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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 06/17/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Claims 4 and 6-7 have been amended. Claims 4 and 6-8 remain pending.
The previously issued 35 U.S.C. 112(f) and objections for Claim 4 are withdrawn because the issues have been properly corrected.
Response to Arguments
In Pages 5-6 of Remarks, Applicant argues that none of references Hall, Hong and Joe disclose the new claim feature of amended Claim 4, “the circuitry is further configured to determine presence of the human body in the first mode in a case where it is determined that a first DC component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor in a state where light is not emitted is less than a predetermined value and a difference between the first DC component and a second DC component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor in a state where light is emitted is a predetermined difference or greater”. Examiner respectfully disagrees. Reference Hong in Para 0431 and Figs. 18-19 discloses using emitted light of different intensities for determining worn vs un-worn state. More details can be found in the section of Claim Rejection below.
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.
Claims 4 and 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hall et al (US 20200289000 A1; hereafter Hall), in view of Hong et al (US 20140275852 A1; hereafter Hong), and further in view of Joe et al (US 20200146630 A1; hereafter Joe).
With regard to Claim 4, Hall discloses a sensor device, comprising:
a laser blood flow sensor that acquires biological information comprising blood flow information of a user (Hall, Para 0047; “the toilet is configured with sensors to help determine pulse wave velocity (PWV). PWV is the velocity at which blood pressure pulse propagates through the circulatory system.”).
Hall does not explicitly and clearly disclose:
a control device that includes circuitry configured to control the laser blood flow sensor,
wherein the circuitry is further configured to determine presence or absence of a human body, based on additional information acquired by the laser blood flow sensor, other than the biological information,
wherein the circuitry is further configured to
determine the presence or absence of the human body based on the additional information in a first mode, and
detect the biological information in a second mode, in a case where it is determined that the human body is present in the first mode, and
wherein the circuitry is further configured to
determine the presence or absence of the human body based on the additional information comprising a direct current (DC) component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor, in the first mode, and
detect the biological information based on an alternating current (AC) component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor, in the second mode,
wherein the AC component is provided by removing only the DC component from the light, and
wherein the circuitry is further configured to determine presence of the human body in the first mode in a case where it is determined that a first DC component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor in a state where light is not emitted is less than a predetermined value and a difference between the first DC component and a second DC component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor in a state where light is emitted is a predetermined difference or greater.
Hong in the same field of endeavor discloses:
a control device that includes circuitry configured to control the laser blood flow sensor (Hong, Para 0039; “The control logic is configured to: (a) operate the heart rate monitor … ”. Fig. 16 shows the circuits for performing the function),
wherein the circuitry is further configured to determine presence or absence of a human body (Hong, Para 0039; “… a second mode configured to detect near proximity of the wearable fitness monitoring device to a user's skin …”), based on additional information acquired by the laser blood flow sensor, other than the biological information (Hong, Para 0427; “While the heart rate monitor operates in different modes, all modes involve emitting light pulses and detecting the same pulses after they interact with the user's tissues. The different modes may employ different light pulses and/or different processes for interpreting detected pulses.” Here the disclosure suggests that the disclosed second mode can be based on additional acquisition that is different from the disclosed first mode),
wherein the circuitry is further configured to determine
determine the presence or absence of the human body based on the additional information in a first mode (Hong, Para 0039; “… a second mode configured to detect near proximity of the wearable fitness monitoring device to a user's skin …”; Para 0427; “The different modes may employ different light pulses and/or different processes for interpreting detected pulses.”), and
detect the biological information in a second mode, in a case where it is determined that the human body is present in the first mode (Hong, Para 0040; “… upon determining via the worn detection mode that the wearable fitness monitoring device is proximate to the user's skin, operate the heart rate monitor in a first mode configured to determine one or more characteristics of the user's heartbeat waveform.”), and
