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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of claims 1-20 in the reply filed on 12/15/2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that there is no alleged species because there is no commonly identifiable genus to which the alleged species belong. This is found persuasive and the requirement is deemed improper and therefore is withdrawn.
Claim Status
Claim 1-20 are pending for examination in this Office action.
Claim Objection
Claims 2-20 are objected to because of the following informalities: the claims start with “[A]n automated evacuation system” which appears as introduction of a new system to the preexisting system of claim 1. Appropriate corrections are required to avoid any 35 USC 112 and/or antecedent issues.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10-12 and 14-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nagale et al. (Nagale; US 2023/0290233).
As per claim 1, Nagale teaches an automated evacuation system for guiding people out of a building during an evacuation, the evacuation system comprising:
a plurality of sensors at predefined locations in a building (a plurality of fire detection devices including sensors in associated rooms; see e.g. para. [0050]), each of the sensors configured to measure hazard parameters (applicant defines measured hazard parameters are temperature, smoke etc. which the disclosed sensors do; see e.g. para. [0050-51]), a plurality of emergency signs at predetermined locations within the building (one or more notification appliances installed at predetermined locations, 504C installed at location L3 inside a building 10 [FIG. 1] for example; see e.g. para. [0136] and FIG. 7B), an evacuation server (a control panel 508 for example, FIG. 5, which can be interpreted as a server since it provides service and/or resources by processing data and outputting one or more control signals) operatively coupled to the plurality of sensors and the emergency signs (the fire alarm control panel, see e.g. FIG. 4, coupled to fire detection devices 118 and fire notification devices or notification appliance; see e.g. para. [0063]), the evacuation server configured to:
receive sensor measurements from each of the sensors (the control panel including event detector, see e.g. FIG. 6, is configured to receive sensed data; see e.g. para. [0084]),
determine if a hazard has occurred based on comparing if one or more of the hazard parameters within the sensor measurements exceeds a threshold (the event detector compares the sensed data with one or more threshold values stored in memory to determine whether an event, fire, has occurred, see e.g. para. [0084]),
determine a location of the detected hazard (determining a location of the detected event; see e.g. [0086]), calculate an evacuation path if a hazard has occurred (generating an evacuation path if an emergency event occurred; see e.g. para. [0041] and [0066]), wherein the evacuation path is a path to out of the building (guiding occupants through the evacuation path to an exit, see e.g. para. [0041], of the building 10), and;
control the one or more emergency signs to guide people along the calculated evacuation path (the control panel 508 operating the one or more notification appliances to emit light, see e.g. 1106A, FIG. 11B, to direct people along the evacuation path away from the detected event; see e.g. para. [0139]).
As per claim 2, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein each emergency sign comprises comprising controllable indicia to guide people, wherein the evacuation server is configured to transmit control signals to each emergency sign to activate the indicia to indicate a direction of travel corresponding to the calculated evacuation path (each sign comprising an indicia which are activated for indicating direction of travel based on the evacuation path; see e.g. para. [0139-0140] and FIG. 11B).
As per claim 4, an automated evacuation system as in claim 3 as taught by Nagale and Benton, wherein the sensors are configured to wirelessly communicate with each other and the evacuation server (wired or wireless network; see e.g. para. [0073] of Nagale), wherein the sensors are configured to communicate with each other using the LoRA protocol (one or more network components can use LoRa protocol for communication, see e.g. para. [0121-122]).
As per claim 5, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to: access or generate an electronic model of the building (obtaining building model; see e.g. para. [0079]), wherein the model includes the sensors and the emergency signs and their respective locations, the model further including one or more exits of the building (sensors, notification appliances, and emergency exit location information in the model; see e.g. para. [0079]), and; calculate an evacuation path through the building to the one or more exits using the model of the building (calculate the evacuation paths to exit using the stored models; see e.g. para. [0092]).
As per claim 7, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to calculate a plurality of evacuation paths to an exit while avoiding one or more detected hazards in the building (determine and generate the evacuation paths for exiting; see e.g. para. [0092]).
