DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the remarks and amendments filed on 8/18/26. Claims 17-33 and 35-37 are pending. Claims 17-33 and 35-37 are rejected.
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
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.
Claims 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent 8,421,606 to Collins, Jr. et al. (“Collins”), in view of US Patent Application Publication 2012/0137436 to Andrienko.
Claim 17. A system comprising a patient bed including: a frame (Collins, Fig. 1, #10); circuitry carried by the frame; and a graphical user interface (Collins, Fig. 2) carried by the frame and coupled to the circuitry, the graphical user interface displaying at least one user interface screen (Collins, Figs. 2-16) that is used by a caregiver to manually enter location data (Collins, column 12, lines 14-15; also see Fig. 2) indicative of a location in a healthcare facility occupied by the patient bed, the circuitry being configured to transmit (Collins discloses the use wireless communications throughout the disclosure, but specifically discloses wireless signals and tracking capability in column 11, lines 58-59) the location data entered by the caregiver and a bed identification (ID) from the bed (Cololins discusses the use of tracking ID tags in column 11 lines 65 through column 12, line 23; regarding manual entry, see Fig. 2), after the location data has been entered manually on the graphical user interface by the caregiver and the circuitry being configured to send a query to a remote computer device to determine whether the patient bed is associated with a location in an association database, wherein the query is sent in response to an indication that a new patient has arrived at the patient bed. (regarding “an indication that a new patient has arrived at the patient bed” after which the bed queries a database to associate the patient bed, Collins generally discloses associating a bed with a central database but does not specifically disclose determining that a new user is present, then sending a query to a database to ask for data on that user; however this capability is known in the prior art of Andrienko, which teaches a similar bed association system, and which teaches determining that a user is present by collecting biometric data, after which patient information is obtained, or queried, from a database, see Andrienko Fig. 4 and paragraph [0096]; it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the system of Collins with the biometric user identifying capability of Andrienko in order to be able to track both the location equipment and patients in a hospital, and to further be able to have patient data readily available at the location of the patient’s bed).
Claim 18. The system of claim [[16]] 17, wherein the location data comprises a room number (Collins, Fig. 2).
Claims 19-33 and 35-36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent 8,421,606 to Collins, Jr. et al. (“Collins”), and US Patent Application Publication 2012/0137436 to Andrienko, in view of US Patent Application Publication 2009/0063183 to McNeely et al. (“McNeely”).
Claim 19. The system of claim 17, wherein the graphical user interface includes a change button that is selected to initiate a change of the location data (to the degree that Collins does not explicitly disclose manual input of a room location for a bed, McNeely, paragraph [0100] discusses manual input of location data as well as various other details of a bed GUI; it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the bed of Collins with the GUI features of McNeely in order to allow for an easier and more functional bed user interface, and specifically to allow for the manual input of user location date as taught by McNeeley; furthermore, it is inherent that “buttons” would be used on the user interface, for example the buttons shown in at least Fig. 2; moreover, buttons are well known in bed GUI’s as also seen in Collins, Fig. 2 #40).
Claim 20. The system of claim 19, wherein a keyboard screen appears on the graphical user interface in response to the change button being selected, the keyboard screen permitting the caregiver to type new location data indicative of a new location occupied by the patient bed (McNeely paragraph [0100] discloses manual input of location data).
Claim 21. The system of claim 17, further comprising at least one remote computer device that receives the location data and the bed ID for purposes of making a bed-to-room association, and wherein the patient bed is coupled to the at least one remote computer device via a network of the healthcare facility (McNeely, see at least paragraph [0002]).
Claim 22. The system of claim 17, wherein the location data and the bed ID is transmitted off of the bed in the form of a wireless transmission (McNeely, see at least paragraph [0035]).
Claim 23. The system of claim 17, wherein the circuitry also transmits bed status data off of the bed (McNeely, see at least paragraph [0112] regarding “surface status data”).
Claim 24. The system of claim 17, wherein the location data comprises a unit data indicative of a unit of the healthcare facility occupied by the patient bed and a room number of the unit in which the patient bed is situated (McNeely, see at least paragraph [0047]).
