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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of species A with FIG.1-5 along with claims 1-15 in the reply filed on 2/18/2026 is acknowledged.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 8-11 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZIMNY et al. (US 20190103966 A1) in view of DIAZ FUENTE (US 20210021962 A1).
Re claim 1. ZIMNY discloses (abstract) a gateway (FIG.1) for enabling remote access control by an access control server 110 for an electronic lock [0007-0008], wherein the gateway is configured to be mounted within short-range communication distance to the electronic lock [0042], wherein the gateway is free from being associated with a particular user or key [0086], and wherein the gateway comprises:
a battery 350 being a power source for the gateway [0083];
a short-range radio communication module for communicating with the electronic lock [0042, 0045];
a communication module (i.e. 304/316) for communicating with the access control server [0052-0054];
a location determination module (location determination is implicitly carried out for mapping functions) [0160];
a processor (i.e. FIG.3 – 334); and
a memory (i.e. FIG.3 – 330) storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the gateway to:
the transmitting uplink location data comprising obtaining first location data ([0156] i.e. location data is implicit given that a user can obtain and see a location map for nodes as lock-type devices) from the location determination module [0156, 0160], wherein the uplink location data comprises the first location data; [0156, 0160]
receive an unlock message from the access control server; [0117, 0144-0145]
transmit an unlock command to the electronic lock; [0146] and
transition (i.e. low-power controller changes gateway operation between sleep mode to conserve power and awake mode during operation) from an active state to a low-power state. [0097, 0109]
[0042] For convenience the following terminology is adopted herein. A local network of interconnected devices as used herein refers to at least two devices that are in signal communication with each other using at least one of a short-range wireless communication standard or a low-power wireless communication standard. The local network of interconnected devices may also include additional devices in signal communication with one or more devices of the network and configured to employ other wired and/or wireless communication standards. A device node as used herein refers to one of the devices of a local network of interconnected devices. A gateway device node as used herein refers to a device of a local network of interconnected devices that is configured for communicating via a wide area network (WAN)—such as the Internet and/or a cellular network—and for communicating with another one of the device nodes of the network. The gateway device node may also function as the hub of the local network of interconnected devices. The gateway device node may also be referred to as a bridge device node in view of the functionality it provides to bridge the local network and a WAN.
[0044] The device nodes of a local network of interconnected devices may also be deployed in a master/slave configuration. A master device node as used herein refers to a device node that issues commands to another device node. A slave device node as used herein refers to a device node that receives commands from a master device node. A relay device node as used herein refers to a device node that routes a communication between two other device nodes. Although the network of interconnected devices is referred to as a local network of interconnected devices, a device node that is located remotely relative to another device node of the network may communicate with that device node via a WAN (such as the Internet) as described in further detail below.
[0160] Referring now to FIG. 17E, a user interface 1700 for controlling the lock-type devices installed throughout a building is shown. As seen in FIG. 17E, the user interface includes an interactive floor map corresponding to the floor map discussed above with reference to FIG. 10. The user interface may be configured to receive user input associated with a variety of tasks for managing and controlling the lock-type devices installed throughout the building. For example, a user may indicate the locations at which lock-type devices have been installed in the building by selecting a corresponding location on the interactive floor map. The interactive floor map, in this example, presents icons at those locations that have been selected as installation sites for the lock-type devices. The icons, in this example, are lock/unlock icons that indicate the current state of the lock-type devices (e.g., locked or unlocked). As seen in FIG. 17E, a lock icon is used to indicate the corresponding lock-type device node is in a locked state, and an unlock icon is used to indicate the corresponding lock-type device node is in an unlocked state. In addition, a user may issue lock/unlock commands via the user interface in FIG. 17E. Here, the user interface includes a selectable “Lock All” option 1702 to issue a “lockdown-all” command to the lock-type devices of the local network as well as a selectable “Unlock All” option 1704 to issue an “unlock-all” command to the lock-type devices as described above. The icons may also be selectable so as to enable the user to selectively issue lock and/or unlock commands to individual lock-type device nodes. In this regard, an icon 1706 is shown in FIG. 17E as having received touch input 1708 so as to toggle the corresponding lock-type device from a locked state to an unlocked state. It will be recognized that the user interface depicted in FIG. 17E may include additional and alternative options for controlling the lock-type devices nodes installed throughout the building, e.g., selectable options respectively corresponding to the device node groups defined for the local network for issuing lock/unlock commands to a selected device group option. In addition, the user interface in FIG. 17E may be configured to present a contextual menu for a lock-type device node when the corresponding icon receives user input (e.g., a press-and-hold touch gesture). The contextual menu may include selectable options for issuing the lock/unlock commands as described above as well as commands to enable/disable the lock-type device, assign it to a define device node group, issue a status update command, remove it from the local network of interconnected devices, and other commands that will be appreciated with the benefit of this disclosure.
