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 .
Terminal Disclaimer
The terminal disclaimer filed on 11/06/2024 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of prior patent numbers: 12137258, 11425428, 11284120, 10602196, 10142662, 9712872 and 9357254 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ogle (US 2015/0221199) in view of Chang (US 2017/0280301).
Regarding claim 1, Ogle discloses a method for providing awareness in a multi-space environment, the method comprising:
receiving, by a server in communication with an array of gateway devices positioned within spaces in the multi-space environment, a plurality of gateway signals from the array of gateway devices, each gateway device having a gateway device identification providing an accurately-known fixed location (a proximate wireless-enabled interactive device broadcasts data packets including an indication of the strength of set-top box identification signals received; see at least paragraphs 0004, 0023 and 0029);
processing, by the server, the plurality of gateway signals, including a personal locator device identification and the gateway device identification for each gateway signal, the personal locator device identification originating from a wireless-enabled personal locator device (receiving the data packet from the proximate wireless-enabled interactive device and process the data packet to determine the set-top box /beacon device or, more generally, bacon identification of strongest signal strength and the proximate wireless-enabled interactive device identification. Based on the analysis, the instructions determine the location of the proximate wireless-enabled interactive device as being proximate to the set-top box or beacon device of strongest signal strength; see at least paragraph 0033);
processing, by the server, the plurality of gateway signals, including the personal locator device identification, the gateway device identification, and a received signal strength measurement for each gateway signal (the processor-executable instructions receive the data packet from the proximate wireless-enabled interactive device and process the data packet to determine the set-top box /beacon device or, more generally, bacon identification of strongest signal strength and the proximate wireless-enabled interactive device identification. Based on the analysis, the instructions determine the location of the proximate wireless-enabled interactive device as being proximate to the set-top box or beacon device of strongest signal strength; see at least paragraph 0033); and
determining, by the server, an estimated location of the proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device (based on the analysis, the instructions determine the location of the proximate wireless-enabled interactive device as being proximate to the set-top box or beacon device of strongest signal strength; see at least paragraph 0033).
Olge is not clear about the location is estimated with trilateration and received signal strength modeling.
Chang discloses a mobile communication device may obtain a position fix by measuring ranges to three or more terrestrial wireless transmitter devices, such as access points, for example, positioned at known locations. Ranges may be measured, for example, by obtaining a Media Access Control identifier (MAC ID) address from wireless signals received from suitable access points and
measuring one or more characteristics of received signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like, etc., an indoor location of a mobile communication device may be estimated via radio heat map signature matching, for example, in which current characteristics of wireless signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like received from access points at the device are compared with expected or previously measured signal characteristics stored as heat map values in a database. At times, applicable data, such as to facilitate and/or support location estimates of mobile communication devices via radio heat map signature matching, OTDOA, triangulation, etc. may be collected using one or more crowdsourcing approaches, etc.; see at least paragraphs 0006-0007 and 00017).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to modify Olge by including provisions for performing location estimate based on trilateration and/or signal signature/radio heat map so as to facilitate and/or support one or more operations and/or techniques for selective crowdsourcing for multi-level positioning, such as positioning in a multi-level structure; see at least the Abstract.
Regarding claim 2, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein each gateway device comprises a plurality of wireless transceivers, and receiving the plurality of gateway signals comprises receiving signals via the plurality of wireless transceivers of each gateway device (Olge; see at least paragraphs 0004 and 0024).
Regarding claim 3, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein each gateway device comprises a set-top box (Ogle; see at least the Abstract).
Regarding claim 4, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein each gateway device comprises a common space gateway device (Olge; see at least paragraphs 0020 and 0022-0023).
Regarding claim 5, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein each gateway device comprises a gateway service device (Olge; the user may send a service along with the location; see at least paragraph 0036).
