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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was received on November 28, 2023 (11/28/2023). Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 1, 4-12, 14-17, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blom et al. (US 2012/0136865) in view of Kirmse et al. (US 2013/0345965).
Regarding Claim 1, Blom teaches a method comprising: identifying a set of location reports for a tracked object, each location report including at least a location of the tracked object and a timestamp; (Par. [0044] "In various embodiments of the approach described herein, the stay points are extracted or determined from the location point data. In other words, the system 100 filters the location point data (e.g., raw location-based data associated with the location of the UE 101 and/or its associated user) to determine only those location point data that indicate where the user remains substantially stationary over a predetermined period of time (e.g., the stay points)"), merging two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are each associated with a first indication that the tracked object has not moved; (Fig. 3B, Par. [0056] "In one embodiment, the plurality of stationary points is determined from one or more locations indicated, at least in part, by the location-based data where the user, the at least one device, or a combination thereof is substantially stationary for a predetermined period of time continuously"), and generating a location history for the tracked object based on the filtered set of location reports (Fig. 14A, 14B, Par. [0123] "Several different types of statistics can be shown to the user pertaining to user behavior across the location anchors. For instance, time spent in any given location,").
Blom however, does not teach, after the merging, filtering the set of location reports to remove one or more outlier location by: discarding one of two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are associated with different cell phone tower identifiers; discarding a first location report of the set of location reports, wherein the first location report is greater than a first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately precedes the first location report and is greater than the first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately follows the first location report; and discarding a second location report of the set of location reports, wherein the second location report is greater than a second threshold distance from an immediately preceding location report of the set of location reports, and wherein the second location report and the immediately preceding location report to the second location report are each associated with a second indication that the tracked object has not moved.
Kirmse teaches after the merging, filtering the set of location reports to remove one or more outlier location by: discarding one of two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are associated with different cell phone tower identifiers (Par. [0027] "As described herein, the device identifier may be used to separate location identifiers into different location streams or groups" and Par. [0036] "Filtering the location noise may involve removing those of location indicators 26 that represent location changes due to at least one of cell tower reassignment, atmospheric conditions, and variable wireless network strength"), discarding a first location report of the set of location reports, wherein the first location report is greater than a first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately precedes the first location report and is greater than the first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately follows the first location report; (Par. [0037] "For example, server 22 may search a sequence of consecutive location indicators P.sub.1 through P.sub.n, where P.sub.1 and P.sub.n are within a small distance D of each other and have timestamps within a few minutes or hours of each other. Further, P.sub.1 and P.sub.n may have a high reported accuracy. If P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 (e.g., indicators between P.sub.1 and P.sub.n) have a low reported accuracy and are farther than an error distance from P.sub.1, then points P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 may be identified as erroneous indicators and removed from the location indicators retained or maintained in the location stream"), and discarding a second location report of the set of location reports, wherein the second location report is greater than a second threshold distance from an immediately preceding location report of the set of location reports, (Par. [0037] "For example, server 22 may search a sequence of consecutive location indicators P.sub.1 through P.sub.n, where P.sub.1 and P.sub.n are within a small distance D of each other and have timestamps within a few minutes or hours of each other. Further, P.sub.1 and P.sub.n may have a high reported accuracy. If P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 (e.g., indicators between P.sub.1 and P.sub.n) have a low reported accuracy and are farther than an error distance from P.sub.1, then points P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 may be identified as erroneous indicators and removed from the location indicators retained or maintained in the location stream"), and wherein the second location report and the immediately preceding location report to the second location report are each associated with a second indication that the tracked object has not moved (Par. [0044] "The discarded subset of location indicators may thus be associated with the one or more computing devices 14 that did not move with user 12 during the respective periods of time").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports with Kirmse’s report filtering based on cell towers and distance thresholds to produce an expected result of efficiency in location tracking and reporting.
Regarding Claim 4, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1 where Blom further teaches the first indication is a not-moving flag (Fig. 2, Par. [0049] “In one embodiment, the UE 201 continuously samples the context information from the plurality geographic location identification sources including GPS, A-GPS, accelerator meter, network based position system WLAN scanning, or a combination thereof, and determines a current state of the UE 201 as searching, GPS fix, or stationary, thereby determining a location point”).
