DETAILED ACTION
Remarks
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action is responsive to the communication(s) filed on 09/13/2024. Claims 1-20, of which claims 1 and 11 are independent, were pending in this application and are considered below.
Information Disclosure Statement
The references cited on the information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 04/24/2024 have been considered and made of record 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 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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1,148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
The foregoing obviousness inquiry requires an expansive and flexible approach, not a rigid approach demanding express teachings, suggestions and motivations to combine prior art teachings. KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395, 97 (US 2007). The rationale supporting a conclusion of obviousness should be made explicit for review, but the rationale does not require precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the claim. Id. at 1396. A rejection can rely on inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ. Id. Obviousness rejections are not limited to showing the obviousness of solutions to the problems Applicant was trying to solve. Id. at 1397. Rather, one can show obviousness of a claim by establishing the obviousness of any solution to any known problem in the field of endeavor and addressed by a patent application's subject matter. Id. Moreover, one of ordinary skill in the art is not an automaton, but is possessed of ordinary creativity. Id. One of ordinary skill could find alternative uses for prior art elements beyond the elements' primary purposes and fit prior art teachings together like a puzzle. Id. A combination of prior art teachings does not require absolute predictability. Eli Lilly and Co. v. Zenith Goldline Pharmaceuticals Inc., 81 USPQ2d 1324, 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2006). All that is required is a reasonable expectation of success. Id.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Reddit, "I made a routine where it detects if I'm sleeping, etc." https://www.reddit.com/r/oneuil/comments/11zsq5m/i_made_a_routine_where_it_detects_if_im_sleeping/. 2023 (“Reddit” hereinafter) in view of the well-known capabilities of smart watches and smart phones.
Regarding claims 1, 11 and 19, Reddit disclose an electronic device (Smartphone”) comprising: a communications subsystem (Official Notice is taken that Bluetooth/WiFi paring between watch and phone is well-known and expected in the art) enabling the electronic device to communicatively connect to a second electronic device (“Smartwatch”); a memory having stored thereon a user sleep mode security (USMS) module; at least one processor coupled to the communications subsystem and the memory and which processes program code of the USMS module, the at least one processor configured to cause the electronic device to: receive a sleep status indication of a user of the electronic device via the communications subsystem (“detect if I’m sleeping through watch” implies the phone receives the watch’s determination); detect a sleep status change based on the received sleep status indication (detection that the user has fallen asleep. Detecting that someone has gone from awake to asleep inherently requires detecting a change in sleep status); and in response to the sleep status change indicating the device user is asleep, disable features for unlocking the electronic device based on input from at least one biometric security-access system of the electronic device ("… it turns off fingerprint unlock, starts a timer, and makes the phone go into ringer mode."). Reddit disclose all the limitation, except for explicitly teaching that the phone “receive a sleep status indication via a communications subsystem” or expressly describes “detecting a sleep status change”. However, those features are well understood and inherent in commercially available smartwatch ecosystem (e.g., Apple Watch/iPhone and Wear OS/Android), which routinely communicate sleep-state information from the watch to the paired phone using Bluetooth or WiFi. It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to implement the routine disclosed by Reddit using the conventional communication architecture of paired smartwatch/phone system because such combination is required for the automation of described by Reddit to function and merely represents the predictable use of known communication technology according to its established function. Furthermore, determining that the user has transitioned from awake to asleep is an inherent prerequisite to performing the disclosed routine and therefore constitute detecting a sleep status change. It is also noted that smartwatch/phone systems inherently include memory for Reddit routine, i.e., program code and at least one processor to execute the routine. Official Notice is taken that using a computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having program instructions that when executed by a processor to perform the abovementioned method is well known and expected in the art.
Regarding claim 2 and 12, Reddit disclose as stated above except for expressly teaching wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to: in response to the sleep status change indicating the device user transitions from being asleep to being awake, re-enable the features for unlocking the electronic device based on input from the at least one biometric security-access system of the electronic device. However, the additional features define a slight constructional change which comes within the scope of the customary practice followed by persons skilled in the art, especially as the advantages thus achieved can be readily contemplated in advance, or since they merely define one of several straightforward possibilities which the skilled person would select, depending on the circumstances, in order to solve the problem posed. Under KSR the known work in one field of endeavor may prompt variations of it for use in either the same field or a different one based on design incentives and is considered obvious. It is desirable to have the smartwatch/phone systems back to its functional status when device user awake. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention (at the time the invention was made), to modify teaching of Reddit based on the nature of the problem to include the change of status from sleep to awake to reach at the claim invention with a reasonable expectation of success.
Regarding claim 3 and 13, Reddit disclose as stated above. Reddit also disclose wherein the communications subsystem comprises a Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) module that connects the electronic device to a WiFi network on which the second electronic device is connected and a Bluetooth adapter that provides Bluetooth connectivity with the second electronic device, wherein the electronic device receives the sleep status indication via one of WiFi and Bluetooth (Official Notice is taken that Bluetooth/WiFi paring between smartwatch and smartphone is well-known and expected in the art).