Regarding claim 6, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein the proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device comprises a single-button personal locator device (Ogle, , A button 122 provides the activation that triggers the alert, etc., responsive to the activation of the emergency button, the programmable device 18 immediately transmits a broadcast signal including a data packet having at least one set-top box identification, a corresponding signal strength identification indicating the strength of the set-top box identification beacon signal, a proximate wireless-enabled interactive device identification, and an emergency alert; see at least Fig.4 and paragraph 0031).
Regarding claim 7, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein the proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device comprises a wireless-enabled interactive programmable device (Ogle; see at least the Abstract and paragraph 0021).
Regarding claim 8, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 7, wherein the wireless-enabled interactive programmable device is selected from the group consisting of smart watches, smart phones, and tablet computers (Ogle; the programmable device 18 may be a wireless-enabled smart and interactive handheld device that may be supplied or carried by the user or guest and may be selected from range or existing devices, such as, for example, iPads, iPhones, iPod…etc. see at least paragraph 0021).
Regarding claim 9, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein the server comprises a back-office hotel server in communication with a vertical and horizontal array of set-top boxes (Ogle; see at least Fig. 1).
Regarding claim 10, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein processing the plurality of gateway signals with trilateration and received signal strength modeling comprises:
utilizing at least three distances between at least three gateway signals from respective gateway devices to determine a point of intersection therebetween (Chang; a mobile communication device may obtain a position fix by measuring ranges to three or more terrestrial wireless transmitter devices, such as access points, for example, positioned at known locations. Ranges may be measured, for example, by obtaining a Media Access Control identifier (MAC ID) address from wireless signals received from suitable access points and measuring one or more characteristics of received signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like, etc., an indoor location of a mobile communication device may be estimated via radio heat map signature matching, for example, in which current characteristics of wireless signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like received from access points at the device are compared with expected or previously measured signal characteristics stored as heat map values in a database. At times, applicable data, such as to facilitate and/or support location estimates of mobile communication devices via radio heat map signature matching, OTDOA, triangulation, etc. may be collected using one or more crowdsourcing approaches; see at least paragraphs 0006-0007 and 0017).
Regarding claim 11, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein processing the plurality of gateway signals with trilateration and received signal strength modeling comprises:
accessing a signal map stored in a storage accessible to the server, the signal map being a received signal strength model of collected offline signals at the vertical and horizontal array of gateway devices; and
comparing a plurality of received signal strength measurements of the plurality of gateway signals to the signal map (Chang; an indoor location of a mobile communication device may be estimated via radio heat map signature matching, for example, in which current characteristics of wireless signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like received from access points at the device are compared with expected or previously measured signal characteristics stored as heat map values in a databased; see at least paragraphs 0006-0007 and 0055-0057).
Regarding claim 12, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, wherein processing the plurality of gateway signals with trilateration and received signal strength modeling comprises:
utilizing at least three received signal strength measurements between at least three gateway signals from respective gateway devices to determine a point of intersection therebetween (Chang; a mobile communication device may obtain a position fix by measuring ranges to three or more terrestrial wireless transmitter devices, such as access points, for example, positioned at known locations. Ranges may be measured, for example, by obtaining a Media Access Control identifier (MAC ID) address from wireless signals received from suitable access points and measuring one or more characteristics of received signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like, etc., an indoor location of a mobile communication device may be estimated via radio heat map signature matching, for example, in which current characteristics of wireless signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like received from access points at the device are compared with expected or previously measured signal characteristics stored as heat map values in a database. At times, applicable data, such as to facilitate and/or support location estimates of mobile communication devices via radio heat map signature matching, OTDOA, triangulation, etc. may be collected using one or more crowdsourcing approaches; see at least paragraphs 0006-0007 and 0017).
Regarding claim 13, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 1, further comprising selecting an operational mode from the group consisting of alerts-enabled, service request-enabled, tracking-enabled, and non-tracking-enabled (Olge; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0036).
