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 .
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) 16 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perrot et al. (US 2012/0196556) A1 in view of Friesen et al. (US 2015/0289122 A1).
Regarding claim 16, Perrot discloses a method of deduplicating emergency response requests for an emergency responder application, comprising:
receiving, through a first communications channel, a first emergency response request for a first emergency incident from an emergency communications center (ECC) (Perrot teaches receiving a first emergency response request through a first communications channel from a dispatch center. Specifically, Perrot's VHF radio receiver monitors the UHF/VHF frequency of the fire department's dispatch center and, upon detection of paging tones transmitted by the dispatch center paging transmitter, captures the audio dispatch ([0018]–[0019], [0032], [0054]; Fig. 1, element 100-101). Perrot's "dispatch center" is the structural and functional equivalent of the claimed "ECC," as both are entities responsible for transmitting emergency dispatch communications to emergency responders.);
providing the first emergency response request to an incident queue in an emergency responder application for display as an emergency response request alert on a mobile device (Perrot teaches providing the emergency response request to emergency responders for display on mobile devices. Upon detection of dispatch tones, the system transmits an SMS text message and an MMS multimedia audio attachment to all personnel in the phone directory database ([0019]–[0021], [0043]–[0044]). The message includes the department name, response codes, and date/time stamp, and is received on users' cell phones — the mobile devices of the emergency responders. The collection of active emergency pages managed by the software constitutes an incident queue within the emergency responder application.);
Perrot does not expressly disclose receiving, through a second communications channel, a second emergency response request for a second emergency incident from the ECC; comparing a first address of the first emergency response request to a second address of the second emergency response request to determine that the first and second emergency response requests reference a common address; comparing timestamp data of the first and second emergency response requests to determine that the first and second emergency response requests were received within a predetermined period of time; and updating the incident queue of the emergency response application to combine characteristics of the second emergency response request with the emergency response request alert displayed by the mobile device to deduplicate the first and second emergency response requests provided by the ECC.
However, Perrot's specification states that "the present system does not interface with E911 systems" ([0005], [0011], [0016]), reflecting an affirmative design choice to operate solely on the radio channel. However, this disclaimer does not constitute teaching away from the proposed combination, because Perrot's disclaimer is directed to a specific commercial design choice for Perrot's own embodiment — namely, avoiding the need for dispatcher involvement — and not a statement that CAD integration is technically infeasible, undesirable in principle, or contrary to the goals of the art. Perrot declines CAD integration for reasons of operational simplicity, not any recognized incompatibility. A person of ordinary skill seeking to reduce duplicate alerting would not have been deterred from pursuing CAD integration by Perrot's design choice. Indeed, Perrot's own background section ([0004], [0012]) identifies IamResponding and eDispatches as commercially successful prior art systems that receive emergency response requests from the same dispatch center through both a radio channel and a CAD channel. The existence and commercial success of these systems demonstrates that dual-channel receipt from a single dispatch center was well-known, technically feasible, and understood to be desirable in the art, providing direct motivation to incorporate CAD-channel receipt into the Perrot architecture.
