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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Application
Claims 1-12, 14-16, 18, and 22-25 are currently pending in this case and have been examined and addressed below. This communication is a Final Rejection in response to the Claims filed on 04/09/2026.
Claims 1-2, 5, 7-12, 14-16, 18, and 22-23 are currently amended.
Claims 13, 17, and 19-21 are canceled and not considered at this time.
Claims 24-25 are newly added.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Should applicant desire to obtain the benefit of foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) prior to declaration of an interference, a certified English translation of the foreign application must be submitted in reply to this action. 37 CFR 41.154(b) and 41.202(e).
Failure to provide a certified translation may result in no benefit being accorded for the non-English application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/23/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 9, 11-12, 14-16, 18, and 22-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He et al. (US 2015/0112159 A1), hereinafter He, in view of Li et al. (US 2015/0035680 A1), hereinafter Li.
As per Claims 1, 22 and 23, He discloses a system for quantifying effects of a change in state during a predetermined time period regarding a subject, the change occurring during the predetermined time period including at least a change from a first state to a second state, the system comprising:
a processor and a communication interface ([0980]processing system encompassing all devices, machines for processing data, [0006]/[0072] device includes processors, [0975]/[0978] communication device connected to processor)
a non-transitory computer-readable tangible storage medium storing a program being executed by a computer comprising a processor and communication interface ([0976] non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions) to;
receive data measured on the subject, the data including at least one of an autonomic nervous index based on a heart rate or heart rate variability, a body temperature related index, a blood pressure/blood flow related index, a sweating related index, or a mind-related index, the data including at least first data measured on the subject in the first state and second data measured on the subject in the second state (see Fig. 1B sensors which collect data from a subject including activity, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature; [0140] determine blood pressure, skin temperature, body temperature, heart rate, heart rate variability; [0788-0790] device worn on body of a person including sensors to monitor person, [0791] health parameters measured can include heart rate, blood pressure, [0306] deriving a score for the person related to health/sleep/fitness/stress for a particular location of the person);
derive, from the received data, at least a first component that monotonically increases or decreases between the first and second states during the predetermined time period ([0937] determining state of hypertension or stroke when blood pressure is increasing over time) and a second component that varies to approach a predetermined value in each of the first and second states ([0848] determining state of a person based on heart rate data over a period of time where the data varies in spread and shows varying time between heart beats); and
output at least one of the derived first component and second component ([0306] derive a score associated with the state of the subject, [0331] state of subject indicated by calculated sleep score); and
control an environment adjustment device when the first component or the second component exceeds a predetermined threshold, the processor generating and sending a control signal based on the outputted at least one of the first component and the second component to adjust at least one of the following settings of the environment adjustment device: temperature, humidity, oxygen concentration, or acoustic environment (Abstract based on comparison of a parameter to a preset threshold, a command can be transmitted to regulate an environmental condition, [0007] transmit command to a controller of an environmental regulation system to modify operating set point of environmental regulation system when parameter exceeds a threshold, [0178] controller adjusts a set point of the environmental regulation system to adjust temperature and humidity, [0242] sensors measure parameters including skin temperature, blood pressure, pulse which are communicated to a computing device).
As per Claim 9, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches the state regarding the subject includes a state of an environment of the subject , and a change in the state of the environment of the subject is at least one of a change in temperature, a change in humidity, a change in radiation, a change in air quality, a change in airflow ([0227] environmental condition is temperature adjusted by a thermostat, [0935] sensors detect the ambient temperature, [0956] determining based on sensors that users are cold and adjust the temperature to result in a change in temperature).
As per Claim 11, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches the state regarding the subject includes a state of activity of the subject ([0306-0307]/[0331] determining score/state of a person related to the stat of sleep for the person), and a change in the state of the activity of the subject is at least one of a change in state regarding clothing, a change in state regarding working, a change in state regarding exercise, a change in state regarding sleep, a change in state regarding dietary, and a change in state regarding excretion ([0333] the score includes change in sleep, i.e. identification of sleep periods based on motion data, [0340-0341] change from sleep to awake identifies the sleep periods).