As per claim 8, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server comprises: a sensor gateway configured to receive sensor measurements comprising a hazard parameter (a network interface 518 to communicate with sensors; see e.g. para. [0073]), a hazard detection engine configured to process the sensor measurements and detect a hazard if the one or more measured hazard parameters exceeds a threshold (event detector 526 component or machine to process sensor data if measured data exceeds a threshold value; see e.g. para. [0084]) or if one or more measured hazard parameters are trending to exceeding a threshold,
a hazard location engine configured to determine the location of a hazard within the building (the event detector determines location of a hazard event, see e.g. para. [0086], within the building 10), an evacuation path determination module configured to calculate the evacuation path that avoids the hazard location (path generator 528 for generating path avoiding the detected location of event; see e.g. para. [0092]), and; a sign actuation engine configured to generate actuation signals that are transmitted to the emergency signs to activate and control the emergency signs to guide people along the calculated evacuation path (path generator configured to provide instructions to notification appliances to control one or more characteristics of the emitted light based on the generated evacuation path, see e.g. para. [0098], for exiting out of the building as discussed earlier).
As per claim 10, an automated evacuation system as in claim 8 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation path determination module is configured to dynamically update the evacuation path and control the emergency signs to guide people along the updated evacuation path (dynamically changing evacuation path to control the notification appliances; see e.g. para. [0102]).
As per claim 11, an automated evacuation system as in claim 10 as taught by Nagale, wherein the hazard location engine is configured to determine a location of the hazard by identifying the one or more sensors that detected the hazard and identifying the location of the one or more sensors, wherein the location of the hazard corresponds to the location of the sensors that detected the hazard (determine location of hazard based on identity and location of the sensor which detected the event; see e.g. para. [0106], [0053] and [0080]).
As per claim 12, an automated evacuation system as in claim 8 Nagale, wherein the system comprises: a building model database configured to store one or more building models (see e.g. para. [0086]), wherein the building model comprises an electronic or virtual building model (2D or 3D building model, see e.g. para. [0079], wherein the stored model is an digital/electronic or virtual representation), a sensor location database that includes the locations of each sensor in the building (location of an event is determined based on location of installation, see e.g. para. [0086], which means the location of sensors is stored in a memory, storage or database), an emergency sign location database that includes the location of each emergency sign in the building (location of notification appliances are stored; see e.g. para. [0080]), and; wherein the model comprises the locations of the sensors and the emergency signs (the model includes sensors and notification appliances data, see e.g. para. [0079]).
As per claim 14, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to determine if a hazard has occurred based on one or more of: a hazard parameter exceeds a threshold (as discussed earlier, occurrence of fire or hazard based on a detected parameter exceeding threshold; see e.g. para. [0084]), a hazard parameter is detected for a threshold time or detected for longer than a threshold time, or; a hazard parameter exceeds a threshold for at least a threshold time.
As per claim 15, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to: monitor the location of the detected hazard, determine if the hazard has moved to another location or a hazard is detected is at another location within the building (fire spread detection, from 5th floor to 4th floor and 6th floot; see e.g. para. para. [0087]), and; update the evacuation path or calculate a new evacuation path that avoids the location of the detected hazards (calculate a new path when the spread is detected; see e.g. para. [0095]).
As per claim 16, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to: continuously detect hazard parameters from each sensor, calculate if a hazard has occurred, monitor the location of the detected hazard and track the spread of the hazard through the building based on the locations of the sensors that have detected hazard parameters indicative of a hazard (as discussed earlier, detection of hazard at a specific location and spread thereof; see e.g. para. [0087] and [0095]), and; continuously update the evacuation path to avoid the detected hazard and avoid the changing location of the hazard, continuously control each of the emergency signs to guide people along the updated evacuation path (continuous monitoring of the sensed data, see e.g. para. [0087], and generation of notification or alert when a hazardous event occurred; see e.g. para. [0139], wherein the new path generation as disclosed in paragraph 0095 would continuously update the notification appliances accordingly).
As per claim 17, an automated evacuation system as in claim 16 as taught by Nagale, wherein the system operates in real time to receive sensor measurements and determine a hazard or predict a hazard is likely to occur (sensing data from a plurality of sensors to determine that probability of detecting a false event is low, see e.g. para. [0085], which means the hazard is likely to occur), determine an evacuation path in response if an evacuation is required due to a determined hazard or a prediction of a hazard will occur based on the sensor measurements (detected a fire event as discussed earlier, see e.g. para. [0084], and likelihood of detecting a false event is low, see e.g. para. [0085], generating a path accordingly; see e.g. para. [0063] and [0139]).
