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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 7 and 13 have been fully considered but are moot because the arguments do not directly apply to the new combination of references being used in the current rejection.
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 (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 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.
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 1-18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200322703 A1 to Bures et al., hereinafter “Bures” (cited in the IDS filed 6/28/2024) in view of US 20160047679 A1 to Jernigan.
Consider claim 1, Bures discloses an apparatus comprising at least one processing core and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processing core (par. [0037], fig. 2: processing module 240, executable instructions), cause the apparatus at least to:
obtain longer-term statistical information from output data of plural sensors of a sensor network, using a sliding time window of a first length (par. [0259]: “calculate statistical measurements . . . for a particular multi-sensor unit 120 over time . . . The statistical measurement functions on the other hand can be utilized to determine trends of the measurement values over longer periods time for the sensor device”);
obtain shorter-term statistical information from output data of the plural sensors of the sensor network, using a sliding time window of a second length which is shorter than the first length (par. [0259]: “calculate statistical measurements . . . for a particular multi-sensor unit 120 over time . . . the signal processing functions can process smaller time windows worth of measurement values for a sensor device to generate measurements describing the state of conditions measurement by the sensor device at a particular time corresponding to the time window”), and
assign at least a subset of sensors of the sensor network into a reduced activity state from an activity state based on sensor data from each respective one of the at least the subset of the sensors of the sensor network (par. [0321]: “the monitoring data analysis system 140 can automatically initiate an updated mode of operation to one or more multi-sensor units in response to detecting the condition of interest . . . This can include turning off, decreasing the transmission rate, bandwidth fraction, and/or richness of data collected by other sensor devices of the multi-sensor unit”; par. [0273]: “These conditions of interest can correspond to particularly desirable and/or particularly undesirable conditions that can be detected and/or predicted to occur based on measurements collected by sensor devices of multi-sensor units”), wherein the apparatus is configured to select a rate at which sensors in the reduced activity state provide sensor data based at least on the longer-term statistical information and the shorter-term statistical information (par. [0259]: “Some statistical measurement functions can be configured to calculate statistical measurements for a sensor device of a particular type and/or a particular synthetic measurement, for a particular multi-sensor unit 120 over time . . . time windows utilized to perform some or all of the statistical measurement functions on measurement values collected by a particular sensor device of a particular multi-sensor unit 120 are typically or always longer than time windows utilized to perform some or all of the . . . signal processing functions . . . the signal processing functions can process smaller time windows worth of measurement values for a sensor device to generate measurements describing the state of conditions measurement by the sensor device at a particular time corresponding to the time window, for example, where signal processing functions can be performed on several of these small time windows to generate further time-series data for the sensor device as described above. The statistical measurement functions on the other hand can be utilized to determine trends of the measurement values over longer periods time for the sensor device, generating data describing how a particular type of environmental and/or electrical condition in a particular location changes with time and/or otherwise describing trends for the particular type of condition in a particular location.”; also par. [0315]-[0316]: “The monitoring worth can be further determined based on the particular conditions of interest being detected in the location . . . For example, the monitoring data analysis system 140 can dictate that sensor devices with higher weights have their captured measurements be included in transmissions to the gateway device 130 more frequently than measurements captured by sensor devices with lower weights”; and par. [0275]: “Conditions of interest can be based on a threshold number of people, animals, vehicles, and/or other features determined to be within the location at a given time and/or within a particular time frame” par. [0284]: “the detection functions can be performed in response to determining all necessary input measurement data for a most recent timestamp and/or time window, for example, to facilitate detection of conditions of interest as close to real-time as possible.” Note, therefore condition detection functions are based on a smaller window ‘close to real-time’, whereas thresholds for determining conditions of interest may be based on analysis of historical data, e.g., par. [0191]; also consider par. [0377]-[0379] which discusses determining a discrepancy between short-term and long-term measurements).
Bures fails to explicitly disclose: wherein the reduced activity state includes at least a first rate and a second rate that is lower than an active rate of the activity state of the plural sensors of the sensor network; and wherein the rate is selected from among the first rate and the second rate.
In analogous art, Jernigan discloses: wherein the reduced activity state includes at least a first rate and a second rate that is lower than an active rate of the activity state of the plural sensors of the sensor network; and wherein the rate is selected from among the first rate and the second rate (Par. [0012] and Fig. 6-7: “cause the sensors to initiate measurements of data indicative of a process in a first data measurement mode, determine a pattern of events comprising the process based on a portion of the measurements collected by the sensors in the first data measurement mode over a time period, and initiate measurements of the data by the one or more sensors in a second data measurement mode [. . .] The second data measurement mode may include performing the data measurements at a second sampling rate that is lower than the first sampling rate, performing the data measurements at a third sampling rate during periods of time corresponding to predicted appearances of events according to the determined pattern, or performing the data measurements at a fourth sampling rate during periods of time between predicted appearances of consecutive events in the process and performing the data measurements at a fifth sampling rate during the periods of time corresponding to predicted appearances of events. The fifth sampling rate may be greater than the fourth sampling rate. In some embodiments, the fifth sampling rate may be slower than the fourth sampling rate”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Bures in view of the above teachings of Jernigan to reduce sensor power consumption, in particular, through predictive data measurements by one or more sensors (Jernigan: Par. [0012]).
