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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of invention I in the reply filed on 29 April 2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 9-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention , there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 29 April 2026.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 is inconsistent in its references to the first angle:
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All references to the same element should be presented the same.
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 1-8 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.
Claim 1 recites “detecting a first location of a heel of the human from a first sensor”; it is unclear if the intent is for the sensor itself to detect or sense the location, or if some unidentified element uses data from the first sensor, which has not been recited, and detects the location based on that data. The same is true of the detection of a knee location. Claim 5 renders this issue further unclear as it includes both “detecting the second location of the heel from the first sensor” but also that contact is “as detected by the first sensor” – it is unclear what is doing the detecting and what is being detected, and how detecting might differ from sensing. Clarification is required.
Claim 3 recites “calculating…a plurality of consecutive maximum flexions of the knee at a corresponding plurality of consecutive initiations of the swing phases for the corresponding leg”. It is unclear if this step of calculating involves each of the steps leading up to calculating a maximum flexion as set forth in claim 1, or if this involves additional or alternate calculations of flexion via some other process as the claim does not clearly indicate how this “calculating” of a plurality of flexions is to take place. Similarly, the recitation of “the concurrent detections of the respective first locations of the heel and knee” has no antecedent basis in the absence of a clear indication that the plurality of calculations involves all steps as set forth in claim 1. Clarification is required.
Claim 4 defines “a vertex, A, at the second location of the knee”; per claim 1, vertex A is at the first location of the knee. The same is true of the recitations of objects B and C in claim 4 which appear to alter the definitions of these objects as set forth in claim 1. Clarification is required.
Claim 7 calls for determining a plurality of values of “stride length”, including two separate stride lengths “due to” hip motion and, separately, knee motion, with each including a separate stride length for flexion and extension at each joint; it is entirely unclear how any of these can be a separate stride length when a stride length is a length of a stride – at best there might be a stride length “due to” hip motion where that motion is the action of taking a stride, but it is entirely unclear how this stride length could be separated from a “stride” due only to knee movement. It appears these may be referring to some other aspect of length other than a stride length, which has meaning in the art. Where applicant acts as his or her own lexicographer to specifically define a term of a claim contrary to its ordinary meaning, the written description must clearly redefine the claim term and set forth the uncommon definition so as to put one reasonably skilled in the art on notice that the applicant intended to so redefine that claim term. Process Control Corp. v. HydReclaim Corp., 190 F.3d 1350, 1357, 52 USPQ2d 1029, 1033 (Fed. Cir. 1999). The term is indefinite because the specification does not clearly redefine the term.
Claim 8 calls for finding “a maximum knee flexion angle θ1”; claim 1 already calls for finding an angle θ1/θ1. It is unclear if this is the same angle or an additional angle. Clarification is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim(s) 1-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention, considering all claim elements both individually and in combination as a whole, do not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea).
Claim 1 is a claim to a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter and therefore meets one of the categorical limitations of 35 U.S.C. 101. However, claim 1 meets the first prong of the step 2A analysis because it is directed to a/an abstract idea, as evidenced by the claim language of “calculating… a first angle”, “calculating… a maximum flexion”. This claim language, under the broadest, reasonable interpretation, encompasses subject matter that may be performed by a human using mental steps or with pen and paper that can involve basic critical thinking, which are types of activities that have been found by the courts to represents abstract ideas (i.e., the mental comparison in Ambry Genetics, or the diagnosing an abnormal condition by performing clinical tests and thinking about the results in Grams). The claim language also meets prong 2 of the step 2A analysis because the above-recited claim language does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. That is, there appears to be no tangible improvement in a technology, effect of a particular treatment or prophylaxis, a particular machine or manufacture that is integrated, or transformation/reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing as a result of this claimed subject matter. As a result, step 2A is satisfied and the second step, step 2B, must be considered.
With regard to the second step, the claim does not appear to recite additional elements that amount to significantly more. The additional elements are use of “sensors” to detect locations and use of a processor to execute instructions stored in a memory as part of an “electronic computing system”. However, these elements are not “significantly more”; the processor, memory, and computing system are well-known, routine, and/or conventional as evidenced Alice v. CLS Bank and Bilksi v. Kappos, which held that generic computer structure does not otherwise transform a patent-ineligible claim into a patent-eligible one. The recited “first sensor” and “second sensor” are recited at a high level of generality and only for the insignificant extrasolution activity of “detecting a location”, data gathering; see MPEP 2106.05(d), where determining the level of a biomarker by any means, Mayo, 566 U.S. at 79, 101 USPQ2d at 1968; Cleveland Clinic Foundation v. True Health Diagnostics, LLC, 859 F.3d 1352, 1362, 123 USPQ2d 1081, 1088 (Fed. Cir. 2017) is held to be well-understood, routine, and conventional.
Therefore, these elements do not add significantly more and thus the claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception.
Additionally, the ordered combination of elements do not add anything significantly more to the claimed subject matter. Specifically, the ordered combination of elements do not have any function that is not already supplied by each element individually. That is, the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.