wherein the circuitry is further configured to
determine the presence or absence of the human body based on the additional information, in the first mode (Hong, Para 0039; “… a second mode configured to detect near proximity of the wearable fitness monitoring device to a user's skin …”; Para 0427; “While the heart rate monitor operates in different modes, all modes involve emitting light pulses and detecting the same pulses after they interact with the user's tissues.”), and
detect the biological information based on an alternating current (AC) component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor, in the second mode (Hong, Para 0170; “circuit topologies such as those already described herein (e.g. a sample-and-hold circuit) remove the DC and low frequency components of the signal and help resolve the AC component related to heart rate and/or respiration.”),
wherein the AC component is provided by removing only the DC component from the light (Hong, Para 0172; “… a signal (voltage or current, depending on the specific sensor implementation) may be subtracted from the raw PPG signal to remove any bias in the raw PPG signal and therefore increase the gain or amplification of the PPG signal that contains heart rate (or other circulatory parameters such as heart rate variability) information … a constant voltage may be subtracted from the PPG signal to remove the DC offset …”), and
wherein the circuitry is further configured to determine presence of the human body in the first mode in a case where it is determined that a first component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor in a state where light is not emitted is less than a predetermined value (Hong, Para 0405; “For optical heart rate sensors, if there is little or no change in the amount of light detected by the light detection sensor when the light source is turned on and off, this may be indicative of the fact that the heart rate sensor is not pressed against a person's skin and that, by inference, the biometric monitoring device is not being worn.” Specifically, Hong implements the method as Para 0431; “If the device is worn, the difference of detected intensities between a pair of pulses can correlate with the difference in the emitted pulses (e.g., D1, D2, or D3). Such differences can provide an inference that the device is worn.” The disclosed “difference in the emitted pulses” (e.g. D1, D2 or D3 as shown in Fig. 18D) can be regarded as emitted pulses with intensity of D1, D2 or D3, and correspondingly the disclosed “difference of detected intensities between a pair of pulses” as detected pulses. Fig. 19E shows such an example of detected intensity positively correlating with emitted intensity in a worn state. That is to say, in worn state, an emitted intensity of zero would result in a lowest level of detected intensity) and a difference between the first component and a second component of light that is received by the laser blood flow sensor in a state where light is emitted is a predetermined difference or greater (Hong, Para 0431; “In some embodiments, a detected difference between two pulses (e.g., the D1 pair) may be normalized by the difference between two constant pulses, then the normalized difference may be compared to a threshold value to determine if the device is worn … the device determines the variance of the responses. When the variance is high, the device concludes that it is worn …”. The disclosed “difference between two constant pulses” is equivalent to detected intensity in response to emitted pulse with intensity of zero, corresponding to the claimed first DC component. The disclosed “detected difference between two pulses” (e.g. the D1 pair, D2 pair, or D3 pair in Fig. 18D) corresponds to the claimed second DC component. Therefore, the disclosed “normalized difference” corresponds to the claimed difference between the two DC components).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Hall, as suggested by Hong, in order to use a control device to determine absence or presence of human body based on information from the sensor, when a human body is present, to determine biological information based on AC component of the sensor’s signal, and to determine presence of a subject based on correlation between emitted and detected intensities. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modifications for the benefit of improved energy efficiency by activating physiologic measurement only when a device is worn and simplified design of device by determining the worn state and the physiologic information using information acquired from a single sensor (Hong, Para 0420; “FIG. 18A shows a process flow chart according to some embodiments of the disclosure, where a wearable fitness monitoring device having the heart rate monitor operates in different modes in energy efficient ways.”), and reliably determining presence of a subject by reducing potential impact of receiver gain and inherent noise in detected light.
Hall and Hong do not clearly and explicitly disclose determining the presence or absence of human body based on additional information comprising a direct current (DC) component of light that is received by a sensor.