[0145] Upon receipt of the message with the “unlock” command, the device management server generates an unlocking instruction (1412). Since the “unlock” command is intended to unlock a specific lock-type device node, in this scenario, the device management server retrieves the device-specific encryption key associated with the selected lock-type device node (1414) and encrypts the unlocking instruction with the device-specific encryption key (1416). The device management server may include the encrypted unlocking instruction in the payload of a message to be transmitted (e.g., uncasted) to the selected lock-type device. The device management server then transmits the message with the encrypted locking instruction to the gateway device node associated with the selected lock-type device node (e.g., the gateway device node the lock-type device node is assigned to) (1418).
[0146] Upon receipt of the message, the gateway device node transmits the message with the encrypted unlocking instruction to the selected lock-type device node (1420). The gateway device node may utilize a wireless mesh networking protocol (e.g., ANT) to route the message to the selected lock-type device node which may include one or more hops at various other device nodes of the local network between the gateway device node and the selected lock-type device node. Having received the message, the selected lock-type device node decrypts the encrypted unlocking instruction using its device-specific encryption key (1422). Upon successful decryption of the encrypted unlocking instruction, the selected lock-type device node executes the instruction and, if in a locked state, toggles to an unlocked state (1424).
However, ZIMNY fails to explicitly disclose:
transmit uplink location data to the access control server.
DIAZ FUENTE teaches (abstract) in similar field of invention (FIG.1) (claim 14) wherein a gateway performs function to transmit uplink location data to a control server, wherein the uplink location data comprises the first location data, for the purpose of analyzing, managing and storing data for future use.
14. A method for the tracking of devices, measurement and tracking of objects and persons and of their behaviour related to their movements over time, by means of the use of passive beacons, in real time and in deferred comprising the steps of: stablishing the relative position of the devices in real time with respect to the beacons whose positions are defined during the installation of receiver beacons (r-beacons), creating networks of sensors in a distributed manner in a determined area by measuring certain physical magnitudes of temperature, humidity, lighting, pressure, position, opening, closing, etc., through measuring external parameters with the means for connecting sensors to the beacons (r-beacons), creating a mesh communication network or any type of similar interconnection structure among all the beacons of the network with the objective of using it to communicate data through the means for implementing the interconnection between the different adjacent receiver beacons, transmitting the information of the users' devices, associated with their unique ID or MAC, and of the sensors connected to beacons, to any point of the network and reaching, jumping from beacon to beacon, a gateway or router connected to Internet through the means for sending data to the mesh network, receiving packages of information and sending them to Internet, by certain equipment (gateway or router) connected to the mesh network that, in turn, is connected to Internet, allowing the data sent by the beacons of the network to reach an external server that will be in charge of analysing and managing the historical data and storing it for their later use, storing, in a database, the unique IDs or MACs, associated with their historical identification data, position, RSSI, and measurements obtained by the connected sensors through the electronic processing means, this information will be used for the calculation of their location and their management over time within a determined geographical area, as well as their graphic representation on a map and other visual media, and making decisions related to the measurements captured by the sensors, grouping different media obtained in the beacons through the electronic processing means making it possible to calculate the absolute positions and/or geographical coordinates of the users' devices and that of the connected beacons, obtained using any trilateration algorithm or parallax based on the AoA, AoD or all of them.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try transmitting location data to server in order to provide proper data processing capabilities, such as managing and storing location data for future use (i.e. unlocking operations).
Re claim 2. ZIMNY discloses the gateway according to claim 1, wherein the battery is the only power source for the gateway. [0079]
Re claim 3. ZIMNY discloses [0042, 0097, 0109] the gateway according to claim 1, further comprising wherein the memory further comprises instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the gateway to:
receive a wakeup signal from the electronic lock; and
transition from the low-power state to the active state.
