Response to Amendment
This action is responsive to applicant’s amendment and remarks received on 12/18/2025. Claims 1-6, 10-21, 82, and 83 have been presented for examination. Claims 1 and 11 have been amended, claims 22-24 have been canceled, and new claims 82 and 83 have been added. Claims 1-6, 10-21, 82, and 83 have been examined.
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.
Claims 1-2, 6, 10-11, 15-16 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ten Kate (Pub. No.: 2016/0203692 A1) in view of Song (Pub. No.: 2009/0315719 A1) and Bauch (Pub. No.: 2020/0008757 A1).
1) In regard to claim 1, Ten Kate discloses the claimed personal safety monitoring system (figs. 1-2) comprising:
a wearable device (fig. 3: 2), the wearable device comprising
a control circuit (fig. 3: 8);
a motion sensor (fig. 3: 4); and
a wireless signal receiver (fig. 3: 10);
wherein the personal safety monitoring system is configured to
detect loss of balance events (¶0065); and
determine physical location correlated with detected loss of balance events (¶0079).
Ten Kate does not explicitly disclose system logs the location, and the wearable device is an ear-wearable device.
However, Song discloses it has been known for a monitoring system to log the location of the event in the device memory (¶0052-¶0053).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to log the data in a memory, as taught by Song.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to allow the user to retrieve the data at a later date.
In addition, Bauch discloses it is known for a personal safety monitoring system to use an ear-wearable device for detecting a fall of a user (¶0020).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the device of Ten Kate to be an ear-wearable device, as taught by Bauch.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to utilize a device which would be attached to the user, as taught by Bauch (¶0020).
2) In regard to claim 2 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the personal safety monitoring system is configured to provide a notification of physical locations associated with loss of balance events (Ten Kate ¶0079).
3) In regard to claim 6 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the personal safety monitoring system is configured to provide a notification of physical locations associated with loss of balance events to a third party (Ten Kate ¶0102).
4) In regard to claim 10 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1, wherein loss of balance events are detected based on motion sensor signals crossing a threshold value of variance (Ten Kate ¶0065).
5) In regard to claim 11 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1, the ear-wearable device further comprising a microphone (Ten Kate ¶0066).
6) In regard to claim 15 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1, wherein detected loss of balance events are unprompted (Ten Kate ¶0061).
7) In regard to claim 16 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the detected loss of balance events are in response to a prompt or challenge (Song ¶0053 discloses an alarm is generated if a signal from the OK button is not received within a predetermined time).
8) In regard to claim 21 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the personal safety monitoring system is configured to detect vertical movement and correlate the same with detected loss of balance events (Song ¶0046).
Claims 3-5 and 81 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ten Kate (Pub. No.: 2016/0203692 A1) in view of Song (Pub. No.: 2009/0315719 A1) and Bauch (Pub. No.: 2020/0008757 A1) and further in view of Huang (Pub. No.: 2013/0317944 A1).
1) In regard to claim 3 (dependent on claim 2), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 2.
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose the notification includes a warning of danger and the notification is delivered prior to encountering and/or reencountering the physical location.
However, Huang discloses it is known for a monitoring system notification includes a warning of danger and the notification is delivered prior to encountering and/or reencountering the physical location (¶0167-¶0168).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to provide a notification prior to encountering a physical location, as taught by Huang.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to prewarn a user of an impending emergency.
2) In regard to claim 4 (dependent on claim 2), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 2.
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose the notification includes a warning of danger and the notification is delivered when approaching the physical location.
However, Huang discloses it is known for a monitoring system notification includes a warning of danger and the notification is delivered when approaching the physical location (¶0167-¶0168).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to provide a notification prior to approaching a physical location, as taught by Huang.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to prewarn a user of an impending emergency.
3) In regard to claim 5 (dependent on claim 2), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1.
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose the personal safety monitoring system is configured to classify the determined physical location as being a perpetual or transient danger.
However, Huang discloses it is known for a monitoring system to classify the determined physical location as being a perpetual or transient danger (¶0167-¶0168).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to provide a notification of danger, as taught by Huang.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to prewarn a user of an impending emergency.
