Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 04, 2026
Application No. 18/868,712

MONITORING AN ENVIRONMENT TO CONTROL AN ACTIVE REFLECTED WAVE DETECTOR

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Nov 22, 2024
Priority
Jul 08, 2022 — AU 2022204922 +1 more
Examiner
SERAYDARYAN, HELENA H
Art Unit
3648
Tech Center
3600 — Transportation & Electronic Commerce
Assignee
Essence Smartcare Ltd.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
69%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 6m
Est. Remaining
82%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 69% — above average
69%
Career Allowance Rate
212 granted / 307 resolved
+17.1% vs TC avg
Moderate +13% lift
Without
With
+12.7%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 4m
Avg Prosecution
17 currently pending
Career history
323
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
5.2%
-34.8% vs TC avg
§103
47.9%
+7.9% vs TC avg
§102
20.4%
-19.6% vs TC avg
§112
24.0%
-16.0% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 307 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 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. Claim(s) 1, 21-41 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 6307475 B1 in view of D2 DE 112014001727 T5. Regarding claims 1, 21, 22 D1 teaches 22. (Currently Amended) A device for monitoring an environment to control an active reflected wave detector installed in a premises, the active reflected wave detector being for use in a system comprising at least one different device to the active reflected wave detector that is also installed in the premises, the device being configured to: detect a triggering event;( col 7 lines 38-51 intruder 13 detected within the space 7) determine, based on an output from at least one different device(3) to the active reflected wave detector(2), whether a person is detected as being at an away location in the premises that is outside a region of interest of the active reflected wave detector during a time period that is after the triggering event; ( col 7 lines 38-51 intruder 13 detected within the space 7) in response to a predefined criterion being met( col 7 lines 38-51 moving from room 7 to 6), switch the active reflected wave(2) detector from a first state to operate in a second state in which the active reflected wave detector measures wave reflections from the region of interest within the environment( col 7 lines 38-51), wherein the active reflected wave detector consumes more power in the second state than in the first state(col 5 lines 34-45 implicit as in alarm state with monitoring device also performs other power consuming operation and col 6 lines 33-40 which explicitly teaches that units perform normal tracking operation during alarm mode as well ), and in response to satisfaction of a condition comprising that a person is detected as being at an away location during the time period, it is concluded that the predefined criterion is not met.(col 5 lines 5-15 unit will deactivate means that condition is not met after specific time period if no movement is detected in the area) D1 does not explicitly teach Activating in room 2 after the predefined criterion is met and predefined criterion comprises that the time period has expired D2 teaches Predicting the movement of the object in the area and passed on that identifying whether the object will move to another region or not and based on that initiate or not the monitoring of the area corresponding to the possible candidates of the area and for that prediction time t2 and t1 are evaluated It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of the filing to modify invention by D1 with invention by D2 in order to predict the path and identify whether the intruder will be in the position which is covered by the active reflected wave detector and whether it need to be activated. 23. (Original) The device of claim 22, wherein the device comprises the active reflected wave detector. (col 7 lines 38-51) 24. (Currently Amended) The device of claim 22, wherein each of the at least one different device is housed in a housing external to the device (col 4 line 66-col 5 line 5), and the device comprises a communications interface to receive the output from the at least one different device. (col 7 lines 38-51 and col 5 lines 5-15) 25. (Currently Amended) The device of claims 22, wherein the device consumes more power when the active reflected wave detector is in the second state than when the active reflected wave detector is in the first state. (implicit col 7 lines 38-51 and col 5 lines 5-15) 27. (Currently Amended) A system configured to perform a method according to claim 1, the system comprising the active reflected wave detector and one or more of the at least one different device. (col 7 lines 38-51 and col 5 lines 5-15) 29. (New) The device of claim 22, wherein the device is further configured to: during a time period commencing with switching of the active reflected wave detector to the second state and ending with a scheduled completing of collecting measurements from the region of interest, determine, based on an output from the different device whether a person is detected as being at the away location; and in an event that a person is detected as being at the away location during the time period, end the collecting of the measurements before the end of the time period. (col 7 lines 38-51 and col 5 lines 5-15 unit will deactivate means that condition is not met after specific time period if no movement is detected in the area) 30. (New) The device of claim 22, wherein the active reflected wave detector is associated with a monitoring region and the region of interest is the monitoring region. (col 7 lines 38-51) 31. (New) The device of claim 22, wherein the active reflected wave detector is associated with a monitoring region, and the region of interest consists of one or more sub-regions that make up less than an entirety of the monitoring region. (col 7 lines 38-51 and fig. 1) 32. (New) The device of claim 22, wherein detection of the triggering event is based on an input from a sensing device for detecting at least one of motion and presence of a person in a space in the premises. (col 7 lines 38-51 and fig. 1) 33. (New) The device of claim 32, wherein the space is correlated with said region of interest. (col 7 lines 38-51 and fig. 1) 34. (New) The device of claim 32, wherein the input is motion detection data.(col 4 line 38-54) Although D1 does not explicitly teach 35. (New) The device of claim 34, wherein the motion detection data is measured by PIR motion detector. Choice of the motion detector is just simple obvious design choice and replacement of different well known motion sensors. Although D1 does not explicitly teach 36. (New) The device of claim 32, wherein the device is further configured to: commence a time window in response to the detected motion, wherein in response to further detected motion during the time window, the device is configured to restart said time window, wherein the predefined criterion comprises that the time window has expired. One of ordinary skills in the art would recognize that any detector has some listening time which can be considered time window which is required to identify the presence and the motion, D2 explicitly teaches predicting the position of the intruder at time t2 and based on that activating or not the monitoring in the area corresponding to time t2. Hence It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of the filing to modify invention by D1 and D2 in order to estimate the movement trajectory and make sure that activation happens in the region of interest if trajectory intersects region of the interest. 37. (New) The device of claim 32, wherein the space is non-overlapping with an away location.(fig. 1) 38. (New) The device of claim 22, wherein the region of interest corresponds to a first room of a premises or a part thereof.(fig. 1) 39. (New) The device of claim 38, wherein the away location is a different room of the premises to the first room.(fig. 1) 40. (New) The device of claim 22, wherein the output from the at least one different device indicates whether a person has interacted with a different device of said at least one different device, wherein interaction with the different device requires a person to be at an away location. (col 7 lines 38-51 and fig. 1) 41. (New) The device of claim 22, wherein the at least one different device comprises a motion detector arranged to monitor an away location. (col 4 line 38-54) Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HELENA SERAYDARYAN whose telephone number is (571)270-0706. The examiner can normally be reached on M-T, 7:30-5pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Resha Desai can be reached on (571)270-7792. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. 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 Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /HELENA H SERAYDARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3648 /TIMOTHY A BRAINARD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3648
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Nov 22, 2024
Application Filed
Aug 27, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

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

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
69%
Grant Probability
82%
With Interview (+12.7%)
3y 4m (~1y 6m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 307 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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