Re claim 4. ZIMNY (FIG.11-15) in view of DIAZ FUENTE discloses the gateway according to any one of the preceding claim 1, wherein the instructions to transmit uplink location data comprise instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the gateway to obtain second location data from the communication module, wherein the uplink location data also comprises also the second location data.
Re claim 8. ZIMNY (FIG.1) in view of DIAZ FUENTE discloses a lock system comprising the gateway according to any one of the preceding claim 1 and the electronic lock.
Re claim 9. ZIMNY in view of DIAZ FUENTE (as applied for claim 1 given the similar functional limitations) disclose a method for enabling remote access control by an access control server for an electronic lock, the method being performed in a battery-powered gateway that is configured to be mounted within short-range communication distance to the electronic lock, wherein the gateway is free from being associated with a particular user or key, the method comprising:
transmitting uplink location data to the access control server over a communication module for communicating with the access control server, which comprises the transmitting uplink location data comprising obtaining first location data from a location determination module of the gateway, wherein the uplink location data comprises the first location data;
receiving an unlock message from the access control server over the communication module for communicating with the access control server;
transmitting an unlock command to the electronic lock; and
transitioning from an active state to a low-power state.
Re claim 10. As for claim 3.
Re claim 11. As for claim 4.
Re claim 15. ZIMNY in view of DIAZ FUENTE discloses (as applied for claim 1 given the similar functional limitations) a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program enabling remote access control by an access control server for an electronic lock, the based on a battery-powered gateway that is configured to be mounted within short-range communication distance to the electronic lock, wherein the gateway is free from being associated with a particular user or key, the computer program comprising computer program code which, when executed on the gateway causes the gateway to:
transmit uplink location data to the access control server over a communication module for communicating with the access control server, which comprises the transmitting uplink location data comprising obtaining first location data from a location determination module of the gateway, wherein the uplink location data comprises the first location data;
receive an unlock message from the access control server over a communication module for communicating with the access control server;
transmit an unlock command to the electronic lock; and
transition from the an active state to the a low-power state.
Claim(s) 5-6 and 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZIMNY et al. (US 20190103966 A1) in view of DIAZ FUENTE (US 20210021962 A1) further in view of TWITCHELL, JR. (US 20040082296 A1).
However, ZIMNY as modified by DIAZ FUENTE fails to explicitly disclose:
5. (Currently Amended) The gateway according to any one of the preceding claim 1 wherein the location determination module is a satellite-based location determination module.
6. (Currently Amended) The gateway according to claim 5, wherein the location determination module is based on any one or more of GPS, Global Positioning System(GPS),GLONASS, Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (GLONASS), BeiDou, Galileia or Starlink.
12. (Currently Amended) The method according to any one of claim 9, wherein the location determination module is a satellite-based location determination module.
13. (Currently Amended) The method according to claim 12, wherein the location determination module is based on GPS, Global Positioning System (GPS).
TWITCHELL, JR. teaches (abstract) in a similar field of invention, a gateway which operates a GPS receiver to determine a location and a satellite transmitter to communicate data to a server with a network.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use satellite-based location determination combined with GPS in order to obtain a precise location determination.
Claim(s) 7 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZIMNY et al. (US 20190103966 A1) in view of DIAZ FUENTE (US 20210021962 A1) further in view of REISBICK et al. (US 20210209948 A1).
However, ZIMNY as modified by DIAZ FUENTE fails to explicitly disclose:
7. (Currently Amended) The gateway according to any one of the preceding claim 1, wherein the cellular communication module is configured to communicate using LTE M, Long-Term Evolution Machine-type communication (LTE M) or using NB-IoT, Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT).
14. (Currently Amended) The method according to any one of claim 9, wherein the cellular communication module is configured to communicate using LTE M, Long-Term Evolution Machine-type communication (LTE M) or using NB-IoT, Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT).
REISBICK teaches (abstract) in a similar field of invention, wherein cellular communications include Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) for cellular communication to obtain a reliable communication network.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CARLOS E GARCIA whose telephone number is (571)270-1354. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 9-6pm F 9-5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Zimmerman can be reached at (571) 272-3059. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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CARLOS E. GARCIA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2686
/Carlos Garcia/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2686 3/23/2026
Prosecution Insights