4) In regard to claim 81, claim 81 is rejected and analyzed with respect to claim 3 and the references applied.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ten Kate (Pub. No.: 2016/0203692 A1) in view of Song (Pub. No.: 2009/0315719 A1) and Bauch (Pub. No.: 2020/0008757 A1) and further in view of Parvaneh (Pub. No.: 2021/0052198 A1).
1) In regard to claim 12 (dependent on claim 11), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 11.
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose loss of balance events are detected based on at least one of the microphone signals and the motion sensor signals.
However, Parvaneh discloses it has been known for a monitoring system to detect an event based on at least one of the microphone signals and the motion sensor signals (¶0007).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to detect an event based on a motion and a microphone signal, as taught by Parvaneh.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to improve the overall efficiency of the system by reducing the number of false alarms.
Claims 13-14, 18-20, and 83 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ten Kate (Pub. No.: 2016/0203692 A1) in view of Song (Pub. No.: 2009/0315719 A1) and Bauch (Pub. No.: 2020/0008757 A1) and further in view of Galarneau (Pub. No.: 2020/0380840 A1).
1) In regard to claim 13 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1.
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose the personal safety monitoring system is configured to calculate balance recovery metrics after detected loss of balance events.
However, Galarneau discloses it has been known for a monitoring system to be configured to calculate balance recovery metrics after detected loss of balance events (¶0068).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to calculate a recovery metric of the event, as taught by Galarneau.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to calibrate the device to reduce the number of false alarms.
2) In regard to claim 14 (dependent on claim 13), Ten Kate, Song, Bauch and Galarneau further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 13, the balance recovery metrics comprising a balance recovery time (Galarneau ¶0068).
3) In regard to claim 18 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1,
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose the personal safety monitoring system is configured to correlate time of day with detected loss of balance events.
However, Galarneau discloses it has been known for a monitoring system to be configured to correlate a time of day with detected loss of balance events (¶0084).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to correlate a time of day to a detected event, as taught by Galarneau.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to increase the overall efficiency of the system by monitoring for certain times of the day for an event.
4) In regard to claim 19 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1,
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose the personal safety monitoring system is configured to correlate occurrences of a daily event with detected loss of balance events.
However, Galarneau discloses it has been known for a monitoring system to be configured to correlate occurrences of a daily event with detected loss of balance events (¶0084).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Ten Kate to correlate a daily event with an emergency event, as taught by Galarneau.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to increase the overall efficiency of the system by monitoring for certain daily events to detect an emergency event.
5) In regard to claim 20 (dependent on claim 19), Ten Kate, Song, Bauch and Galarneau further disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 19, the daily event comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of a bed time, a rising time, a meal time, and a bathroom time (Galarneau ¶0084).
6) In regard to claim 83, claim 83 is rejected and analyzed with respect to claim 18 and the references applied.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ten Kate (Pub. No.: 2016/0203692 A1) in view of Song (Pub. No.: 2009/0315719 A1) and Bauch (Pub. No.: 2020/0008757 A1) and further in view of Burwinkel (Pub. No.: 2020/0205746 A1).
1) In regard to claim 17 (dependent on claim 1), Ten Kate, Song and Bauch disclose the personal safety monitoring system of claim 1.
Ten Kate, Song and Bauch do not explicitly disclose the personal safety monitoring system is configured to correlate medication administration times with detected loss of balance events.
However, Burwinkel discloses it is known for a personal safety monitoring system to correlate a medication administration times with detected loss of balance events (¶0034-¶0035).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the monitoring system of Ten Kate to correlate an event with an administration time of a medication, as taught by Burwinkel.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Ten Kate as described above in order to increase the efficiency of the system by monitoring at specific times.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to the amended claims, based solely on the amendments to the claims, have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the combination of the references including new prior art being used in the current new grounds of rejection for the newly added limitations to the claims.
As to the dependent claims, in which applicant has relied on the arguments of the above argued claims, the above response to the argued claims is the response to the dependent claims.
