I. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This Office Action addresses U.S. Application No. 18/797404 (“’404 Application” or “instant application”). Based upon a review of the instant application, the actual filing date of the instant application is August 7, 2024.
This action is being issued following Applicant’s response of 6/25/2026, which included a claims listing and a response to the restriction requirement.
II. STATUS OF CLAIMS
Claims 1-19 were filed with the application. The response of 6/25/2026 withdrew claims 1-10 without traverse. Therefore, as of the date of this Office Action, the status of the claims is:
a. Claim 1-19 (“Pending Claims”).
b. Claim 11-19 are examined (“Examined Claims”)
III. PRIORITY AND CONTINUING DATA
The ‘404 application claims the benefit of provisional application 63/518102, filed 8/7/2024. Because the earliest possible effective filing date is after March 16, 2013, the first to file provision of the AIA , apply to this proceeding.
IV. RESPONSE TO RESTRICTION
Claims 1-10 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.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 6/25/2026.
V. SPECIFICATION OBJECTIONS
The specification is objected to as failing to provide proper antecedent basis for the claimed subject matter. See 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1) and MPEP § 608.01(o). Correction of the following is required: the disclosure contains no discussion of comparing the MJCF to a user-defined force value and sending an alert to a user device based on the comparison, as recited in claim 17. Furthermore, the disclosure does not mention determining whether the subject is walking or running based on frequency of changes in data, as recited in claim 19. In addition, the duration of the temporal bin discussed in claim 19 and the displaying the notification, and the displaying a notification in the last clause of claim 19 lack support in the disclosure. Further, there is no discussion in the disclosure of peak joint force per foot, as recited in claim 19. Since all of these features were in an original claim, they can be added to the disclosure, so long as no new matter is introduced.
VI. 112 REJECTIONS
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.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
Claims 11-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
As to claim 11, the disclosure states that the stance phase data is binned. It gives no parameters as to how the data is binned, i.e. what characteristics of data are used to sport the data into different bins. Therefore, it seems that the disclosure does not establish that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that Applicant was in possession of the claimed invention at the time of filing. Further, the claim recites extracting a (singular) temporal bin of the data and supplying the temporal bin of the data to the trained neural network. However, the disclosure states in paragraph [0030] of the published application that the method bins the heel strike to toe-off periods and supplies the binned data to the neural network (paragraph [0031]). As such, the disclosure sends all of the bins to the network, not a single bin, as the claim says. In essence there is no support for extracting a bin from the plurality of bins. Ser MPEP 2161.01 I.
As to claim 19, there is no algorithm or step disclosed for determining joint contact force per foot. As such, the claim lacks an adequate written description, as per MPEP 2161.01 I.
Clarification is required. Further, there is no algorithm or steps provided for determining whether the subject is walking or running based on frequency of changes of data. Furthermore, there is no discussion of determining the duration of the temporal bin.
Claims 12-18 are rejected as being dependent upon a rejected base claim.
VII. ALLOWABLE SUBJECT MATTER
Claims 11-19 would be allowable if the 112 rejection and the objection above were overcome.
Claims 11-19 define over the art in that none of the art determines medial joint contact force based on a determined activity category and temporal bin data associated with a heel strike to toe-off period, as claimed.
VIII. PRIOR ART
Ellis US PG PUB 2023/0086698 determines medial contact forces in the ankle.
IX. CONCLUSION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROBERT L NASSER whose telephone number is (571)272-4731. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-6.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Alexander Kosowski can be reached at (571) 272-3744. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ROBERT L NASSER/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3992
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