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 § 102
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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2 and 4-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Malkowski (Pub. No.: 2013/0335219 A1).
1) In regard to claim 1, Malkowski discloses the claimed sensor battery alarm system (figs. 1-2) comprising:
a wireless control device (fig. 1: 174) which communicates with each of a plurality of wireless sensors configured to monitor a state of any space or any equipment and receives state data related to a battery state of each wireless sensor (¶0021 discloses the gateway communicates with the sensor network; and
a sensor monitoring device which matches the received state data to identification information of each wireless sensor to store and manage the state data (¶0039 discloses displaying power level; hence, it is clear a signal with instructions on the power level is decoded to display the current power level),
provides an error alarm to a manager terminal device configured to manage the plurality of wireless sensors (¶0039), and
provides a monitoring screen that allows a position of the wireless sensor in which an error has occurred to be seen when the manager terminal device selects the provided error alarm (¶0039 discloses displaying the sensor node power levels).
2) In regard to claim 2 (dependent on claim 1), Malkowski further disclose the sensor battery alarm system of claim 1, wherein the wireless sensor includes a control unit of a central processing unit (CPU) or a microprocessor unit (MPU) and measures a voltage provided to the control unit to transmit the state data to the wireless control device when an operating voltage is lower than a set voltage (¶0029).
3) In regard to claim 4 (dependent on claim 1), Malkowski further disclose the sensor battery alarm system of claim 1, wherein the sensor monitoring device manages a battery state of each of the plurality of wireless sensors controlled by each wireless control device and provides a monitoring screen to each wireless control device when the monitoring screen is provided to the manager terminal device (¶0039).
4) In regard to claim 5 (dependent on claim 4), Malkowski further disclose the sensor battery alarm system of claim 4, wherein the sensor monitoring device displays identification information of each wireless sensor on a screen when the monitoring screen is provided and displays whether an error has occurred through a designated color (¶0047 discloses providing a color indication, and ¶0054 discloses receiving a data packet with indication of power levels).
5) In regard to claim 6, claim 6 is rejected and analyzed with respect to claim 1 and the references applied.
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.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malkowski (Pub. No.: 2013/0335219 A1).
1) In regard to claim 3 (dependent on claim 2), Malkowski further disclose the sensor battery alarm system of claim 2.
Malkowski does not explicitly disclose the wireless sensor measures the voltage by measuring an amount of charges of a cross-sectional area per unit time provided from a battery unit to the control unit.
However, official notice is taken by the examiner that both the concept and advantage is known for a battery monitoring system to measures a voltage by measuring an amount of charges of a cross-sectional area per unit time provided from a battery unit to a control unit.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was filed to allow the system of Malkowski to determine a battery power level by measuring an amount of charges of a cross-sectional area per unit time provided from a battery unit to a control unit.
One skilled in the art would be motivated to modify Malkowski as described above in order to use a known technique for determining the power level of a power source for a wireless sensor.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CURTIS J KING whose telephone number is (571)270-5160. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 6:00 - 2:00 EST.
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/CURTIS J KING/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2685