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 .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the time periods and “cycle of a peak” recited in claims 12-15 and 19-22 must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Claims 15, 21, and 22 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In each of claims 15 and 22, the phrase “based a cycle of a peak” should be amended to read “based on a cycle of a peak”.
The phrase “and calculate the supply-of-power stop period t2” in line 11 of claim 21 should be amended to read “and calculating the supply-of-power stop period t2”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 9-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 9, the claim recites that an electrical signal is “derived” from an amount of sweat and an electrolyte concentration in the sweat. It is unclear what it means for a signal to be “derived” from an amount of sweat and an electrolyte concentration in the sweat. For this examination, the claim is being interpreted such that an output electrical signal is based on an amount of sweat and an electrolyte concentration in the sweat. The same indefiniteness issue and interpretation also apply to claim 16.
Regarding claim 11, it is unclear within what time window the claimed “peak of the current” occurs. Would any instance of a measured value, immediately followed by a higher value, immediately followed by a lower value qualify as “a peak of the current”? Is the “peak of the current” the maximum current value within a set time period? Clarification is requested. The same indefiniteness issue also applies to claim 18.
Regarding claim 12, it is unclear why lines 2-3 are present in the claim as the subject matter recited in lines 2-3 are the same as those recited in lines 2-3 of claim 11, from which claim 12 depends. Further regarding claim 12, it is unclear what is meant by “a cycle of the peak”. A reading of the specification does not provide guidance or clarity as to how the phrase is to be interpreted. Clarification is requested. The same indefiniteness issues are also present in claim 19.
Regarding claims 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, and 22, as with claims 12 and 19, the phrase “a cycle of a peak” renders the claims indefinite. The phrase “a cycle t* of the peak” is also indefinite for the same reason as discussed above.
Claims not explicitly rejected above are rejected due to their dependence on a rejected base claim.
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.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hashimoto et al.’061 (WO 2020/209061) in view of Heikenfeld’165 (US Pub No. 2015/0112165).
For this rejection, the US Translation of Hashimoto et al.’061, as seen in Hashimoto et al.’053 (US Pub No. 2022/0054053), will be referenced.
Hashimoto et al.’061 discloses a sweating analysis method, the method comprising: detecting, by a wearable sensor (see ABSTRACT, and wearable sensor shown in Figures 1 and 3), an electrical signal derived from an amount of sweat and an electrolyte concentration in the sweat, the sweat being secreted from skin of a wearer of the wearable sensor (step S1 of Figure 4, section [0045]); calculating the electrolyte concentration in the sweat of the wearer based on the electrical signal obtained by the wearable sensor (step S5 of Figure 4, section [0048]); stopping supply of power from a power supply to the wearable sensor when a supply-of-power stop condition is satisfied (step S10 of Figure 4, section [0054]); calculating a supply-of-power stop period based on the electrical signal obtained by the wearable sensor (sections [0052] and [0054]); and restarting the supply of power to the wearable sensor when the supply-of-power stop period is ended (section [0055] indicates that steps S1 to S10 are repeated, which includes restarting the supply of power to the wearable sensor).
Hashimoto et al.’061 discloses all of the elements of the current invention, as discussed above, except for calculating the amount of sweat of the wearer based on the electrical signal obtained by the wearable sensor. It is noted that sections [0057-0059] of Hashimoto et al.’061 do disclose use of an estimated or known volume of sweat of the wearer. What Hashimoto et al.’061 fails to teach is determining the amount of sweat based on the obtained electrical signal.
Heikenfeld et al.’165 teaches that an amount/volume of sweat may be calculated from an electrical signal obtained from a wearable sensor (section [0065]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to have modified the method of Hashimoto et al.’061 to include determining the known amount/volume of sweat by calculating the amount/volume based on the obtained electrical signal, as Heikenfeld et al.’165 teaches that this is a known method for determining an amount/volume of sweat. The modification to Hashimoto et al.’061 would merely be combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.
Examiner’s Note
The following is a statement of reasons for the lack of prior art rejections against claims 9-15 and 17-22:
Regarding claim 9, none of the prior art discloses or suggests, either alone or in combination, a sweating analysis device comprising a power supply controller configured to stop supplying power from a power supply to a wearable sensor and one or more processors of the sweating analysis device when a supply-of power stop condition is satisfied, and restart supplying the power to the wearable sensor and the one or more processors when a supply-of-power stop period is ended, in combination with the other claimed elements.
Regarding claim 17, none of the prior art discloses or suggests, either alone or in combination, a sweating analysis method comprising determining that a supply-of-power stop condition has been satisfied when a certain period of time has elapsed from a time point at which a change in a current of an electrical signal starts due to a droplet, in combination with the other claimed steps.
Regarding claim 18, none of the prior art discloses or suggests, either alone or in combination, a sweating analysis method comprising determining that a supply-of-power stop condition has been satisfied when a peak of a current occurs after supply of power to a wearable sensor is started, in combination with the other claimed steps.
Regarding claim 20, none of the prior art discloses or suggests, either alone or in combination, a sweating analysis method comprising calculating a supply-of-power stop period t2 to satisfy 0 < t2 < t – t1, in combination with the other claimed steps.
Regarding claim 21, none of the prior art discloses or suggests, either alone or in combination, a sweating analysis method comprising calculating a supply-of-power stop period t2 to satisfy 0 < t2 < t* – t1, in a case where a sum Q + ΔQ is less than a maximum amount of sweat Qmax, and calculating a supply-of-power stop period t2 to satisfy 0 < t2 < tmin – t1, in a case where a sum Q + ΔQ is equal to or more than a maximum amount of sweat Qmax, in combination with the other claimed steps.
Regarding claim 22, none of the prior art discloses or suggests, either alone or in combination, a sweating analysis method comprising calculating an amount of sweat based on a cycle of a peak of a current, in combination with the other claimed steps.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Each of Rafferty et al.’388 (US Pub No. 2013/0245388), Murphy et al.’070 (US Pub No. 2016/0256070), Begtrup et al.’448 (US Pub No. 2019/0008448), and Heikenfeld et al.’654 (US Pub No. 2019/0029654) teaches a sweating analysis device comprising a wearable sensor configured to output an electrical signal derived from an amount of sweat and an electrolyte concentration in the sweat.
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/ETSUB D BERHANU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3791