Furthermore, in an analogous art, Friesen teaches the missing limitations. With respect to address comparison, Friesen discloses that the system can determine when a single incident has provoked more than one request from different parties by using GPS coordinates, triangulation, voice data, or text messages, and can determine that a plurality of such messages specify the same or similar location ([0027]). Although Friesen's address comparison operates on requests received from members of the public reporting an incident to a dispatch center — rather than on requests received from a dispatch center over two downstream channels — this contextual difference does not defeat the § 103 analysis, because the underlying comparison logic (matching address or location fields across independently received requests to determine common origin) is equally applicable regardless of the architectural context in which it is deployed. With respect to temporal comparison, Friesen discloses that requests received within a defined waiting period — referred to as "chute times" — are evaluated together as a time-based decision criterion for processing multiple requests related to the same incident ([0031]), expressly teaching the use of a predetermined time window as a correlating parameter. With respect to updating records upon a deduplication determination, Friesen discloses that, upon determining that multiple requests concern the same incident, the system updates its response records by canceling redundant responder commitments and marking excess resources as available, rather than maintaining separate, independent records for each incoming request ([0010], [0029]–[0031]). While Friesen's update action is expressed as cancellation of redundant assignments, the underlying principle — consolidating multiple co-incident records into a unified record rather than treating each channel's request independently — directly corresponds to the claimed step of updating the incident queue to combine characteristics of the second request with the first alert. Combining characteristics of the second request into the existing queue entry is the software implementation of the same deduplication concept Friesen teaches; the difference is one of implementation detail, not inventive distinction.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the address comparison, temporal comparison, and record-consolidation techniques of Friesen with the dual-channel dispatch notification system of Perrot, and to implement the consolidation specifically as an update to the existing incident queue entry that combines the characteristics of the second channel's request. Multiple converging rationales support the combination. First, Perrot's background expressly identifies the problem of first responders receiving notifications through both radio and CAD channels for the same incident (Perrot, [0004], [0012]), establishing both the existence of dual-channel systems and the need to manage their output coherently; a skilled artisan reading Perrot would immediately recognize the need for deduplication logic. Second, Friesen provides precisely the deduplication technique — comparing location and time-window parameters across multiple requests — that a person of ordinary skill in the art would look to when implementing a solution to this problem. Third, implementing the deduplication as an update to the existing alert that combines the second channel's characteristics, rather than as a deletion, is a straightforward and predictable implementation detail within ordinary skill in software engineering: it preserves the first alert's display while appending the second channel's data, producing the predictable result of a unified, consolidated notification. Fourth, both Perrot and Friesen operate in the same technical field of emergency dispatch notification, providing clear reason for a skilled artisan to consult both. A person of ordinary skill would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining Friesen's location-and-time-window comparison logic with Perrot's notification architecture, as both operate on discrete, machine-readable data fields using well-established comparison techniques, and the combination requires no new technology — only the integration of known methods for their known purpose, yielding a predictable result.
Regardig claim 18, Perrot in view of Friesen discloses the method of claim 16, further comprising: receiving a third emergency response request from the ECC (Perrot teaches receiving emergency response requests from the dispatch center's radio system on an ongoing, continuous basis. Perrot's system operates in a continuous "Wait Mode," monitoring the dispatch center's radio channel and receiving each new dispatch page as it is transmitted ([0032], [0054]–[0056]; Fig. 2A-B). Each new dispatch page constitutes a new emergency response request received from the dispatch center. Perrot explicitly discloses receiving multiple, sequential dispatch pages — the system logs all page audio with date and time stamps and stores them for playback at any time, confirming that the system is designed to receive and process more than one request ([0019], [0044], [0057]). A third emergency response request is nothing more than an additional request received through the same channel by the same mechanism already taught by Perrot; no structural modification to the system is required.); and providing the third emergency response request to the emergency responder application to display a third emergency response request alert on the mobile device (Perrot teaches providing each received emergency response request to emergency responders for display on mobile devices. Upon detection of each dispatch page, Perrot's system automatically transmits an SMS/MMS notification to all personnel in the phone directory database ([0019]–[0021], [0043]–[0044]). This process repeats for each new dispatch page received. Providing a third incoming request to the emergency responder application as a third alert is the identical operation Perrot performs for each request it receives, applied to a third instance. No additional teaching is required; the limitation merely recites a third iteration of a process Perrot already performs.).
Claim(s) 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perrot et al. (US 2012/0196556) A1 in view of Friesen et al. (US 2015/0289122 A1) as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of King (US 7,005,994 B2).
Regarding claim 19, Perrot in view of Friesen discloses the method of claim 16, but does not expressly disclose further comprising: receiving sensor data from a sensor network, wherein the sensor data includes a sensor address and a sensor type; determining that the sensor type includes a medical incident or a fire-related incident; providing at least part of the sensor data to the emergency responder application to display a sensor alert on the mobile device.