Regarding Claim 5, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1 where Blom further teaches the first indication includes accelerometer or gyroscope data (Fig. 2, Par. [0048] "FIG. 2 is a data flow diagram for an approach 200 of determining a geographical area contextually relevant to a user, according to one embodiment. In one embodiment, determining location anchors depends on data that are obtained from one or more human activity sensors (e.g., GPS, accelerometer, etc.)).
Regarding Claim 6, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1 where Blom further teaches the two or more location reports that are merged each include locations that are within a third threshold distance of one another (Fig. 3A, 3B, 3C Par. [0057] "In one embodiment, the contextually relevant location platform 103a determines one or more clusters of at least a portion of the stationary points within at least one predetermined boundary based, at least in part, on one or more predetermined criteria (e.g., a cluster size). The one or more predetermined criteria may include one or more temporal criteria (e.g., a length of user stay), one or more spatial criteria (e.g., a distance between two continuous location points), or a combination thereof").
Regarding Claim 10, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1 where Blom further teaches sequentially ordering the location reports of the filtered set of location reports by timestamp, and wherein the sequentially ordered location reports are used to generate the location history (Par. [0065] "In one embodiment, the location anchor module 505 discovers stay points from the location points, and then estimates location anchors form the stay points. By way of example, for each day for the user, the UE 101 retrieves locally or downloads externally a list of consecutive location points lp=(p1, p2, pN), where N is the number of location points. Each location point pi is defined using a 3-tuple: pi=(lat, long, T) corresponding to latitude, longitude, and timestamp").
Regarding Claim 11, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1 where Blom further teaches displaying the location history with a map to indicate where the tracked object has traveled (Fig. 3A, 3B, 3C, Par. [0054] "FIGS. 3A-3C show location points, stay points, and location anchors, according to one embodiment. As mentioned, location anchors can be displayed to the user in a location panel. In FIG. 3A, color-coded location points 301, 303, 305, 307, 309, etc, were extracted for a user visiting a European city. Each color corresponds to a different day, and the paths followed by the user are colored differently for the two days. FIG. 3B shows the stay points 321, 323, 325, 325, and 329 discovered for each day using the location points in FIG. 3A as input data").
Regarding Claim 12, Blom teaches a computer comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores computer-executable instructions; (Par. [0004] “According to another embodiment, an apparatus comprises at least one processor, and at least one memory including computer program code,”), and a processor, which is configured by reading the computer-executable instructions from the non-transitory computer-readable medium to perform a method comprising: (Par. [0004] “ According to another embodiment, an apparatus comprises at least one processor, and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause, at least in part, the apparatus to determine location-based data associated with a user, at least one device associated with the user, or a combination thereof”), identifying a set of location reports for a tracked object, each location report including at least a location of the tracked object and a timestamp; (Par. [0044] "In other words, the system 100 filters the location point data (e.g., raw location-based data associated with the location of the UE 101 and/or its associated user) to determine only those location point data that indicate where the user remains substantially stationary over a predetermined period of time (e.g., the stay points). Then the system 100 determines rich contextual data (e.g., time, date, activity, etc.) associated with the user and the stay points to determine one or more location anchor points"), merging two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are each associated with a first indication that the tracked object has not moved; (Fig. 3B, Par. [0056] "In one embodiment, the plurality of stationary points is determined from one or more locations indicated, at least in part, by the location-based data where the user, the at least one device, or a combination thereof is substantially stationary for a predetermined period of time continuously"), and generating a location history for the tracked object based on the filtered set of location reports (Fig. 14A, 14B, Par. [0123] "FIGS. 14A-14B are diagrams of user interfaces visualizing places based statistics, according to various embodiments. Several different types of statistics can be shown to the user pertaining to user behavior across the location anchors. For instance, time spent in any given location,").
Blom however, does not teach, after the merging, filtering the set of location reports to remove one or more outlier location by: discarding one of two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are associated with different cell phone tower identifiers; discarding a first location report of the set of location reports, wherein the first location report is greater than a first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately precedes the first location report and is greater than the first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately follows the first location report; and discarding a second location report of the set of location reports, wherein the second location report is greater than a second threshold distance from an immediately preceding location report of the set of location reports, and wherein the second location report and the immediately preceding location report to the second location report are each associated with a second indication that the tracked object has not moved.