As per Claim 12, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches the change occurring during the predetermined time period further includes a change from the second state to a third state, and the data further includes third data measured on the subject in the third state ([0898] monitoring the vital signs of the patient during each step of progression, i.e. state of activity, where the state moves from resting, to sitting up in bed, to standing up while supported, to standing up unassisted, to walking where the vitals are collected and the measurements monitored during each state, i.e. the third state can be standing or walking).
As per Claim 14, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches the processor is formed configure to activate an alarm when the output first component and/or second component exceeds a predetermined threshold ([0683] activate an alarm on the user worn device when first or second component, in this case the alertness level, falls below the threshold level).
As per Claim 15, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches an the processor is formed configured to([0980]processing system encompassing all devices) estimate or predict an index of a load on the subject due to the change, based on at least the output first component and/or second component ([0793] activity index is calculated where the index value indicates change in activity where sitting still has a lower than threshold value and running has a higher index value and the activity index is based on the data from motion sensors and measurable parameters).
As per Claim 16, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 15. He also teaches predicting future variations of the first component and/or the second component ([0937] predict medical conditions in the future using monitored parameters based on the variation/trend in the measured data such as heart rate).
As per Claim 18, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches the output first component and/or second component exceeds a predetermined threshold ([0256] determine the blood pressure is below a threshold level, [0273] vitals or activity level of user is below threshold), the processor is configured to: determine an environment for increasing or decreasing the first component and/or the second component ([0256] determine the user is to be excited by the entertainment device when vitals go below threshold, [0273] based on vitals below a threshold, determining the user is not adequately alert); and control the environment adjustment device to achieve the environment ([0256] entertainment device provides content to the user, [0274] cause the device to send activate an alarm when subject is not alert).
As per Claim 24, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. Li also teaches the environment adjustment device (Li [0051] an environmental regulation system to regulate an environmental condition, which can be an HVAC system, central air system, air conditioning unit, etc.).
As per Claim 25, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 24. Li also teaches the environment adjustment device is an air conditioning device (Li [0051] the environmental regulation system can include an air conditioning system or air conditioning unit).
Claims 2-8 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He (US 2015/0112159 A1), in view of Li (US 2015/0035680 A1), in view of Kan et al. (US 2014/0297600 A1), hereinafter Kan.
As per Claim 2, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He and Li may not explicitly disclose the following which is taught by Kan: deriving the first component and the second component from the received data by applying, to the received data, a mathematical model including the first component and the second component as components on the assumption that the received data has the first component and the second component ([0006] receiving sleep data within a time interval including sleep-wake status, applying a mathematical fatigue model to determine a sleep fatigue level, [0049] receiving sleep data which includes sleep duration, work data, performance data, etc. and applying Bayesian data fusion techniques to the sleep data, i.e. mathematical model).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the present invention to combine the known concept of applying a mathematical model to the received data to derive data components from Kan with the known system of deriving and outputting components which indicate a change in state during a time period from He in order to use statistical probability to improve the accuracy of determining a user state (Kan [0004]).
As per Claim 3, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches the mathematical model further includes a third component that does not depend on the change as a component, and the derivation means derives the first component, the second component, and the third component from the received data ([0878] determining the user score is based on average/resting heart rate which is the heart rate during inactivity or the heart rate that does not depend on change, [0879] determining fitness state based on motion data, vitals such as heart rate, see Fig. 1B/[0788-0789] where data is all received data during monitoring of user to determine activity and heart rate).
He and Li may not explicitly disclose the following which is taught by Kan: applying the mathematical model to the received data ([0049] receiving sleep data which includes sleep duration, work data, performance data, etc. and applying Bayesian data fusion techniques to the sleep data, i.e. mathematical model).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the present invention to combine the known concept of applying a mathematical model to the received data to derive data components from Kan with the known system of deriving and outputting components which indicate a change in state during a time period from He and Li in order to use statistical probability to improve the accuracy of determining a user state (Kan [0004]).