In view of the above, independent claim 1 fails to recite patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. Dependent claim(s) 2-8 fail to cure the deficiencies of independent claim 1 by merely reciting additional abstract ideas or further limitations on abstract ideas already recited. Claims 2, 4 are also directed to data gathering; claims 3-8 are directed to additional mental processes of interpreting the gathered data. Thus, claim(s) 1-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Takeda (Ryo Takeda, Shigeru Tadano, Masahiro Todoh, Manabu Morikawa, Minoru Nakayasu, Satoshi Yoshinari, Gait analysis using gravitational acceleration measured by wearable sensors, Journal of Biomechanics, Volume 42, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 223-233, ISSN 0021-9290, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2008.10.027. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021929008005526)).
Regarding claim 1, Takeda discloses a computer-implemented method for an electronic computing system having a memory to store instructions and a processor to execute the instructions to generate information relating to a gait of a human (section 5; “Acknowledgments” “computer data analysis of this study”), comprising:
detecting a first location of a heel of the human from a first sensor coupled in communication with the electronic computing system and proximate the heel at an initiation of a swing phase for a corresponding leg (section 2.1, figure 1);
detecting a first, concurrent, location of a corresponding knee from a second sensor coupled in communication with the electronic computing system and proximate the knee (section 2.1, figure 1);
calculating via instructions executed by the processor a first angle θ1 defined by a vertex, A, at the first location of the knee formed by a first side, B, defined by a straight vertical line that intersects the first location of the knee and a second side, C, defined by a straight line that intersects the first location of the knee and the first location of the heel (figure 1, θRS or θLS); and
calculating via instructions executed by the processor a maximum flexion of the knee at the initiation of the swing phase for the corresponding leg based on the first angle θ1 (equations 9 and 10).
Regarding claim 2, Takeda further discloses that detecting the first location of the heel of the human from the first sensor at the initiation of the swing phase comprises detecting the first location of the heel from the first sensor based on the heel breaking contact with a surface as detected by the first sensor (section 2.2.4.; “The pattern that produces the least amount of error for RAZ and LA-Z- at the time of heel contact is considered as the gravitational acceleration pattern…”).
Regarding claim 3, Takeda further discloses:
calculating via instructions executed by the processor a plurality of consecutive maximum flexions of the knee at a corresponding plurality of consecutive initiations of the swing phases for the corresponding leg (section 4; figure 11);
associating via instructions executed by the processor a respective timestamp with each of the plurality of consecutive maximum flexions based on the concurrent detections of the respective first locations of the heel and knee (figure 9); and
generating via instructions executed by the processor an indicator of movement for the human based on a number of the plurality of consecutive maximum flexions with associated respective timestamps that occur during a selected period of time (figure 12).
Regarding claim 4, Takeda further discloses:
detecting a second location of the heel from the first sensor at a termination of the swing phase for the corresponding leg (figures 5, 9);
detecting a second, concurrent, location of the knee from the second sensor (figures 5, 9);
calculating via instructions executed by the processor a second angle θ2 defined by a vertex, A, at the second location of the knee formed by a first side, B, defined by a straight vertical line that intersects the second location of the knee and a second side, C, defined by a straight line that intersects the second location of the knee and the second location of the heel (figure 5); and
calculating via instructions executed by the processor a minimum flexion of the knee at the termination of the swing phase based on the second angle θ2 (figure 11).
Regarding claim 5, Takeda further discloses that detecting the second location of the heel from the first sensor at the termination of the swing phase comprises detecting the second location of the heel from the first sensor based on the heel making contact with a surface as detected by the first sensor (section 2.2.4.; “to detect the instance of heel contact”).
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(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takeda in view of Sterling (US 2021/0346761).
Takeda does not disclose further calculating via instructions executed by the processor a third angle θ3 based on the first angle and the second angle; and generating via instructions executed by the processor an indicator of an excursion of the knee from the initiation of the swing phase to the termination of the swing phase for the corresponding leg according to the third angle θ3.
Sterling teaches a method of generating information relating to gait of a human (abstract) comprising finding a measure of a parameter’s range over an entire gait swing phase from initiation to termination by calculating a composite parameter based on that parameter’s value at the initiation and termination of the swing (figure 5), and generating an indicator of that parameter (paragraph [0063]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have followed Takeda and found a third angle from the first and second angles, the third angle being a composite of the angles expressing the range of motion over which the knee travels between initiation and termination of a swing phase, and generating an indicator of that angel, as taught by Sterling, in order to show the human’s range and ability.
Conclusion
No art has been applied against claims 7 and 8; however, as they are rejected under 112 and 101 above they are not presently allowable and the question of prior art will be revisited upon resolution of their scope issues.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: US 2024/0115214 to Huang, US 2020/0205719 to Lu, US 4812976 to Lundy, Williamson, R., Andrews, B.J. Detecting absolute human knee angle and angular velocity using accelerometers and rate gyroscopes. Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 39, 294–302 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02345283; A. Heyn, R. E. Mayagoitia, A. V. Nene and P. H. Veltink, "The kinematics of the swing phase obtained from accelerometer and gyroscope measurements," Proceedings of 18th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1996, pp. 463-464 vol.2, doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.1996.651817.
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/KAREN E TOTH/Examiner, Art Unit 3791
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