Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Non-Art Rejection
2. 35 U.S.C. § 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefore, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title".
3. Claims 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to nonstatutory subject matter as not falling within one of the four statutory categories of invention (i.e., a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter).
Claims 1-5 are not directed to a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter. The claimed element’s “collector” and “comparison and determiner” are non-structural limitations, and in light of the specification these can be implemented as software, i.e., computer program to be executed by a generic computer (see paragraph 0052). Therefore, the claimed subject matter as a whole fails to fall within the definition of a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, patentable eligible category subject matter.
The claims may be amended by adding specific structural hardware elements.
4. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea, law of nature, or nature phenomenon) without significant more.
Claim 6 recites an abstract idea. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because claim 6 is directed to a broad plan, concept or mental process that can be performed in human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper, i.e., collecting and performing data comparison/calculation on a sheet of paper. The instant claim is not positively tied to a particular machine that accomplishes the claimed method (or apparatus) and therefore do not qualify as a statutory process. Particularly, claim 6 does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the computer as recited is a generic computer component rather than specific computer component that transforms underlying subject matter. Accordingly claim 6 is ineligible.
5. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor.
6. Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as failing to set forth the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The following language is vague and indefinite:
In claim 1, lines 4-5, “a comparison and determiner configured to perform comparison and determination using a plurality of responses”, it is not clear as to which data comparison being performed, e.g., comparing each response to a predetermined data or comparing responses against each other.
Art Rejection
7. 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 of this title, 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.
8. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
9. Claims 1 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gunasekara, U.S. pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2019/0149443, in view of Zioulas, U.S. pat. No. 7,593,351.
Per claim 1, Gunasekara discloses a system comprising:
a) a collector, e.g., controller, configured to collect a response to a signal transmitted to each of a plurality of remote devices to be remotely monitored, e.g., APs (see par 0192-0193);
b) a comparison and determiner configured to perform a determination using a plurality of responses obtained from the plurality of remote devices at a timing when the responses have been obtained from all of the plurality of remote devices, i.e., determining whether all responses received at predetermined interval (see par 0194, 0199).
Gunasekara does not explicitly teach performing a comparison function, e.g., comparing time stamps. However, use of timestamp comparison to determine whether a response is received within a predetermined interval is known in the art as disclosed by Zioulas (see Zioulas, col 1, ln 43-67).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize such timestamp comparison in Gunasekara because it would have enabled determining whether a response is received during the predetermine interval (see par 0194, 0199).
Claim 6 is similar in scope as that of claim 1 and hence is rejected for the same rationale set forth above.
10. Claims 2-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gunasekara and Zioulas, and further in view of Edstrom, U.S. pat. No. 3,798,613.
Per claims 2-3, Gunasekara does not teach holding a flag indicating whether or not a response has been obtained for each remote device and outputting an activation signal to perform comparison and determination using the obtained plurality of responses when the state of the flag indicating that responses have been obtained from all of the remote devices, wherein each time a response is obtained from a remote device, a state of flag corresponding to the remote device is changed to indicate that the responses have been obtained. However, such use of flags to control a series of chained processes executed by a processor is well known in the art as disclosed by Edstrom, wherein execution of a previous process/command would set/hold a flag that is used to activate execution of a next process/command (see Edstrom, col 12, ln 18-67).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize such control flags in Gunasekara because it would have enabled controlling execution of series of processes including receiving response signals from remote devices, determining whether one or more responses are received at a predetermined interval in response to receiving the response signals, and other subsequent actions (see par 0193, 0199).
Per claim 4, Gunasekara teaches computing and adjusting a predicted time interval at which a response is received next from the remote device on the basis of information on the reception completion time (see par 0194).
Per claim 5, Gunasekara teaches adjusting the time by adding time required for processing of a response to the predicted reception time (see par 0176).
Conclusion
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Viet Vu whose telephone number is 571-272-3977. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday from 8:00am to 6:00pm. The Group general information number is 571-272-2400. The Group fax number is 571-273-8300.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Emmanuel Moise, can be reached at 571-272-3865.
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/Viet D Vu/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455
3/23/26
Prosecution Insights