is not relied on for disclosing the limitation, monitoring an ambient audio signal acquired by a citizen communication device associated with a citizen and detecting, based on the ambient audio signal, an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency
in an analogous art, Bondareva discloses monitoring an ambient audio signal acquired by a citizen communication device associated with a citizen and detecting, based on the ambient audio signal, an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency (“Col. 7, lines 60-67 and Col. 8, lines 1-5, “AI Bot 280 may monitor incoming audio from PSAP caller 212 received over telephone network 220. For example, in a straightforward case, call taker 260 may provide PSAP caller with an emergency word or phrase (e.g. “Emergency Escalation”) that the PSAP caller 212 may use to indicate that the PSAP caller's situation AI bot 280 may monitor the PSAP caller's communication in order to detect the emergency word or phrase, and if detected, may trigger a process to take the caller off hold and reconnect the caller to a call taker”, note that monitoring audio communication or spoken phrases of the caller with the PSAP is equivalent to monitoring of ambient audio signals since audio is the natural language or spoken phrases, and also note that in response to monitoring the AI Bot detects interaction of a citizen speaking emergency matters with a PSAP).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the invention of Martin by incorporating the teachings of Bondareva for the purpose of allowing an emergency system to automatically extract the audio phrases from a conversation associated to an emergency and automatically alert the emergency response team. Further, this an example of use of known technique to improve similar devices, methods or products in the same way. MPEP 2143.
Referring to claim 2, the combination of Martin/Bondareva discloses the method of claim 11, wherein interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency is detected by identifying an audio potentially associated with a public safety personnel or an audio potentially associated with a public safety equipment (Martine, Par 105, “by speaking a voice command to a smart speaker 1975 also situated in the living room. In response to receiving the voice command, the smart speaker 1975 connects to 9-1-1 and generates an emergency alert for the emergency”. Note that a user’s devices either autonomously or via the user sends emergency message requesting an emergency center (e.g., PSAP or ESP) for help. This detecting of messaging of the user device with ESP is equivalent to detecting an interaction of the citizen with a public safety agency).
Referring to claim 3, the combination of Martin/Bondareva discloses the method of claim 11, wherein the alert further comprises one or more of: a citizen location, a part of the ambient audio signal acquired by the citizen communication device (Martin, Par. 12, “receiving a location from the communication device; d) confirming that the location is within the affected area; and e) providing the emergency response message to the communication device in response to confirming that the location is within the affected area”. Par. 15, “providing the emergency response message to the communication device in response to confirming that the location is within the affected area”).
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Horton, US 2016/0261425 A1 discloses a method for providing voice alerts and warning to a user of a device.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 4 and 14 is/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.
The following is the examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The prior art fails to disclose or suggest the limitations “responsive to detecting the interaction of the citizen with the public safety agency, cause playing, through a speaker of the citizen communication device, a predefined announcement related to the citizen interaction limitation”, as recited in claim 4 and 14, along with all the limitations of the intermediate and/or base claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FRED A CASCA whose telephone number is (571)272-7918. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday from 9 to 5. 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, Kathy Wang-Hurst, can be reached at (571) 270-5371. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/FRED A CASCA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644