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 .
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of the election in the reply filed on 01/26/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the grounds that the apparatus of claims 17-20 would not result in a serious search burden, although they are directed two distinct inventions (a method and an apparatus). However, upon further consideration of the remarks and claims filed 1/26/2026, the Examiner finds the arguments persuasive given that the method and apparatus claims mirror each other in terms of their claimed limitations. Resultantly, the restriction/election requirement has been withdrawn. Claims 1-20 are under examination herein.
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.
The factual inquiries 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 1-8, 11-12, 14-15, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tan (US 2022/0265197).
Regarding claims 1 and 17, Tan teaches “generating a first electrical signal using a first electrode (105a) of a wearable ring device, wherein the first electrical signal is associated with a first frequency (p.[0061] " the wearable device 100 may obtain an ECG signal based on a first electrical signal detected by the first electrode", and p.[0077], " The filtering apparatus may filter, by using a specific frequency bandwidth, the electrical signals provided by the electrode 105A")”, “receiving the first electrical signal using a second electrode of the wearable ring device (p.[0079] "The first electrode and the second electrode may detect electrical signals of a human body"), wherein the first electrode, the second electrode, or both, are disposed within an inner circumferential surface of the wearable ring device (Fig. 6, electrode 616 on the inner surface of the watch)”. For clarity of examination on the record, the Examiner is interpreting a ring to be any form of circular enclosed object, including, but not limited to, a belt, watch, or cuff. Therefore, the watch of Tan, falls into a definition of a ring under broadest reasonable interpretation. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to recognize the watch of Tan as functionally equivalent to the ring of the claimed invention. They both are worn on the extremities of the user for the purpose of gathering electrical signals from the body and is found to be obvious to substitute a watch for a ring.
Tan further teaches “determining first bioimpedance data associated with a user based at least in part on a comparison of the first electrical signal generated by the first electrode and the first electrical signal received by the second electrode (p.[0102], specifically but not limited to "For example, when the Bio-z sensor is disposed on the first electrode or the second electrode, when a body portion of the user is in contact with the first electrode or the second electrode, the Bio-z sensor may detect the skin (for example, skin in contact with the first electrode or the second electrode) status of the user.") and “causing a graphical user interface of a user device to display a message associated with the first bioimpedance data (Fig. 9(a)-(c))”.
Regarding claim 2 and 18, the limitations of claims 1 and 17 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “wherein the wearable ring device comprises a plurality of electrodes including the first electrode, the second electrode, and a third electrode, and wherein the first bioimpedance data is associated with a first biological parameter of a plurality of biological parameters (p.[0061]), the method further comprising selectively activating the first electrode and the second electrode from the plurality of electrodes based at least in part on the first biological parameter, wherein generating the first electrical signal, receiving the first electrical signal, or both, are based at least in part on selectively activating the first electrode and the second electrode (p.[0133], "The interface 1206 includes a plurality of options, including an “Automatic ECG detection” option and a control 1207. After detecting an operation used to activate the control 1207, the mobile phone sends an instruction to the wristband. The instruction is used to instruct to enable an automatic ECG detection function", wherein the enablement of the ECG detection activates the electrodes to detect an ECG signal).”
Regarding claims 3 and 19, the limitations of claim 1 and 17 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “wherein the first bioimpedance data is associated with a first biological parameter, and wherein the first frequency is selected based at least in part on the first biological parameter, the method further comprising (p.[0100])”, “generating a second electrical signal using the first electrode, the second electrode, or both, wherein the second electrical signal is associated with a second frequency selected based at least in part on a second biological parameter (p.[0079, 0100])”, “receiving the second electrical signal using a third electrode that is disposed within an outer circumferential surface (p.[0079, p.[0083, Fig. 4]) of the wearable ring device”, “determining second bioimpedance data associated with the user associated based at least in part on a comparison of the second electrical signal generated by the first electrode, the second electrode, or both, and the first electrical signal received by the third electrode (p.[0068, 0101-0102, 0139, 0141, Table 1])”, “causing the graphical user interface of the user device to display a second message associated with the second biological parameter based at least in part on the second bioimpedance data (Fig. 9a-c)”.
Regarding claim 4, the limitations of claim 3 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “wherein the first biological parameter and the second biological parameter comprise one of a blood content parameter, a body composition parameter, a blood pressure parameter, a glucose parameter, a hydration parameter, a heart rate parameter, a breathing rate parameter, or any combination thereof” in p.[0140, 0093]. The Examiner is interpreting an ECG to be a suitable example of a heart rate parameter, and therefore teaches the claimed limitation in p.[0140]. Taking a heart rate is also further taught in p.[0093].
Regarding claim 5, the limitations of claim 1 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “further comprising: receiving, via the graphical user interface of the user device, a user input to perform a bioimpedance measurement, wherein generating the first electrical signal is based at least in part on the user input (p.[0133])”.
Regarding claim 6, the limitations of claim 5 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “causing the graphical user interface of the user device to display, in response to the user input, a set of instructions that instruct the user to contact one of the first electrode or the second electrode with another portion of their body, wherein generating the first electrical signal, receiving the first electrical signal, determining the first bioimpedance data, or any combination thereof, is based at least in part on displaying the set of instructions (p.[0133-0134], Fig. 9a-c)”.