Kirmse teaches after the merging, filtering the set of location reports to remove one or more outlier location by: discarding one of two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are associated with different cell phone tower identifiers (Par. [0027] "As described herein, the device identifier may be used to separate location identifiers into different location streams or groups" and Par. [0036] "Filtering the location noise may involve removing those of location indicators 26 that represent location changes due to at least one of cell tower reassignment, atmospheric conditions, and variable wireless network strength"), discarding a first location report of the set of location reports, wherein the first location report is greater than a first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately precedes the first location report and is greater than the first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately follows the first location report; (Par. [0037] "For example, server 22 may search a sequence of consecutive location indicators P.sub.1 through P.sub.n, where P.sub.1 and P.sub.n are within a small distance D of each other and have timestamps within a few minutes or hours of each other. Further, P.sub.1 and P.sub.n may have a high reported accuracy. If P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 (e.g., indicators between P.sub.1 and P.sub.n) have a low reported accuracy and are farther than an error distance from P.sub.1, then points P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 may be identified as erroneous indicators and removed from the location indicators retained or maintained in the location stream"), and discarding a second location report of the set of location reports, wherein the second location report is greater than a second threshold distance from an immediately preceding location report of the set of location reports, (Par. [0037] "For example, server 22 may search a sequence of consecutive location indicators P.sub.1 through P.sub.n, where P.sub.1 and P.sub.n are within a small distance D of each other and have timestamps within a few minutes or hours of each other. Further, P.sub.1 and P.sub.n may have a high reported accuracy. If P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 (e.g., indicators between P.sub.1 and P.sub.n) have a low reported accuracy and are farther than an error distance from P.sub.1, then points P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 may be identified as erroneous indicators and removed from the location indicators retained or maintained in the location stream"), and wherein the second location report and the immediately preceding location report to the second location report are each associated with a second indication that the tracked object has not moved (Par. [0044] "The discarded subset of location indicators may thus be associated with the one or more computing devices 14 that did not move with user 12 during the respective periods of time").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports with Kirmse’s report filtering based on cell towers and distance thresholds to produce an expected result of efficiency in location tracking and reporting.
Regarding Claim 14, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 12 where Blom further teaches the two or more location reports that are merged each include locations that are within a third threshold distance of one another (Fig. 3A, 3B, 3C Par. [0057] "In one embodiment, the contextually relevant location platform 103a determines one or more clusters of at least a portion of the stationary points within at least one predetermined boundary based, at least in part, on one or more predetermined criteria (e.g., a cluster size). The one or more predetermined criteria may include one or more temporal criteria (e.g., a length of user stay), one or more spatial criteria (e.g., a distance between two continuous location points), or a combination thereof").
Regarding Claim 15, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 12 where Blom further teaches the first indication is a not-moving flag (Fig. 2, Par. [0049] "In one embodiment, the UE 201 continuously samples the context information from the plurality geographic location identification sources including GPS, A-GPS, accelerator meter, network based position system WLAN scanning, or a combination thereof, and determines a current state of the UE 201 as searching, GPS fix, or stationary, thereby determining a location point").
Regarding Claim 16, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 12 where Blom further teaches the first indication includes accelerometer or gyroscope data (Fig. 2, Par. [0048] "FIG. 2 is a data flow diagram for an approach 200 of determining a geographical area contextually relevant to a user, according to one embodiment. In one embodiment, determining location anchors depends on data that are obtained from one or more human activity sensors (e.g., GPS, accelerometer, etc.)").
