Prosecution Insights
Last updated: May 29, 2026
Application No. 18/816,484

Dynamic Configuration of an IoT Control Application to Support New Controlled Device Type

Final Rejection §103
Filed
Aug 27, 2024
Priority
May 27, 2024 — provisional 63/652,077
Examiner
BARRY, LANCE LEONARD
Art Unit
2457
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Roku Inc.
OA Round
2 (Final)
84%
Grant Probability
Favorable
3-4
OA Rounds
1y 1m
Est. Remaining
90%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 84% — above average
84%
Career Allowance Rate
336 granted / 398 resolved
+26.4% vs TC avg
Moderate +5% lift
Without
With
+5.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 10m
Avg Prosecution
21 currently pending
Career history
424
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
7.6%
-32.4% vs TC avg
§103
67.0%
+27.0% vs TC avg
§102
1.7%
-38.3% vs TC avg
§112
17.4%
-22.6% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 398 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Authorization for Internet Communication To expedite prosecution, the Examiner recommends filing a written authorization for Internet communication. Doing so permits the USPTO to communicate using Internet email to schedule interviews or discuss other aspects of the application. Without a written authorization in place, the USPTO cannot respond to Internet correspondence. The preferred method of providing authorization is by filing form PTO/SB/439, available at: https://www.uspto.gov/patent/forms/forms. See MPEP § 502.03. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 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. 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 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. Claims 1, 9, 13, 20, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2018221949 (Kim) in view of US 20250097066 (Shinar) further in view of US 12166741 (Capecelatro) and US 20140365126 (Vulcano). Regarding claims 1, 13, and 20, Kim teaches or suggests a computing system comprising: at least one processor (fig. 2 description); program instructions stored and executable by the at least one processor to carry out operations for dynamically configuring an Internet of Things (IoT) control application of a first device to support controlling of a second device (abs., figs. 2-3 description), the operations including: detecting that the second device has a device type that the IoT control application of the first device is not currently configured to support controlling (fig. 1 description); and responsive to at least the detecting, causing the IoT control application of the first device to be provisioned with a user interface associated with the device type (tech-solution, figs. 1 and 3 description), wherein causing the IoT control application of the first device to be provisioned with the set of UI elements associated with the device type includes mapping the device type to the set of UI elements (tech-solution, fig. 2 description) and, based on the mapping, provisioning the first device with data defining the set of UI elements (tech-solution, fig. 2 description), wherein the IoT control application of the first device being provisioned with at least the set of UI elements associated with the device type (tech-solution, figs. 1 and 3 description) enables the IoT control application of the first device to support controlling of the second device (fig. 1 description). Kim does not expressly disclose but Shinar teaches or suggests at least one network communication interface (¶ 33 ); non-transitory data storage; and program instructions stored in the non-transitory data storage (¶ 80); and a set of user interface (UI) elements (¶ 9). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Kim’s system and Shinar’s elements in order to enable specific functions of the UI. Kim does not expressly disclose but Capecelatro teaches or suggests mapping the device type to the set of UI elements includes mapping the device type to a set of device properties (11:21-31) and Vulcano teaches or suggests mapping the set of device properties to the set of UI elements (¶ 110). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Kim’s system, Shinar’s elements, and Capecelatro and Vulcano’s mapping in order to install compatible code. Regarding claims 9 and 24, Shinar teaches or suggests responsive to at least the detecting, causing by the computing system the IoT control application of the first device to be provisioned with a set of control logic for controlling state of the UI elements in relation to state of control of the second device (¶ 80). Claims 2 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2018221949 (Kim) in view of US 20250097066 (Shinar) further in view of US 12166741 (Capecelatro), US 20140365126 (Vulcano), and US 12041049 (Stevens). Kim does not expressly disclose but Stevens teaches or suggests the IoT control application is configured to control an IoT ecosystem, and wherein the method further comprises: receiving a request to add the second device to the IoT ecosystem, wherein the detecting and responsive causing are cooperatively responsive to at least the receiving the request to add the second device to the IoT ecosystem (8:7-18 user requests to add). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Kim’s system, Shinar’s elements, Capecelatro and Vulcano’s mapping, and Stevens’ request in order to expand and ecosystem. Claims 3 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2018221949 (Kim) in view of US 20250097066 (Shinar) further in view of US 12166741 (Capecelatro), US 20140365126 (Vulcano), and US 20190377838 (Wang). Kim teaches or suggests determining by the computing system an identifier of the second device (tech-solution); and wherein the detecting that the second device has the device type that the IoT control application of the first device is not currently configured to support controlling is based on the mapping (fig. 3 detecting new, unsupported device). Kim does not expressly disclose but Wang teaches or suggests mapping by the computing system the determined identifier of the second device to the device type (¶¶ 16, 84 mapping device ID to device type to find supporting code). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Kim’s system, Shinar’s elements, and Capecelatro, Vulcano, and Wang’s mapping in order to install compatible code. Claims 4 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2018221949 (Kim) in view of US 20250097066 (Shinar) further in view of US 12166741 (Capecelatro), US 20140365126 (Vulcano), US 20190377838 (Wang), and US 12041049 (Stevens). Kim does not expressly disclose but Stevens teaches or suggests the determining of the identifier of the second device is based on an action selected from the group consisting of (i) scanning of a Quick-Response (QR) code associated with the second device, (ii) recognizing an image of the second device, and (iii) natural language input describing the second device. (8:7-18). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Kim’s system, Shinar’s elements, and Capecelatro, Vulcano, Wang’s mapping, and Stevens’ identifying in order to facilitate onboarding. Claims 8, 10, 11, 19, and 23-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2018221949 (Kim) in view of US 20250097066 (Shinar) further in view of US 12166741 (Capecelatro), US 20140365126 (Vulcano), and US 20210303298 (Sazhin). Regarding claims 8, 19, and 23, Kim does not expressly disclose but Sazhin teaches or suggests the set of UI elements comprises one or more graphical user interface (GUI) objects, wherein causing the IoT control application of the first device to be provisioned with the set of UI elements comprises provisioning the first device with a semantic definition of each of the one or more GUI objects, wherein the first device is configured to translate the semantic definition of each GUI object into the GUI object. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Kim’s system, Shinar’s elements, Capecelatro and Vulcano’s mapping, and Sazhin‘s GUI objects in order to make the UI more intuitive for visual users. Regarding claims 10 and 25, Kim does not expressly disclose but Sazhin teaches or suggests causing the IoT control application of the first device to be provisioned with the set of UI elements comprises provisioning the IoT control application of the first device with a structured markup document defining the set of UI elements (¶ 36). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claims 8, 19, and 23. Regarding claim 11, Kim does not expressly disclose but Sazhin teaches or suggests the structured markup document comprises a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) document (¶ 36). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claims 8, 19, and 23. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2018221949 (Kim) in view of US 20250097066 (Shinar) further in view of US 12166741 (Capecelatro), US 20140365126 (Vulcano), US 20210303298 (Sazhin), and WO 2016054119 (Chiang). Kim does not expressly disclose the structured markup document excludes layout information for the UI elements. Because Sazhin does not teach including layout information in its structured markup document, it suggests excludes layout information for the UI elements. Furthermore, Chiang excludes layout information for the UI elements (¶ 19 teaching a separate form layout document). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Kim’s system, Shinar’s elements, Capecelatro and Vulcano’s mapping, Sazhin‘s GUI objects, and Chiang’s excluding so that form layouts may be updated independent of the health record JSON documents. Response to Arguments The arguments have been fully considered. The applicant argues that “any such mapping in or around paragraph 0110 of Vulcano involves at best mapping a vehicle's display properties to UI elements that will be presented on that vehicle display itself- not to mapping of the vehicle's display properties to UI elements that will be provisioned in a control application of another device, and thus not to mapping of the properties of a first device to UI elements that will be provisioned in a control application of a second device as recited by claim 1.” (Resp. 17.) The arguments regarding Vulcano individually cannot establish non-obviousness because the Examiner relies on the aforementioned combination (in combination with the prior art as a whole) to reject the limitations at issue. Other Art The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the instant disclosure. For example, US 20220067123 include receiving data from a device within a network, wherein the data is associated with one or more features of the device, and determining a subset of the features of the device that is associated with a runtime behavior of the device (abs.). Conclusion THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Lance Leonard Barry whose telephone number is (571)272-5856. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 700-430 ET 730-1630. 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 email the Examiner. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ario Etienne can be reached on 571-272-4001. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /LANCE LEONARD BARRY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
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Prosecution Timeline

Show 2 earlier events
Mar 09, 2026
Response Filed
Mar 09, 2026
Examiner Interview Summary
Mar 09, 2026
Applicant Interview (Telephonic)
Apr 01, 2026
Final Rejection mailed — §103
May 21, 2026
Request for Continued Examination
May 28, 2026
Applicant Interview (Telephonic)
May 28, 2026
Examiner Interview Summary
May 28, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
84%
Grant Probability
90%
With Interview (+5.1%)
2y 10m (~1y 1m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 398 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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