In an analogous art, King teaches the missing limitations. King discloses a sensor network comprising multiple detectors (elements 20) distributed throughout a monitored structure (col 2 ln 45–56; Fig. 3). Each detector transmits sensor data to the central control circuit, and each transmission includes an identification signal that identifies the specific detector and its location — constituting a sensor address for each node in the network (col 2 ln 66 – col 3 ln 8). The sensor data further identifies the type of condition detected — specifically, smoke/fire, high temperature, or carbon monoxide — constituting a sensor type field within the transmitted data (col 3 ln 9–19; Fig. 2, steps 40–44). King additionally expressly teaches determining the type of detected hazard and classifying it as fire-related or medical. The control circuit evaluates the sensor data and branches according to whether the detected condition is a fire-related incident (smoke, high temperature — Fig. 2, steps 40, 42) or a CO/medical incident (carbon monoxide, which King describes as a serious medical hazard capable of causing fatal poisoning — Fig. 2, step 44; col. 1 ln 18–49). Upon classification, the system activates the appropriate response for each incident type, confirming that the classification step is explicitly performed. The claimed categories of "medical incident" and "fire-related incident" directly correspond to King's CO/medical and fire/smoke classifications respectively. King further teaches providing alert data to emergency services upon classification of the incident type. King discloses that the system notifies emergency medical services, fire departments, and contacts the home owner or tenant via cell phone or pager upon detection and classification of a hazardous condition (col 3 ln 30–41; Fig. 2, step 70). To the extent King does not explicitly disclose forwarding sensor data to a first responder mobile application for display as an alert — rather than transmitting a notification to a central call station or paging to a cell phone — it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to implement this notification delivery using the mobile application architecture already taught by Perrot. Perrot expressly teaches delivering emergency response notifications to first responders' cell phones via an application that displays alert information ([0019]–[0021], [0043]–[0044]). Combining King's sensor network event data with Perrot's mobile application delivery architecture is a straightforward substitution of one known notification delivery mechanism for another, motivated by the recognized advantages of application-based display over simple pager or SMS notification — including richer data presentation, acknowledgment capabilities, and integration with other emergency data — all of which are expressly recognized in the Perrot background and in the art generally.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine King's sensor network architecture with the multi-channel dispatch notification system of Perrot and Friesen. Perrot's system already operates in the same emergency response notification space and delivers alerts to first responder mobile applications. King addresses the recognized need to automatically detect and classify fire and medical hazards from a distributed sensor network and route notifications to emergency services. A person of ordinary skill in the art implementing a first responder mobile notification application of the type described in Perrot would have been directly motivated to integrate sensor network event feeds of the type described in King as an additional input source, because such feeds provide automated, real-time incident data independent of any human dispatcher action — precisely the kind of supplementary data channel that a comprehensive emergency responder application would be expected to support. The combination requires no modification to King's sensor and classification architecture and no modification to Perrot's mobile delivery mechanism; it requires only routing King's classified sensor alert data through Perrot's existing notification pipeline to the emergency responder application. Both references operate in the same technical field, both are directed to improving the speed and accuracy of emergency notifications to first responders, and a person of ordinary skill would have had a reasonable expectation of success in making the combination, as it involves applying known sensor event data to a known mobile notification delivery architecture using standard interface techniques.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perrot et al. (US 2012/0196556) A1 in view of Friesen et al. (US 2015/0289122 A1) and King (US 7,005,994 B2) as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Dickinson (US 2008/0192731 A1).
Regarding claim 20, Perrot in view of Friesen and King discloses the method of claim 19, but does not expressly disclose further comprising: receiving supplemental call data indicative of initiation of a 911 call by a second mobile device, wherein the supplemental call data includes location data; comparing the location data to the sensor address to determine that the second mobile device is within 500 meters of the sensor address; and providing instructions to the emergency responder application to update the sensor alert with an indication of a 911 call associated with the sensor data.