Regarding claim 4 and 14, Reddit disclose as stated above. Reddit also disclose wherein the at least one processor is further configured to, in response to detecting an unlocked state of the electronic device concurrently with detecting the sleep status change indicating the device user is asleep, lock the electronic device ("… it turns off fingerprint unlock, starts a timer, and makes the phone go into ringer mode.").
Regarding claim 5 and 15, Reddit disclose as stated above. Reddit also disclose wherein the at least one biometric security system comprises a fingerprint scanner, and to disable the at least one biometric security system the at least one processor is configured to disable the fingerprint scanner ("… it turns off fingerprint unlock, starts a timer, and makes the phone go into ringer mode.")..
Regarding claim 6 and 16, Reddit disclose as stated above. Reddit also disclose wherein the at least one biometric security-access system comprises a face identification system, and wherein to disable at least one biometric security-access system, the at least one processor is further configured to disable the face identification system (Official Notice is taken that use of face identification system (e.g., “Face ID” in Apple’s iPhone; “Face Unlock/Recognition” in Android phone), in addition to fingerprint scanner identification, to access smartphone is well-known and expected in the art).
Regarding claim 7 and 17, Reddit disclose as stated above except for expressly teaching wherein the at least one biometric security-access system comprises an iris identification system, and to disable at least one biometric security-access system, the at least one processor is further configured to disable the iris identification system. Official Notice is taken that the Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone, released in 2017, featured iris identification system to unlock the phone, and define a slight constructional change which comes within the scope of the customary practice followed by persons skilled in the art, especially as the advantages thus achieved can be readily contemplated in advance, or since they merely define one of several straightforward possibilities which the skilled person would select, depending on the circumstances, in order to unlock the smartphone and solve the problem posed. Under KSR the known work in one field of endeavor may prompt variations of it for use in either the same field or a different one based on design incentives and is considered obvious. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention (at the time the invention was made), to modify teaching of Reddit based on the nature of the problem to include the iris identification to reach at the claim invention with a reasonable expectation of success.
Regarding claim 8, Reddit disclose as stated above. Reddit also disclose wherein the at least one processor is further configured to, in response to detecting a biometric authentication attempt while the at least one biometric security-access system is disabled, send a user wakeup message to the second electronic device ("… it turns off fingerprint unlock, starts a timer, and makes the phone go into ringer mode.").
Regarding claim 9, Reddit disclose as stated above. Reddit also disclose wherein the second electronic device is a wearable electronic device (“Smartwatch”).
Regarding claim 10, 18, and 20 Reddit disclose as stated above. Reddit also disclose wherein the at least one processor is further configured to, in response to detecting a biometric authentication attempt while the at least one biometric security-access system is disabled, generate and output an audible alarm signal from the electronic device ("… it turns off fingerprint unlock, starts a timer, and makes the phone go into ringer mode.").
Conclusion
As applied to the claims above, the specific columns, line numbers, and figures in the references has been cited for the Applicant’s convenience. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the particular limitations within the individual claims, other passages and figures may apply as well. The Applicant is respectfully requested to fully consider the references, in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner, in preparing responses. Applicant(s) are reminded that MPEP 2123 I. states: “The use of patents as references is not limited to what the patentees describe as their own inventions or to the problems with which they are concerned. They are part of the literature of the art, relevant for all they contain.” In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33, 216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968)). A reference may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill the art, including nonpreferred embodiments. Merck & Co. v. Biocraft Laboratories, 874 F.2d 804, 10 USPQ2d 1843 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 975 (1989).
The attention of the applicant is drawn to the fact that the application may not be amended in such a way that it contains subject matter which extends beyond the content of the application as originally filed. In order to facilitate the examination of the conformity of the amended application, the applicant is respectfully requested to clearly identify the amendments carried out, irrespective of whether they concern amendments by addition, replacement or deletion, and to indicate the passages of the application as filed on which these amendments are based.
Reliance on the US Pre-Grant Publication (PG PUB) of this application, which is not part of the image file wrapper of the patent application, in the prosecution is improper. All references in the reply to the office action are to be made to the latest version on record of the patent application as filed not as published. The latest version on record of the patent application means the patent application as originally filed and modified by previously entered amendment(s).
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. Gupta et al. (US 2025/0384113 A1) disclose the "biometric security-access system of the electronic device" (¶[0016]: "the electronic device to detect an unlock trigger event while the electronic device is in a locked state, the unlock trigger event activating the facial recognition authentication module which configures the electronic device to perform image recognition to unlock the electronic device.")
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Nader Bolourchi whose telephone number is (571) 272-8064. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:30 to 4:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hannah S. Wang, SPE can be reached on (571) 272-9018. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Interviews are available via telephone and video conferencing using a USPTO web-based Video Conferencing and Collaboration Tool. To schedule an interview, Applicants are encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
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The following is a sample authorization form, which may be used by applicant:
“Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with the undersigned and practitioners in accordance with 37 CFR 1.33 and 37 CFR 1.34 concerning any subject matter of this application by video conferencing, instant messaging, or electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file.”
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To facilitate processing of the internet communication authorization or withdraw of authorization, the Office strongly encourages use of Form PTO/SB/439, filed via EFS-Web. The Form is available at:
https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf.
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/Nader Bolourchi/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631
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