Regarding Claim 17, Blom teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores computer-executable instructions for configuring a processor to perform a method comprising: (Par. [0004] “an apparatus comprises at least one processor, and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause, at least in part, the apparatus to determine location-based data associated with a user, at least one device associated with the user, or a combination thereof”), identifying a set of location reports for a tracked object, each location report including at least a location of the tracked object and a timestamp; (Par. [0044] "In other words, the system 100 filters the location point data (e.g., raw location-based data associated with the location of the UE 101 and/or its associated user) to determine only those location point data that indicate where the user remains substantially stationary over a predetermined period of time (e.g., the stay points). Then the system 100 determines rich contextual data (e.g., time, date, activity, etc.) associated with the user and the stay points to determine one or more location anchor points"), merging two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are each associated with a first indication that the tracked object has not moved; (Fig. 3B, Par. [0056] "In one embodiment, the plurality of stationary points is determined from one or more locations indicated, at least in part, by the location-based data where the user, the at least one device, or a combination thereof is substantially stationary for a predetermined period of time continuously"), and generating a location history for the tracked object based on the filtered set of location reports (Fig. 14A, 14B, Par. [0123] "FIGS. 14A-14B are diagrams of user interfaces visualizing places based statistics, according to various embodiments. Several different types of statistics can be shown to the user pertaining to user behavior across the location anchors. For instance, time spent in any given location,").
Blom however, does not teach, after the merging, filtering the set of location reports to remove one or more outlier location by: discarding one of two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are associated with different cell phone tower identifiers; discarding a first location report of the set of location reports, wherein the first location report is greater than a first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately precedes the first location report and is greater than the first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately follows the first location report; and discarding a second location report of the set of location reports, wherein the second location report is greater than a second threshold distance from an immediately preceding location report of the set of location reports, and wherein the second location report and the immediately preceding location report to the second location report are each associated with a second indication that the tracked object has not moved.
Kirmse teaches after the merging, filtering the set of location reports to remove one or more outlier location by: discarding one of two or more location reports of the set of location reports that are adjacent in time and are associated with different cell phone tower identifiers (Par. [0027] "As described herein, the device identifier may be used to separate location identifiers into different location streams or groups" and Par. [0036] "Filtering the location noise may involve removing those of location indicators 26 that represent location changes due to at least one of cell tower reassignment, atmospheric conditions, and variable wireless network strength"), discarding a first location report of the set of location reports, wherein the first location report is greater than a first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately precedes the first location report and is greater than the first threshold distance from a location report of the set of location reports that immediately follows the first location report; (Par. [0037] "For example, server 22 may search a sequence of consecutive location indicators P.sub.1 through P.sub.n, where P.sub.1 and P.sub.n are within a small distance D of each other and have timestamps within a few minutes or hours of each other. Further, P.sub.1 and P.sub.n may have a high reported accuracy. If P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 (e.g., indicators between P.sub.1 and P.sub.n) have a low reported accuracy and are farther than an error distance from P.sub.1, then points P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 may be identified as erroneous indicators and removed from the location indicators retained or maintained in the location stream"), and discarding a second location report of the set of location reports, wherein the second location report is greater than a second threshold distance from an immediately preceding location report of the set of location reports, (Par. [0037] "For example, server 22 may search a sequence of consecutive location indicators P.sub.1 through P.sub.n, where P.sub.1 and P.sub.n are within a small distance D of each other and have timestamps within a few minutes or hours of each other. Further, P.sub.1 and P.sub.n may have a high reported accuracy. If P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 (e.g., indicators between P.sub.1 and P.sub.n) have a low reported accuracy and are farther than an error distance from P.sub.1, then points P.sub.2 through P.sub.n-1 may be identified as erroneous indicators and removed from the location indicators retained or maintained in the location stream"), and wherein the second location report and the immediately preceding location report to the second location report are each associated with a second indication that the tracked object has not moved (Par. [0044] "The discarded subset of location indicators may thus be associated with the one or more computing devices 14 that did not move with user 12 during the respective periods of time").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports with Kirmse’s report filtering based on cell towers and distance thresholds to produce an expected result of efficiency in location tracking and reporting.
Regarding Claim 19, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 17 where Blom further teaches the two or more location reports that are merged each include locations that are within a third threshold distance of one another (Fig. 3A, 3B, 3C Par. [0057] "In one embodiment, the contextually relevant location platform 103a determines one or more clusters of at least a portion of the stationary points within at least one predetermined boundary based, at least in part, on one or more predetermined criteria (e.g., a cluster size). The one or more predetermined criteria may include one or more temporal criteria (e.g., a length of user stay), one or more spatial criteria (e.g., a distance between two continuous location points), or a combination thereof").
