Art Rejection
1. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
2. Claims 1 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being clearly anticipated by Kim, U.S. pat. No. Appl. Pub. 2014/0003416.
Kim discloses a system comprising a processor and a storage storing computer program instructions when executed by the processor to perform:
a) collecting a response to a signal transmitted to each of a plurality of remote devices (e.g. base stations) to be remotely monitored (see par 0037); and
b) performing comparison and determination by comparing a plurality of responses against each other obtained from the plurality of remote devices at a timing when the responses have been obtained from all of the plurality of remote devices (see par 0040-0041).
3. The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code 103 not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
4. Claims 2-3 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim, in view of Brooks, U.S. pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2016/0182298.
Kim does not teach holding/setting a flag for indicating whether or not a response has been obtained for each remote device. However, such use of status flags to allow the system to determine whether a response from a remote device has been received within a time period is well known in the art as disclosed by Brooks (see Brooks, par 0040).
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 status flags in Kim because it would have enabled the system to determine whether one or more responses are received within a predetermined time period (see Brooks, par 0040).
Kim also does not explicitly teach outputting an activation signal to perform comparison and determination using the obtained plurality of responses when the states of the flags indicating that responses have been obtained from all of the remote devices. Kim however teaches performing comparison of responses of all participating base stations to select the most appropriate base station for the user terminal (see Kim, par 0041).
Thus, it would have been further obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to recognize such activation of the comparison function when responses from all participating base stations have been received within a predetermined time period.
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 4-5 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Amendment
6. Applicant’s arguments filed July 2, 2026 with respect to claims 1-3 and 6-7 have been considered but are deemed moot in view of new ground of rejection set forth above.
Conclusion
7. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new grounds of rejection. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See M.P.E.P. § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
A SHORTENED STATUTORY PERIOD FOR RESPONSE TO THIS FINAL ACTION IS SET TO EXPIRE THREE MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THIS ACTION. IN THE EVENT A FIRST RESPONSE 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 EXTENSION FEE PURSUANT TO 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a) WILL BE CALCULATED FROM THE MAILING DATE OF THE ADVISORY ACTION. IN NO EVENT WILL THE STATUTORY PERIOD FOR RESPONSE EXPIRE LATER THAN SIX MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THIS FINAL ACTION.
8. 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.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/Viet D Vu/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455
7/28/26
Prosecution Insights