Consider claim 2, Bures discloses, wherein the apparatus is further configured to select the first rate at which the sensors in the reduced activity state provide sensor data as a response to the longer-term statistical information and the shorter-term statistical information indicating a same state of the sensor network (par. [0376]-[0379], [0377]: “The method can further include performing a difference measurement function to generate a discrepancy value indicating a discrepancy between the at least one additional measurement and the updated historical measurement data collected by the one of the plurality of sensor devices . . . generates the second sensor collection control data based on receiving the discrepancy notification”; par. [0378]: “the second sensor collection control data includes an instruction to increase a measurement collection rate of the one of the plurality of sensor devices in response to the discrepancy notification”; par. [0379]: “The multi-sensor unit operates in a first mode of operation as a result of executing the first interpretive code instructions that causes the multi-sensor unit collects the first plurality of sets of measurement data in accordance with the first sensor collection control data. The method further includes executing the second interpretive code instructions in response to receiving the second sensor collection control data.” Note, therefore if there is no discrepancy then the short-term and long-term data indicate the same state and the first mode of operation is implemented. And, as the second mode operates at an increased measurement collection rate, then the first mode implicitly operates at a relatively decreased measurement collection rate).
Consider claim 3, Bures discloses wherein the apparatus is further configured to select the second rate, faster than the first rate, at which the sensors in the reduced activity state provide sensor data as a response to the longer-term statistical information and the shorter-term statistical information indicating different states of the sensor network (the particular case of different states is discussed regarding claim 2).
Consider claim 4, Bures discloses wherein the apparatus is further configured to assign sensors of the sensor network which are not assigned into the reduced activity state into the activity state in which the sensors provide the sensor data at a rate which is faster than the rate in the reduced activity state (par. [0311]: “Performing the multi-sensor unit weighting function can cause a weight of a first multi-sensor unit 120 to be higher than the weight of a second multi-sensor unit 120, in response to the first location having a monitoring worth value that indicates a greater worth or is otherwise more favorable than a monitoring worth value of the second location”; par. [0312]: “The unit weights can dictate that multi-sensor units 120 with higher unit weights transmit a higher amount of measurement data to the gateway device 130 than multi-sensor units 120 with lower unit weights, dictating that multi-sensor units 120 with higher unit weights transmit their measurements more frequently than multi-sensor units 120 with lower unit weights, and/or dictating that multi-sensor units 120 with higher weights transmit richer and/or a greater amount of measurement data to the gateway device 130 than multi-sensor units 120 with lower unit weights”).
Consider claim 5, Bures discloses wherein the apparatus is further configured to provide to a sensor data processing service of the sensor network an instruction to skip processing of a part of sensor data from a first sensor of the sensor network in at least one processing function of the sensor data processing service (par. [0316]: “As another example, the monitoring data analysis system 140 can dictate that sensor devices with lower weights have their respective packets skipped before skipping higher weighted sensor devices when network constraints decrease the transmission rate”).
Consider claim 6, Bures discloses wherein the apparatus is further configured to perform the obtaining of the longer-term statistical information and the shorter-term statistical information (par. [0259] or [0377]: obtaining short and long term statistical measurements) by deriving them from at least one of the following:
an aggregate number of targets detected by the plural sensors taken together,
a general average activity level in sensor data of the plural sensors (par. [0075]: “the function library can include one or more processing functions that are performed on multiple types of measurements collected by two or more different sensor devices . . . For example, a single processed measurement generated as a function of multiple measurements from measurement sensors can be sent to the data packet generating module 243 instead of some or all of the measurement data captured by the sensor devices separately.”),
a speed at which targets move in sensor data of the plural sensors wherein the sensor data is video data (par. [0160]: “One or more of the set of sensor devices 1-W can include optical sensors and/or imaging sensors . . . detecting the presence and/or movement of objects, people, and/or other features the visible and/or thermal image data”), and
a system-wide maximum level of activity in a single sensor, wherein the sensor data is video data.
Consider claim 7, the method is rejected along the same rationale as the apparatus of claim 1.
Consider claims 8-12, the method is rejected along the same rationale as the apparatus of claims 2-6, respectively.
Consider claim 13, the non-transitory computer readable medium is rejected along the same rationale as the apparatus of claim 1, and because Bures further teaches a processor in association with a memory that stores operational instructions for controlling the apparatus (par. [0497]).
Consider claims 14-18, the non-transitory computer readable medium is rejected along the same rationale as the apparatus of claims 2-6, respectively.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEPHEN R SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-1318. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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STEPHEN R. SMITH
Examiner
Art Unit 2484
/THAI Q TRAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2484
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