Regarding claim 14, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 13, wherein in the alerts-enabled mode, the server receives a distress signal from the proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device (Olge; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0036).
Regarding claim 15, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 13, wherein in the service request-enabled mode, the server receives a service request from the proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device (Olge; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0036).
Regarding claim 16, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 13, wherein in the tracking-enabled mode, the server maintains in memory a plurality of estimated locations with timestamps associated with the proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device (Olge; The tracking/non-tracking update mode indicates the level of privacy the user expects and how much of the location history will be saved. In a third mode of operation at block 210, the map of individuals is updated with the location of the user with, if privacy settings being enabled, the system maintains the privacy of the individual working in the hospitality environment such that the system only retains in memory the last known position and time of the user-supplied wireless-enabled smart and interactive handheld device. Further, in this mode of operation, the system does not reveal the location of the individual and programmable device unless and until an alert is issued; see at least Fig.6B and paragraphs 0036 and 0038).
Regarding claim 17, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 13, wherein in the non-tracking-enabled mode, the server maintains in memory only the last known location with a timestamp associated with the proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device (The tracking/non-tracking update mode indicates the level of privacy the user expects and how much of the location history will be saved. In a third mode of operation at block 210, the map of individuals is updated with the location of the user with, if privacy settings being enabled, the system maintains the privacy of the individual working in the hospitality environment such that the system only retains in memory the last known position and time of the user-supplied wireless-enabled smart and interactive handheld device. Further, in this mode of operation, the system does not reveal the location of the individual and programmable device unless and until an alert is issued; see at least Fig.6B and paragraphs 0036 and 0038).
Regarding claim 18, Olge discloses a method for providing awareness in a multi-space environment, the method comprising:
receiving, by a server in communication with an array of gateway devices positioned within spaces in the multi-space environment, a plurality of gateway signals from the array of gateway devices, each gateway device having a gateway device identification providing an accurately-known fixed location (see at least the rejection of claim 1);
processing, by the server, the plurality of gateway signals, including a personal locator device identification, the gateway device identification, and a received signal strength measurement for each gateway signal (see at least the rejection of claim 1);
comparing, by the server, a plurality of received signal strength measurements of the plurality of gateway signals (see at least the rejection of claim 1).
Olge is not clear about a signal strength modeling, and a signal map stored in storage.
Chang discloses a mobile communication device may obtain a position fix by measuring ranges to three or more terrestrial wireless transmitter devices, such as access points, for example, positioned at known locations. Ranges may be measured, for example, by obtaining a Media Access Control identifier (MAC ID) address from wireless signals received from suitable access points and
measuring one or more characteristics of received signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like, etc., an indoor location of a mobile communication device may be estimated via radio heat map signature matching, for example, in which current characteristics of wireless signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like received from access points at the device are compared with expected or previously measured signal characteristics stored as heat map values in a database. At times, applicable data, such as to facilitate and/or support location estimates of mobile communication devices via radio heat map signature matching, OTDOA, triangulation, etc. may be collected using one or more crowdsourcing approaches, etc.; see at least paragraphs 0006-0007 and 00017. Furthermore, positioning assistance data may comprise one or more radio heat maps constructed for an indoor or like environment; see at least paragraphs 0019-0020).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to modify Olge by including provisions for performing location estimate based on trilateration and/or signal signature/radio heat map so as to facilitate and/or support one or more operations and/or techniques for selective crowdsourcing for multi-level positioning, such as positioning in a multi-level structure; see at least the Abstract.
Regarding claim 19, Olge in view of Chang disclose the method as recited in claim 18, further comprising:
processing the plurality of gateway signals, including the personal locator device identification and the gateway device identification for each gateway signal, with trilateration, the personal locator device identification originating from a wireless-enabled personal locator device (the combination of Olge’s processing with Chang’s trilateration; see at least the rejection of claim 1).
Claim 20 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.
Conclusion
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/YASSIN ALATA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426