Claim 25. The system of claim 24, wherein the graphical user interface displays a first screen that is used to select the unit of the healthcare facility occupied by the patient bed from a menu of units and a second screen that is used to select the room number from a menu of room numbers (See Collins Fig. 2; additional menus can be see, for example, in Fig. 13 at #204, and #220; moreover, any of the screens shown in Figs. 2-12 may be considered to be a “second screen”; alternatively, see McNeely Figs. 10-13).
Claim 26. The system of claim 17, wherein the caregiver is prompted to manually enter the location data on the graphical user interface in response to the patient bed being plugged into alternating current (AC) power, unless the patient bed is already associated with the location (McNeely, paragraph [0086]).
Claim 27. The system of claim 17, wherein the caregiver is prompted to manually enter the location data on the graphical user interface in response to a new patient arriving at the patient bed, unless the patient bed is already associated with the location (McNeely discloses manual data entry in paragraph [0100] and discloses overriding data, such as patient data, by user entry in paragraph [0085]; regarding “prompted to manually enter”, McNeely discloses “a reminder to re-enable the Care Alert template may be initiated by the nurse call system to the wireless communication devices carried by one or more of the assigned caregivers”).
Claim 28. The system of claim 17, wherein in response to a power loss by the patient bed of more than a threshold amount of time, the caregiver is prompted to confirm that the patient bed still occupies the location previously entered using the graphical user interface or to change the location occupied by the patient bed (see McNeely paragraphs [0080]-[0081]).
Claim 29. The system of claim 28, wherein in response to a power loss by the patient bed of less than a threshold amount of time, the location previously entered using the graphical user interface is maintained by the patient bed (regarding “a threshold amount of time,” McNeely paragraph [0080] discloses “a slight delay period, such as 10 or 20 seconds”).
Claim 30. This claim is directed toward methods which are enable by the structure that are recited in claim 17. See rejections of claim 17 above. Regarding “fields that a caregiver selects to manually enter location data,” Collins discloses a bed GUI, as does McNeely. McNeely also provides additional details regarding manual entry as discussed in the rejection of claim 19, above. Regarding amended language directed toward “sending a query…” to collect data from an association database once a bed is associated with a location, Collins and Andrienko anticipate or make obvious these features, see rejection of claim 17, above.
Claim 31. The method of claim 30, further comprising receiving the location data and receiving the bed ID at a remote computer device (McNeely, at least paragraph [0035] discusses the use of a wireless network). and associating the patient bed with the location based on the location data and the bed ID in an association database (Collins discloses the use of a database throughout the disclosure, but specifically using “an electronic records database” in column 3, line 50).
Claim 32. The method of claim 30, wherein the location data comprises at least one of a room number and a unit number (McNeely, paragraph [0047]).
Claim 33. The method of claim 30, wherein the location data comprises both of a room number and a unit number (McNeely, paragraph [0047]).
Claim 35. The method of claim 30, wherein, upon determining that the patient bed is not associated with a location, the method further comprises prompting the caregiver to enter the location data (McNeely paragraph [0085] discloses “a reminder to re-enable the Care Alert template may be initiated by the nurse call system to the wireless communication devices carried by one or more of the assigned caregivers”).
Claim 36. The method of claim 30, further comprising determining that the patient bed experienced an AC power loss; wherein, if a duration of time of the AC power loss is less than a threshold amount of time, the location data previously selected using the graphical user interface is maintained; and wherein, if the duration of time is greater than the threshold amount of time, a confirm association screen is displayed on the graphical user interface such that the caregiver can either update the patient bed to location association or confirm the existing patient bed to location association (regarding “a threshold amount of time,” McNeely paragraph [0080] discloses “a slight delay period, such as 10 or 20 seconds”).
Claim 37. The method of claim 30, wherein transmitting, from the patient bed, the location data entered by the caregiver and the bed ID comprises transmitting the location data and the bed ID as one or more wireless transmissions (Collins discloses the use of wireless technology in at least the Abstract; see also column 7, lines 23-40).
Response to Applicant's remarks and amendments
Applicant’s arguments dated 8/18/26 have been reviewed. Applicant argues that McNeely does not teach amended language directed toward a “query is sent in response to an indication that a new patient has arrived at the patient bed.” While this may or may not be true, new rejections are entered in this Office Action, in view of Collins and Andrienko, as necessitated by Applicant’s amendments.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MYLES A THROOP whose telephone number is (571)270-5006. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Troutman can be reached on 571-270-3654. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MYLES A THROOP/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3673
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