Regarding Claim 20, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 17 where Blom further teaches the first indication is a not-moving flag (Fig. 2, Par. [0049] "In one embodiment, the UE 201 continuously samples the context information from the plurality geographic location identification sources including GPS, A-GPS, accelerator meter, network based position system WLAN scanning, or a combination thereof, and determines a current state of the UE 201 as searching, GPS fix, or stationary, thereby determining a location point").
Claims 2, 13, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blom et al. (US 2012/0136865) in view of Kirmse et al. (US 2013/0345965) as applied to claims 1, 12, and 17 above, and further in view of McCarthy et al. (US 9880019).
Regarding Claim 2, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1, but does not teach filtering the filtered set of location reports by removing a third location report that is at a vertex of a triangle of three location reports that have an angle at the vertex of less than a threshold angle.
McCarthy teaches filtering the filtered set of location reports by removing a third location report that is at a vertex of a triangle of three location reports that have an angle at the vertex of less than a threshold angle (Col. 19 Lines 14-21, Fig 6, Fig 12 "Some embodiments use the speed limit data to control the smoothing. For example, some embodiments allow different deviations of the centerline from the received vertex data for roads with different speed limits (e.g., allowing up to a 5 meter deviation for speed limit 65 roads, and a 2 meter deviation for 30 mph roads). FIG. 12 illustrates a kinked road 1210 that has a speed limit of 25 mph. The result of applying the smoothing operation to the road is illustrated as modified road 1220").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Bandyopadhyay’s removal of outlier reports with Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports and with McCarthy’s removal of a location report based on a threshold angle to produce an expected improvement in the speed of location tracking and reporting.
Regarding Claim 13, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 12, but does not teach filtering the filtered set of location reports by removing a third location report that is at a vertex of a triangle of three location reports that have an angle at the vertex of less than a threshold angle.
McCarthy teaches filtering the filtered set of location reports by removing a third location report that is at a vertex of a triangle of three location reports that have an angle at the vertex of less than a threshold angle (Col. 19 Lines 14-21, Fig 6, Fig 12 "Some embodiments use the speed limit data to control the smoothing. For example, some embodiments allow different deviations of the centerline from the received vertex data for roads with different speed limits (e.g., allowing up to a 5 meter deviation for speed limit 65 roads, and a 2 meter deviation for 30 mph roads). FIG. 12 illustrates a kinked road 1210 that has a speed limit of 25 mph. The result of applying the smoothing operation to the road is illustrated as modified road 1220").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Bandyopadhyay’s removal of outlier reports with Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports and with McCarthy’s removal of a location report based on a threshold angle to produce an expected improvement in the speed of location tracking and reporting.
Regarding Claim 18, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 17, but does not teach filtering the filtered set of location reports by removing a third location report that is at a vertex of a triangle of three location reports that have an angle at the vertex of less than a threshold angle.
McCarthy teaches filtering the filtered set of location reports by removing a third location report that is at a vertex of a triangle of three location reports that have an angle at the vertex of less than a threshold angle (Col. 19 Lines 14-21, Fig 6, Fig 12 "Some embodiments use the speed limit data to control the smoothing. For example, some embodiments allow different deviations of the centerline from the received vertex data for roads with different speed limits (e.g., allowing up to a 5 meter deviation for speed limit 65 roads, and a 2 meter deviation for 30 mph roads). FIG. 12 illustrates a kinked road 1210 that has a speed limit of 25 mph. The result of applying the smoothing operation to the road is illustrated as modified road 1220").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Bandyopadhyay’s removal of outlier reports with Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports and with McCarthy’s removal of a location report based on a threshold angle to produce an expected improvement in the speed of location tracking and reporting.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blom et al. (US 2012/0136865) in view of Kirmse et al. (US 2013/0345965) in further view of McCarthy et al. (US 9880019) as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Harrebek et al. (WO 2023/193884).
Regarding Claim 3, Blom in view of Kirmse in further view of McCarthy teaches the invention of Claim 2, but does not teach the threshold angle is 20 degrees.