As per claim 18, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to: predict a path of a hazard through the building by extrapolating two or more hazard parameter readings from two or more sensors (predicting path of hazard based on readings from two or more sensor data as well spread as discussed earlier, i.e., a spread to 4th and 6th floors based on the sensor data exceeding a threshold value), update the evacuation path to avoid locations along the predicted path of the hazard (generation of new path avoiding the detected event; see e.g. para. [0094-95]), and; control the emergency signs to guide people along the updated evacuation path (new path and association light emission; see e.g. para. [0102]).
As per claim 19, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the hazard parameter sensed by the one or more sensors are one or more of: temperature, smoke, gas, toxic chemical, or heat flux (parameters sensed are temperature, smoke, see e.g. para. [0142]).
As per claim 20, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to: detect one or more hazard parameters, determine if the detected hazard parameter has reached a dangerous level (hazard parameter reaching a threshold level, i.e., smoke or oxygen reach a threshold level, see e.g. para. [0084], wherein the threshold or the discussed spread of the detected event is interrupted as a dangerous level, wherein the levels are monitored dynamically; see e.g. para. [0087]), update the evacuation path to avoid the location of the sensor that detected the hazard parameter has reached a dangerous level (updating the generated path when a spread of the detected event is detected, see e.g. para. [0094-96]), and; control the emergency signs to guide people along the updated evacuation path (displaying one or more evacuation paths, see e.g. para. [0098] and para. [0139]).
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, 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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
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 6 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagale.
As per claim 6, an automated evacuation system as in claim 5 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to plot the location of one or more detected hazards on the model and calculate an evacuation path to avoid the hazards (generating evacuation may path based on location of detected events to guide occupants, see e.g. para. [0041], to avoid location of the detected event, see e.g. para. [0092]. Even though there is no plotting of the detected hazard, it would have been obvious to a person having skilled in the art to be able to plot the locations of the detected hazards since location of sensor[s] which detect the event is known).
As per claim 13, an automated evacuation system as in claim 12 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation server is configured to generate a model of the building by accessing one or more building plans and by accessing and utilising the locations of the sensors from the sensor location database and the locations of the emergency signs from the emergency sign location database (as discussed earlier, the building model includes location of sensors, and notification appliances, see e.g. para. [0079], wherein it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to regenerate that model for further analysis, i.e., the disclosed emergency route planning).
Claim 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagale in view of Benton et al. (Benton; US 2023/0034481).
As per claim 3, an automated evacuation system as in claim 1 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation system comprises a plurality of sensors the sensors are arranged at predefined locations in the building (a plurality of fire detecting devices 116, see e.g. FIG. 4, in a building 10; see e.g. para. [0044-45]), except the claimed wherein the sensors define a mesh network.
Benton, however, teaches that one or more fire sensors define a mesh network (see e.g. para. [0003]). Nagale and Benton are in a same or similar field of endeavor, therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine their teachings for the inherent purpose of seamless network connectivity or a self-healing network.
Claim 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagale in view of Aman et al. (Aman; US 2022/0261749).
As per claim 9, an automated evacuation system as in claim 8 as taught by Nagale, wherein the evacuation path determination module is configured to calculate the evacuation path is calculated wherein each emergency sign defines a waypoint in the evacuation path as discussed earlier, except the claimed wherein the path is based on a shortest point algorithm between the various emergency signs.
Aman, however, teaches a journey planner using a shortest route between two waypoints (see e.g. para. [0037]). Similarly, the disclosed system of Nagale can use the teachings of Aman to calculate route from a first point with fire emergency to another point or to exit using a shortest distance as suggested by Aman. Nagale and Aman are in a same or similar field of endeavor, therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine their teachings for the purpose of saving time which can be critical in an emergency situation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MUHAMMAD ADNAN whose telephone number is (571)270-3705. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday 10AM-6PM.
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/MUHAMMAD ADNAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2688
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