As per Claim 4, He, Li, and Kan discloses the system of Claim 3. He also teaches the third component is based on data measured on the subject or another subject during the predetermined time period in a case where the change does not exist ([0878] determining the user score is based on average/resting heart rate which is the heart rate during inactivity or the heart rate when no change occurs [0788-0789] based on the user data monitored over time).
As per Claim 5, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He and Li may not explicitly disclose the following which is taught by Kan: for each component of the mathematical model, a time series variation of each component is expressed using a local variation that follows a predetermined distribution ([0089] for each sleep data source, .i.e. component, [0080] modeling the sleep data using a normal Gaussian distribution, [0091] converting the sleep interval data into sleep time series data).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the present invention to combine the known concept of express a time series variation of the data following a predetermined distribution from Kan with the known system of deriving and outputting components which indicate a change in state during a time period from He and Li in order to use statistical probability to improve the accuracy of determining a user state (Kan [0004]).
As per Claim 6, He, Li, and Kan discloses the system of Claim 5. Kan also teaches the predetermined distribution includes at least one of a normal distribution, a Cauchy distribution, a binomial distribution, a Poisson distribution, a multinomial distribution, and a Bernoulli distribution ([0050] time series of data modeled by normal Gaussian distribution, other suitable distribution functions can be substituted for the normal distribution, [0088] using the normal distribution for determining transition from sleep and wake states in the sleep data, see Claim 21).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the present invention to combine the known concept of express a time series variation of the data following a normal distribution from Kan with the known system of deriving and outputting components which indicate a change in state during a time period from He and Li in order to use statistical probability to improve the accuracy of determining a user state (Kan [0004]).
As per Claim 7, He and Li discloses the system of Claim 1. He also teaches receiving change information defining a change from the first state to the second state ([0482] determining a change in activity level or heart rate of person, i.e. a change in state).
He and Li may not explicitly disclose the following which is taught by Kan: the second component of the mathematical model is modeled based on the change information ([0050] time series of data modeled by normal Gaussian distribution, other suitable distribution functions can be substituted for the normal distribution, [0088] using the normal distribution for determining transition from sleep and wake states in the sleep data).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the present invention to combine the known concept of applying a mathematical model to the received data to derive data components based on change information from Kan with the known system of deriving and outputting components which indicate a change in state during a time period from He and Li in order to use statistical probability to improve the accuracy of determining a user state (Kan [0004]).
As per Claim 8, He, Li, and Kan discloses the system of Claim 7. He also teaches the state regarding the subject includes a state of an environment of the subject ([0872] state of person is based on light levels during sleep), a change in the state of the environment of the subject is a periodic change or a change related to an event ([0872] the change in state is based on changes in measured light levels over the sleeping time which in this case is 7 hours and 52 minutes), and the change information includes a period of the change or a timing of the change (He [0872] the change information includes the change in light levels over the sleep time, [0874] the light levels are measured by optical sensors to be correlated with sleep quality based on motion sensors over time, see Fig. 20).
As per Claim 10, He, Li, and Kan discloses the system of Claim 7. He also teaches the state regarding the subject includes a state of activity of the subject, a change in the state of the activity of the subject is a periodic change or a change related to an event, and the change information includes a period of the change or a timing of the change ([0870-0871] state of person is based on activity level of the person during a period of time, and change in activity level from one time period to another neighboring time period).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Pages 10-12, “Rejections under 35 U.S.C. §101”, filed 04/09/2026 with respect to claims 1-21 have been fully considered and they are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection of 01/09/2026 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see Page 12, “Claim Interpretation”, filed 04/09/2026 with respect to claims 1, 14, 15, and 17 have been fully considered and they are persuasive based on the amendments to the claims. Therefore, the Claim Interpretation section has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see Pages 12-, “Rejections under 35 U.S.C. §102/103”, filed 04/09/2026 have been fully considered and they are persuasive. Therefore, the rejections of 01/09/2026 have been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Li et al.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 Evangeline Barr whose telephone number is (571)272-0369. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.
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/EVANGELINE BARR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3682
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