Regarding claims 7 and 20, the limitations of claim 1 and 17 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “generating, using the first electrode, a plurality of reference electrical signals associated with a plurality of frequencies including the first frequency (p.[0068-0069], Fig. 14)” , “receiving the plurality of reference electrical signals using the second electrode (p.[0097] "The first electrode 616 detects a first electrical signal. The second electrode 618 detects a second electrical signal. Both the first electrical signal and the second electrical signal have specific frequencies.")”, “comparing the plurality of reference electrical signals associated with the plurality of frequencies received at the second electrode, selecting the first frequency from the plurality of frequencies based at least in part on the comparison, wherein generating the first electrical signal is based at least in part on selecting the first frequency (p.[0100] "The watch 600 has different frequency bandwidths (for example, a filtering apparatus in the watch 600 uses different frequency bandwidths when filtering electrical signals collected by the first electrode and the second electrode) in different operating modes. The current status of the user may include a current movement status, skin status, or the like of the user. For example, the watch 600 may determine the current status of the user by using sensor data detected by the sensor subsystem 606, and then select an appropriate frequency bandwidth based on different sensor data. The following embodiment describes an example in which the processor 614 determines an appropriate frequency domain bandwidth based on sensor data.")”.
Regarding claim 8, the limitations of claim 1 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “acquiring biological data associated with the user using the wearable ring device; identifying a satisfaction of one or more trigger conditions for performing bioimpedance measurements based at least in part on the biological data, wherein generating the first electrical signal is based at least in part on the satisfaction of the one or more trigger conditions (Table 2, p.[0120])”.
Regarding claim 11, the limitations of claim 1 are taught as described above. Tan does not explicitly teach this limitation (baseline impedance data associated with the user based at least in part of electrical signals, comparing bioimpedance data with baseline data), however, Tan does describe a system that would accomplish the same task of determining a baseline data in order to make a comparison to current or future data in p.[0127] via the use of a machine learning model. The model can determine the accuracy of the output of the ECG, which can then be used to obtain a message about health status information. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the machine learning system of Tan in arrive at the claimed invention. As stated in Tan, the use of the machine learning model improves the output and accuracy of the device and produces predictable results.
Regarding claim 12, the limitations of claim 1 are taught as described above. The Examiner is interpreting the inner circumferential surface to be the inner wall between the top and bottom portion of the device, therefore, the electrode 105a and 105b are on the same inner circumferential surface at different (a first and second) radial position, teaching the limitation (“wherein the first electrode is disposed within the inner circumferential surface at a first radial position, and wherein the second electrode is disposed within the inner circumferential surface at a second radial position”) as described.
Regarding claim 14, the limitations of claim 1 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “wherein the first electrode is disposed within the inner circumferential surface of the wearable ring device (616, Fig. 6), and wherein the second electrode is disposed within an outer circumferential surface of the wearable ring device (618, Fig. 6)”.
Regarding claim 15, the limitations of claim 1 are taught as described above. Tan teaches “wherein the first electrode (105a) and the second electrode (105b) are disposed within a same surface of the wearable ring device, wherein the first electrode and the second electrode are parallel to one another and extend across a same angular distance around a circumference of the surface, wherein the first electrode and the second electrode are associated with a same height and a same length (Fig. 2-3a, 105a, 105b, p.[0079])”.
Claims 9 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tan (US 2022/0265197) in view of Vleugels (US 2022/0378659).
Regarding claim 9, the limitations of claim 8 are taught as described above. Tan teaches that acceleration data may be collected by the device (p.[0070]), but Tan does not teach that the biological data comprises at least motion data, wherein the motion data is based on in part one or more gestures, comprising a drinking or eating gesture, but Vleugels does in an analogous wearable technology device. Vleugels teaches identifying gestures using motion data in p.[0074], stating "Gesture-sensing technology can be used to automatically detect a gesture event without user prompting or interaction, such as gestures to indicate events when someone is eating or drinking from their hand gestures using motion sensors (accelerometer/gyroscope) in a wrist-worn wearable device or ring." It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use motion data to detect gestures such as eating in a wearable device, as taught in Vleugels, in Tan. As stated in Vleugels, "This detection can occur in real time to deduce key insights about the consumption activity such as, for example, a start time of a consumption event, an end time of the consumption event, a consumption method, metrics associated with pace of consumption, metrics associated with quantities consumed, and metrics associated with frequency of consumption, location of consumption, etc." and produces obvious results.
Regarding claim 13, the limitations of claim 1 are taught as described above. Tan does not teach of a relative timing associated with generating a first electrical signal based on a sleeping pattern, however, Vleugels does. Vleugels describes in p.[0117] a method for generating a first electrical signal (via the food detecting subsystem) based on sleeping patterns, and therefore teaches the limitation as described. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the system of Vleugels in Tan to arrive at the claimed invention. As stated in Vleugels, monitoring the sleep of a user may provide valuable feedback related to other health parameters and produces predictable results (p.[0177]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10 and 16 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Abigail M Bock whose telephone number is (571)272-8856. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am - 5:00pm.
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, Linda Dvorak can be reached at 5712724764. 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.
/ABIGAIL BOCK/Examiner, Art Unit 3794
/LINDA C DVORAK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3794