Joe in the same field of endeavor discloses determining the presence or absence of human body based on additional information comprising a direct current (DC) component of light that is received by a sensor (Joe, Para 0208; “Referring to FIGS. 11A and 11B, it can be seen that as the wearing state of the electronic device on the users wrist becomes tight (i.e., as the distance between the electronic device and the skin is reduced) when the electronic device measures the PPG signals under the above experimental conditions, the ratio of an AC signal value to a DC signal value and the magnitude of an AC signal increase.” This disclosure indicates that information comprising DC signal value can be used to determine whether the device is close to user’s skin or not, which based on Specification, Para 0018, corresponds to “presence or absence of a human body” of Application). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Hall and Hong, as suggested by Joe, in order to determine attachment of device to human body based on information comprising a direct current component of received signal. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of reduced cost and higher efficiency by using a same acquired signal for both physiologic monitoring and verifying worn-state of a device.
With regard to Claim 6, Hall, Hong and Joe disclose the sensor device according to Claim 4, but do not explicitly and clearly disclose wherein the circuitry is further configured to
intermittently drive the laser blood flow sensor, in the first mode, and
continuously drive the laser blood flow sensor, in the second mode.
Hong further discloses wherein the circuitry is further configured to
intermittently drive the laser blood flow sensor, in the first mode (Hong, Para 0135; “In response to detecting or determining that the biometric monitoring device is not attached to, disposed on, and/or being worn by a user, the biometric monitoring device (or selected portions thereof) may implement or be placed in a low power mode of operation. … Upon such a determination, the device may reduce its power consumption -- for example, by "disabling" or adjusting the operating conditions of the stress and/or heart rate detection sensors and/or circuitry … the biometric monitoring device may periodically determine (e.g., once per second) if the operating conditions of the stress and/or heart rate detection sensors and/or associated circuitry should be restored to a normal operating condition … ”); and
continuously drive the laser blood flow sensor, in the second mode (Hong, Para 0427; “the heart rate data stream may operate continuously in a first mode, while the probing stream operates periodically in a second mode. For instance, the probing data stream may operate for 120 ms every 1000 ms (one second).”) (Hong, Fig. 18C shows the light pulses that are emitted intermittently (“the probing stream”) and continuously (“HR data stream”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Hall, Hong and Joe, as further suggested by Hong, in order to intermittently determine the presence or absence of a human body and when a body is present, continuously determine physiologic information. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of improved energy efficiency by detecting the worn state in a less frequent manner than physiologic measurement.
With regard to Claim 7, Hall, Hong and Joe disclose the sensor device according to Claim 4, including determining the presence or absence of a human body based on the additional information. Hall further discloses employing the additional information to determine a human body posture (As discussed for Claim 4 above, Hong discloses determining the presence of human body based on additional information acquired by light sensor. Hall further discloses in Para 0038; “… a user … sits down on seat 120 … While the user is using the toilet, PPG sensors 122 monitor the user's upper legs …”. Hence, for a sensor of Hong integrated into a toilet seat of Hall, what is determined by the additional information acquired is a user’s upper legs sitting on the seat, and such sitting is a body posture. This agrees with Application’s disclosure in Para 0032; “… a mode that determines whether or not a user has a posture for detecting biological information thereof. For example, a first mode is a mode that determines whether or not a user is seated on a toilet seat 11”).
With regard to Claim 8, Hall, Hong and Joe disclose the sensor device according to Claim 4 as discussed above. Hall further discloses a toilet system, comprising: a toilet; a toilet seat device that is placed on an upper part of the toilet (Hall, Abstract; “The system includes a toilet with a bowl adapted to receive excreta from the user and a processor. The toilet includes a seat with weight and PPG sensors.”); and the sensor device is comprised by the toilet seat device (Hall, Abstract; “The toilet includes a seat with weight and PPG sensors.”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LEI ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)272-7172. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-5pm E.T..
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/L.Z./Examiner, Art Unit 3798
/PASCAL M BUI PHO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3798
