DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-14 and 19-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Blackmon (US 2023/0088850).
Regarding claim 1, Blackmon teaches an aerosol generating (vaporizer) device, comprising: a vaporizer capsule (cartridge) comprising a heater [0003]; at least one processor [0056; and at least one memory storing instructions [0108] which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause operations comprising: applying a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control to regulate the heater to achieve a setpoint temperature [0242-0251]; generating, during the applying, an operational heating profile of the vaporizer cartridge [0266, 0273-0277; and detecting, based on the generated operational heating profile, a cartridge type of the vaporizer cartridge [0268, 0337].
Regarding claim 2, Blackmon teaches the operations further comprise: determining, based on the detecting, whether the vaporizer cartridge is authentic, the determining comprising: comparing the operational heating profile to a predetermined heating profile associated with the cartridge type [0273-0274].
Regarding claim 3-4, Blackmon teaches the operations further comprise authenticating the vaporizer cartridge; and permitting, based on the authenticating, use of the vaporizer cartridge and supplying current to the heater to heat a vaporizable material stored in the vaporizer cartridge to generate an aerosol [0311].
Regarding claims 5-6, Blackmon teaches the operations further comprise: determining the vaporizer cartridge is not authentic and preventing based on the determining the vaporizer cartridge is not authentic, a current from being supplied to the heater [0309].
Regarding claim 7, Blackmon teaches the operations further comprise: transmitting an alert indicating the vaporizer cartridge is not authentic [0310].
Regarding claim 8, Blackmon teaches the operational heating profile comprises a heating curve defined by a plurality of temperatures of the heater; and wherein the plurality of temperatures are measured over a period of time during which the setpoint temperature is achieved [0272, 0302, 0350].
Regarding claim 9, Blackmon teaches the applying the PID control comprises adjusting at least one of a proportional term, an integral term, and a derivative term of the PID control to achieve the setpoint temperature [0249].
Regarding claim 10, Blackmon teaches the cartridge type is one of a plurality of cartridge types [0337].
Regarding claim 11, Blackmon teaches the cartridge type comprises an authenticated cartridge configuration [0017, 0271].
Regarding claim 12, Blackmon teaches a vaporizer body coupled to the vaporizer cartridge [0057]; and wherein a plurality of cartridge types and a plurality of a predetermined heating profiles corresponding to a respective one of the plurality of cartridge types is stored on one or more of the vaporizer body and the vaporizer cartridge [0273, 0337].
Regarding claims 13-14, Blackmon teaches the detecting comprises: comparing the operational heating profile to a predetermined heating profile associated with the cartridge type and determining, based on the comparing, the cartridge type of the vaporizer cartridge when the operational heating profile matches the predetermined heating profile associated with the cartridge type [0273, 0308, 0318].
Regarding claims 19-26, Blackmon teaches applying a pulse width modulation (PWM) duty cycle to heat the heater; measuring a first temperature of the heater; and adding the measured first temperature to the operational heating profile, determining a current temperature setpoint; and adjusting, based on the current temperature setpoint, the PWM duty cycle, adjusting at least one of a proportional term, an integral term, and a derivative term of the PID control, applying the adjusted PWM duty cycle to heat the heater; measuring a second temperature of the heater; and adding the measured second temperature to the operational heating profile, determining whether an amount of temperatures added to the operational heating profile meets a threshold amount, storing the operational heating profile when the amount of temperatures meets the threshold amount, applying the adjusted PWM duty cycle to heat the heater; measuring an additional temperature of the heater; and adding the measured additional temperature to the operational heating profile, and adding an additional measured temperature of the heater to the operational heating profile until the amount of temperatures meets a threshold temperature [0192-0193, 0242-0251, 0302, 0305, 0318].
Regarding claim 27, Blackmon teaches a vaporizer body coupled to the vaporizer cartridge, the vaporizer body comprising the at least one processor; and the at least one memory [0057, 0100].
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 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blackmon as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Moloney (US 20230232907).
Blackmon does not teach the determining comprises applying a statistical model to determine the operational heating profile matches the predetermined heating profile associated with the cartridge type. Moloney teaches a vaporizer [0026] wherein template matching of values to predetermined values involves identifying a user means squares error [0221], i.e. applying a statistical model to determine a match. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply this concept to the device of Blackmon such that the determining comprises applying a statistical model to determine the operational heating profile matches the predetermined heating profile associated with the cartridge type to achieve predictable results, e.g. a more thorough comparison for determining a match. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been capable of applying this known technique to the device of Blackmon and the results would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claims 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blackmon as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Rogan (US 2021/0038836).
Blackmon does not teach the determining comprises generating a score indicating a similarity between the operational heating profile and the predetermined heating profile associated with the cartridge type. Rogan teaches an aerosol generation system wherein determining a match comprises generating a score indicating a similarity between a determined characteristic and a stored characteristic and determining the determined characteristic matches the stored characteristic when the score meets a threshold score [0191, 0196]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply this concept to the device of Blackmon such that the determining comprises generating a score indicating a similarity between the operational heating profile and the predetermined heating profile associated with the cartridge type and determining the operational heating profile matches the predetermined heating profile when the score meets a threshold score. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to provide an accurate comparison and matching determination between a determined value and a stored or predetermined value as suggested by Rogan [0012-0013]. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been capable of applying this known technique to the device of Blackmon and the results would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blackmon as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Popplewell (US 2019/0272359).
Blackmon does not teach the operations further comprise: causing display, via a user device communicatively coupled to the vaporizer device, of the cartridge type and cartridge information associated with the cartridge type. However, this configuration is known in the art as taught by Popplewell [Fig. 3; 0029, 0084, 0095] and would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply to the device of Blackmon for the benefit of conveying this information to the user.
Conclusion
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/ERIC YAARY/ Examiner, Art Unit 1755
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