Applicant's arguments filed on 12/18/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
As to claim 3, on pages 8-9 of applicant’s response, applicant argues:
“Claim 3 requires "wherein the notification includes a warning of danger and the notification is delivered prior to encountering and/or reencountering the physical location." The Office Action at pages 6-7 cites paragraphs [0167]-[0168] of Huang as disclosing this limitation…
While Huang discloses alerting a user when returning to a location, there is no teaching or suggestion that the alert contains a notification of danger. As such, Huang fails to teach or suggest "wherein the notification includes a warning of danger and the notification is delivered prior to encountering and/or reencountering the physical location" as required by claim 3. Therefore, the combination of Ten Kate, Song, and Huang also fails to teach or suggest the subject matter of claim 3.”
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s argument, because Huang discloses in ¶0168 tagging previously visited locations with alerts when a user approaches the location. Thus, Huang discloses providing a notification when a user reencounters a physical location. Therefore, applicant arguments are not persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
As to claim 4, on page 9 of applicant’s response, applicant argues:
“Applicant respectfully disagrees with this analysis. While Huang discloses alerting a user when returning to a location, there is no teaching or suggestion that the alert contains a notification of danger. As such, Huang fails to teach or suggest "wherein the notification includes a warning of danger and the notification is delivered when approaching the physical location" as required by claim 4. Therefore, the combination of Ten Kate, Song, and Huang also fails to teach or suggest the subject matter of claim 4.”
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s argument, because Huang discloses in ¶0168 tagging previously visited locations with alerts (note, alerting someone is done to let them know there may be danger) when a user approaches the location. Thus, Huang discloses providing a notification when a user reencounters a physical location. Therefore, applicant arguments are not persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
As to claim 5, on page 10 of applicant’s response, applicant argues:
“Applicant respectfully disagrees with this analysis. While Huang discloses alerting a user when returning to a location, there is no teaching or suggestion of classifying danger as perpetual or transient danger. As such, Huang fails to teach or suggest "wherein the personal safety monitoring system is configured to classify the determined physical location as being a perpetual or transient danger" as required by claim 5. Therefore, the combination of Ten Kate, Song, and Huang also fails to teach or suggest the subject matter of claim 5. For at least these reasons, Applicant respectfully requests that this rejection be withdrawn.”
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s argument, because Huang discloses in ¶0168 tagging previously visited locations with alerts when a user approaches or leaves the location. Thus, Huang discloses providing a notification when a user is approaching or leaving a location. Therefore, applicant arguments are not persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
As to claim 18, on page 11 of applicant’s response, applicant argues:
“Galarneau lacks any disclosure of loss of balance events or of correlating time of day with loss of balance events. As such, Galarneau fails to teach or suggest "wherein the personal safety monitoring system is configured to correlate time of day with detected loss of balance events" as required by claim 18. Therefore, the combination of Ten Kate, Song, and Galarneau fails to teach or suggest the subject matter of claim 18.”
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s argument, because Galarneau discloses in ¶0084 it is known for a system to know when a patient is expected to be performing an upright posture task, and during that time of day to ping the patient personal device and receive a body posture signal. Thus, applicant arguments are not persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
As to claim 19, on page 11 of applicant’s response, applicant argues:
“Applicant respectfully disagrees with this analysis. Paragraph [0084] of Galarneau discloses estimating and confirming when a user will be active. However, Galarneau lacks any disclosure of loss of balance events or of correlating occurrences of a daily event to loss of balance events. As such, Galarneau fails to teach or suggest "wherein the personal safety monitoring system is configured to correlate occurrences of a daily event with detected loss of balance events" as required by claim 19. Similarly, Galarneau fails to teach or suggest "the daily event comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of a bed time, a rising time, a meal time, and a bathroom time" as required by claim 20. Therefore, the combination of Ten Kate, Song, and Galarneau fails to teach or suggest the subject matter of claims 19-20. For at least these reasons, Applicant respectfully requests that this rejection be withdrawn.”
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s argument, because Galarneau discloses in ¶0084 it is known for a system to receive a body posture signal when a patient is expected to be performing an upright posture task, and during that time of day to ping the patient personal device. Thus, applicant arguments are not persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
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 CURTIS J KING whose telephone number is (571)270-5160. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 6:00 - 2:00 EST.
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/CURTIS J KING/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2685