In an analogous art, Dickinson teaches a system in which a 911 call placed from a wireless, landline, or VoIP device generates Automatic Location Identification (ALI) data — specifically, the caller's physical street address and/or GPS coordinates retrieved via the ALI database — that is received at a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) and then made available to first responders digitally ([0002], [0007], [0030]) (corresponding to receipt of supplemental call data from a 911 call by a mobile device, the supplemental call data including location data limitation). Dickinson further teaches presenting that 911 call location data on an internet-accessible web page hosted by the positioning center, with each live E911 call within the jurisdiction displayed in association with the caller's ALI data, such that a first responder can view co-located or geographically proximate incidents on a single display ([0031], [0038], [0039]) (corresponding to the geographic proximity determination of limitation, as the system necessarily identifies whether a given 911 call's location falls within the responder's operational area). Dickinson additionally teaches updating the first responder's display in real time as new 911 calls arrive and associating each displayed incident with its originating emergency call record, so that a first responder viewing a field alert can identify the existence and location of a corroborating 911 call ([0038], [0047], [0048], [0052]) (corresponding to updating an existing alert with an indication of an associated 911 call limitation).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the 911 call location data teachings of Dickinson into the combined system of Perrot in view of Friesen and King. Perrot provides the radio-dispatch and mobile-application delivery architecture through which sensor-triggered alerts (King) and incident records (Friesen) are presented to first responders on mobile devices, but Perrot's system does not receive or process supplemental 911 call location data. Dickinson addresses precisely that gap: it identifies a long-felt but unsolved need for efficient digital transfer of 911 caller location data from the PSAP to first responders (Dickson, [0023]) and provides a well-known, standardized mechanism for doing so via a web-accessible display on first responder vehicles (Dickson, [0037], [0038]). A person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to augment Perrot's mobile application with Dickinson's 911 call location feed because doing so directly serves the stated objective common to all four references — giving first responders the most complete and timely situational picture at the moment of dispatch. Once Dickinson's 911 call location data is available in the combined system, it is a straightforward and obvious application of Friesen's already-of-record location-comparison and record-consolidation logic to compare that 911 call location against King's sensor address and update the sensor alert accordingly, yielding all elements of the claim. The combination requires no more than the predictable use of known techniques — location comparison per Friesen; mobile display update per Perrot; 911 ALI data routing per Dickinson; sensor address data per King — to achieve results that each reference individually foreshadows and collectively renders obvious.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-15 are allowed.
Claim 17 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Reasons for allowance
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Claim 1 is allowable over the prior art of record. The closest prior art, Perrot et al. (US 2012/0196556 A1 ) and Friesen et al. (US 2015/0289122 A1), fail to teach or suggest a method comprising: receiving an emergency response request via a radio channel from an Emergency Communication Center (ECC), transcribing the audio to extract incident information, receiving a second emergency response request for the same incident via a CAD channel from the same ECC, comparing the incident information from the transcribed radio audio against the CAD data to identify the requests as relating to the same incident, and updating a notification in an emergency responder application to reflect multi-channel validation of the incident. Perrot teaches radio-channel dispatch and mobile notification but does not teach CAD channel receipt, cross-channel comparison of transcribed audio data against CAD data, or notification updating based on such a comparison. Friesen teaches location-based deduplication of responder commitments but does not teach audio transcription or comparison of radio-channel audio data against CAD data. No combination of the references of record teaches or renders obvious the claimed method of cross-channel transcription, comparison, and notification updating. Accordingly, claim 1 is allowed.
Claim 11 is allowable over the prior art of record for the same reasons as claim 1, applied to the corresponding system limitations. The closest prior art, Perrot et al. (US 2012/0196556 A1 ) and Friesen et al. (US 2015/0289122 A1), fail to teach or suggest a system configured to: receive an emergency response request via a radio channel from an ECC and transcribe the audio to extract incident information, receive a second emergency response request for the same incident via a CAD channel from the same ECC, compare the transcribed audio data against the CAD data to identify the requests as relating to the same incident, and update a notification in an emergency responder application to reflect multi-channel validation. No combination of the references of record teaches or renders obvious a system having the claimed cross-channel transcription, comparison, and notification update architecture. Accordingly, claim 11 is allowed.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 6332120 B1 — teaches a speech recognition system associated with the audio receiver and computer processor detects when one of the keywords appears in a received audio segment. A report generator associated with the computer processor and responsive to the detection of a keyword generates a report detailing the detected keyword and its context. The system is particularly well suited to the verification of commercial messages and to assist in public relations efforts. See abstract, fig. 1-2.
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/RAJSHEED O BLACK-CHILDRESS/Examiner, Art Unit 2685