Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
In view of the appeal brief filed on 09/26/2025, PROSECUTION IS HEREBY REOPENED. A new ground of rejection is set forth below.
To avoid abandonment of the application, appellant must exercise one of the following two options:
(1) file a reply under 37 CFR 1.111 (if this Office action is non-final) or a reply under 37 CFR 1.113 (if this Office action is final); or,
(2) initiate a new appeal by filing a notice of appeal under 37 CFR 41.31 followed by an appeal brief under 37 CFR 41.37. The previously paid notice of appeal fee and appeal brief fee can be applied to the new appeal. If, however, the appeal fees set forth in 37 CFR 41.20 have been increased since they were previously paid, then appellant must pay the difference between the increased fees and the amount previously paid.
A Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) has approved of reopening prosecution by signing below:
/JUSTIN C MIKOWSKI/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3673
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 2-3 and 5-19 is/are rejected under pre-AlA 35 U.S.C. 102(b) as being anticipated by U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0189865 to Bhai in view of U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0002435 to Utter.
Claim 2, Bhai discloses a system comprising: a bed having a mattress 14 comprising a pressure sensor (28a-c); and a central controller (fig. 4) in communication with the pressure sensor comprising: a network interface 60 capable of interacting with an external server for processing data; a processor 42; and computer memory (56,58) capable of storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors of the central controller to receive, from the pressure sensor, pressure data indicative of pressure applied to the mattress; determine, from the pressure data, a rate of change value indicative of change over time of the pressure data; compare the rate of change value to a movement threshold value; responsive to determining that the rate of change value is greater than the movement threshold value, determine that a user is moving on the mattress [0009]-[0014]; [0049]-[0050]; [0072]-[0079]. Bhai is silent to transmitting the pressure data to the external server for analysis; and receive second data that has been analyzed, from the external server. Utter discloses a system having a server capable of sharing data with an intermediary facility or database using process or based computing devices or networks gathering data for comparative analysis and a sleep management system server 114 [0030][0036][0083]-[0086]. It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the system and server in Utter with the system of Bhai with a reasonable expectation of success because it would have provided an improved system and comparative analysis processes of sleep profiles and targets for improved sleep management.
Claim 3, Bhai discloses the system further comprising means compressed of the processor and controller for data communication between components of the system [0053][0054][0059].
Claim 5, Bhai further discloses instructions capable of determining a first central tendency of pressure values from the pressure data sensed by the pressure sensor; determine a second central tendency of pressure values from the pressure data sensed by the pressure sensor; and calculate a difference between the first central tendency and the second central tendency [0077][0078].
Claims 6, 8, 10, and 13-19, Bhai, as modified, discloses all the structural limitations as stated above, wherein the instructions are capable of determining that the user is moving on the mattress whether the user is on a first-side or a second-side of the mattress, being based on the difference between the first central tendency and the second central tendency or the pressure data, or initiate a timer upon determining that the user is moving on the mattress; stop the timer upon determining that the user has stopped moving on the mattress; and wherein an accumulated time in the timer represents a total amount of time that the user has moved [0009]-[0014][0072]-[0079] and sleep quality capable of being calculated based on the accumulated time [0092][0095][Utter].
Claim 7, Bhai, as modified, discloses the system wherein the system of Utter is capable of determining that the user is in REM sleep or non-REM sleep [0086][0094]-[0101].
Claim 9, Bhai discloses the system wherein the central controller further comprises an enclosure defined by the boundaries of an air delivery system coupled to a frame 12 (fig. 4).
Claim 11, Bhai discloses the system wherein the pressure data includes pressure readings that are sampled at a predefined rate [0005]-[0014].
Claim 12, Bhai discloses the system wherein the movement threshold value is adjusted over time [0012][0014].
Claims 4 and 20-21 is/are rejected under pre-AlIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0189865 to Bhai in view of U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0002435 to Utter, and further in view of U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0061164 to Genaro
Claims 4 and 20-21, Bhai discloses all of the structural elements as stated above, but is silent to an A/D converter. Genero discloses an A/D converter [0030]. It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to employ an A/D converter yielding predictable results that digitizes the signal from the pressure sensors to be read by the processor of Bhai.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 2-21 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Pub. No. 2012/0317167 to Rahman et al. discloses a system capable of sharing and analyzing data with an intermediary facility via a server.
U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0295083 to Doelling et al. discloses a system capable of determining and analyzing various conditions of an individual sleeping.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FREDRICK C CONLEY whose telephone number is (571)272-7040. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30am-4:30pm.
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/FREDRICK C CONLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3673