Harrebek teaches the threshold angle is 20 degrees (Pg. 12, Lines 14-21 "To detect collinearity based on angles, we can set a predetermined threshold “a.sub.m” and say that collinearity is determined for the first and second anchor UEs 104, 106 if: a < a.sub.m, or |(a - i8o)| < a.sub.m (3) The value of a.sub.m may, for example, be set as 20 degrees or thereabouts, to give an example").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Kirmse’s removal of outlier reports with Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports, with McCarthy's removal of a location report based on a threshold angle with Harrebek’s threshold angle to produce an expected improvement in the determination of location reports.
Claims 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blom et al. (US 2012/0136865) in view of Kirmse et al. (US 2013/0345965) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Bandyopadhyay et al. (US 871286).
Regarding Claim 7, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1, but does not teach determining the first threshold distance based on accelerometer data for the first location report.
Badyopadhyay teaches determining the first threshold distance based on accelerometer data for the first location report (Col. 21 Lines 36-44 "As previously noted, mapping application 130 may receive tracking data (in addition to other types of data) as input. As described in greater detail below, tracking data may be obtained from any number of sources and/or from any number of tracking methods. By way of background, the most prominent tracking methods include Inertial Navigation and Signal-based methods. Inertial methods are generally considered to be those that use sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes," and Col. 22 Lines 1-12 "However, the tracking data type may be important to set (or define) parameters, thresholds, settings, or other metrics for use with the mapping algorithms of mapping application 130. For example, custom methods may be applied to different tracking data types depending on the tracking data characteristics. The tracking data may include data type, which may broadly be defined as Inertial, Signal-based, Fusion, or both separately").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Bandyopadhyay’s threshold distance based on accelerometer and gyroscope data with Kirmse’s removal of outlier reports and with Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports to produce an expected improvement in the accuracy of location tracking.
Regarding Claim 8, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1, but does not teach the second indication is a not-moving flag.
Badyopadhyay teaches the second indication is a not-moving flag (Col. 27 Lines 17-20 "In one implementation of the invention, the tracking data may be obtained from an Inertial System combined with GPS information, with the following illustrative (and non-limiting) tracking data format:" and Col. 27 Lines 48-49 "(12) StillFlag: A Flag indicating the a trackee is not moving”).
Regarding Claim 9, Blom in view of Kirmse teaches the invention of Claim 1, but does not teach the second indication includes accelerometer or gyroscope data.
Badyopadhyay teaches the second indication includes accelerometer or gyroscope data (Col. 21 Lines 36-44 "As previously noted, mapping application 130 may receive tracking data (in addition to other types of data) as input. As described in greater detail below, tracking data may be obtained from any number of sources and/or from any number of tracking methods. By way of background, the most prominent tracking methods include Inertial Navigation and Signal-based methods. Inertial methods are generally considered to be those that use sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes," and Col. 22 Lines 1-12 "However, the tracking data type may be important to set (or define) parameters, thresholds, settings, or other metrics for use with the mapping algorithms of mapping application 130. For example, custom methods may be applied to different tracking data types depending on the tracking data characteristics. The tracking data may include data type, which may broadly be defined as Inertial, Signal-based, Fusion, or both separately").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Badyopadhyay’s indication including accelerometer and gyroscope data with Kirmse’s removal of outlier reports and with Blom’s identifying and merging of location reports to produce an expected improvement in the accuracy of location tracking.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Yoeli (CA 2767606) discloses a “Distance filter that calculates the distance between the locations of the unit reported in the current report to the location of the unit in a previous report and determines which reports can be diluted or combined based on the actual location distance between the latest report and the previous one or ones. Time based filter that calculates the time difference between the time stamp in the current location report and the time stamp in the previous one and determines which report can be diluted or combined based on the time interval between reports. Fixed count based filter that dilutes or combines a location report by a fix ratio between location reports that are diluted and ones that are stored.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH NGHIA DINH whose telephone number is (571)272-5607. The examiner can normally be reached Mon. - Fri. 7:30AM-5PM.
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/J.N.D./Examiner, Art Unit 2641
/CHARLES N APPIAH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2641