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 .
Authorization for Internet Communication
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Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 4-9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20120158161 (Cohn) in view of US 20140162693 (Wachter) further in view of US 20130279478 (De Bruin).
Regarding claim 8, Cohn teaches or suggests a first electronic device comprising: a communications interface; and a processor coupled to the communications interface (¶¶ 7, 54), the processor being configured to:
identifying a trigger comprising a triggering event and an action to be performed on an accessory device in response to detection of the triggering event, the action being performable by transmission of a control message to the accessory device (¶¶ 89-90 trigger and event action);
executing the trigger, comprising:
monitoring, by the first electronic device, for the triggering event (¶ 95 monitors for event data); and
transmitting, by the first electronic device, the control message to the accessory device in response to detecting the triggering event (¶ 90 a command from the SMA controller).
Cohn does not expressly disclose but Wachter teaches or suggests the trigger being delegated to the first electronic device, (¶ 94 LS 206 may support the more complex trigger conditions) and the trigger being delegated to a second electronic device (¶ 94 delegating the handling of simpler trigger conditions to ALN 202 and/or mobile device 204).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Cohn’s system and Wachter’s delegating in order to reduce resource usage, conserve battery life, simplify implementation (and possibly cost), and/or avoid frequent upgrades to and replacement of elements).
Cohn does not expressly disclose but De Bruin teaches or suggests monitoring, by the first electronic device, a status of the second electronic device for a condition indicating that the second electronic device is unavailable to execute the trigger; and executing, by the first electronic device, the trigger in response to detecting the condition (¶ 91 monitoring the state of access points to which serving functions have been delegated, and resuming the execution of the functions delegated to an access point when detecting that said access point is unable or fails to execute the delegated function).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Cohn’s system, Wachter’s delegating, and De Bruin’s fallback to preserve operations.
Regarding claims 1 and 15, the aforementioned combination teaches or suggests the claimed limitations as explained regarding claim 8 supra, mutatis mutandis.
Regarding claims 2, 9, and 16, Cohn teaches or suggests performing a synchronization operation to update an environment model stored at the first electronic device, the environment model including the trigger (¶ 71 edit that information to provide specifics as to physical, or zone, location of the sensor within the home domain and other characteristics related to the zone of the sensor),
wherein identifying the trigger is performed in response to updating the environment model (¶ 75 by defining such zones, a user can control how the security functions of SMA controller 120 react to various sensor triggers).
Regarding claims 4, 12, and 19, Cohn teaches or suggests the trigger is received from a second electronic device and wherein identifying the trigger is performed in response to receiving the trigger (¶ 89 a sensor is selected, a sensor event can be selected that triggers the rule).
Regarding claims 5 and 13, the aforementioned combination teaches or suggests the trigger further specifies an owner device, a delegation status, and a delegate device (Wachter ¶ 94, De Bruin ¶¶ 33, 39-41). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 8).
Regarding claim 6, the aforementioned combination teaches or suggests the trigger further specifies an owner device, a delegation status, and a delegate device (Wachter ¶ 94, De Bruin ¶¶ 39-40). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 8.
Regarding claim 7, the aforementioned combination teaches or suggests when the trigger is delegated to the first electronic device, the first electronic device is the delegate device and the delegation status is delegated (De Bruin ¶ 40); and
wherein when the trigger is delegated to the second electronic device the first electronic device is the owner device, the second electronic device is the delegate device, and the delegation status is delegated (Wachter ¶ 94). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 8.
Regarding claim 20, the aforementioned combination teaches or suggests the claimed limitations as explained regarding claims 5 and 6 supra, mutatis mutandis.
Claims 3, 10, 11, 17, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20120158161 (Cohn) in view of US 20140162693 (Wachter) further in view of US 20130279478 (De Bruin) and US 20150339917 (Messing).
Regarding claims 3, 10, and 17, Cohn does not expressly disclose but Messing teaches or suggests the environment model includes a plurality of triggers, the method further comprising: performing consistency checking of the plurality of triggers to determine whether a conflict exists; and in response to determining that a conflict exists between two or more of the triggers, providing a notification to a user device (¶ 94 display a deactivation screen in response to determining that the command linked to the broadcasted event notification conflicts with one or more trigger definitions).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Cohn’s system, Wachter’s delegating, De Bruin’s fallback, and Messing’s checking to resolve conflicting triggers.
Regarding claims 11 and 18, Messing teaches or suggests in response to determining that a conflict exists between two or more of the triggers, disabling a trigger defined by at least one of the two or more triggers (¶ 94 deactivate the previous trigger definition). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 3.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20120158161 (Cohn) in view of US 20140162693 (Wachter) further in view of US 20130279478 (De Bruin) and US 20160041972 (Lehman).
Cohn does not expressly disclose but Lehman teaches or suggests update the owner device of the trigger to a second electronic device (¶ 77).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Cohn’s system, Wachter’s delegating, De Bruin’s fallback, and Lehman’s updating to keep current.
Other Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the instant disclosure. For example, to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art, a novel replay debugging tool and system are provided in US 20110078666 (0029).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Lance Leonard Barry whose telephone number is (571) 272-5856. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 730-1630.
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/LANCE LEONARD BARRY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
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