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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on March 19, 2025 is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 8-14, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Carter (US 2025/0329202).
As per claim 12, Carter discloses a system (entry management system, EM, paragraph 0134) for deterring an unknown person (101) at a door ((figure 1), comprising:
an exterior door lock interface (10) at the door (paragraph 0145-0146) including:
an illumination device (28, 32, paragraph 0139); and
electronics including a sensor (14, 22, 24, paragraph 0138) and at least one processor (paragraphs 0074 and 0144-0145), and configured to:
sense, by the sensor, whether a person approaches the door (paragraphs 0007, 0017, 0065, 0096, 0123, 0135, 0139, 0147);
determine, by the at least one processor, whether the person is unknown;
and
in response to determining that the person is unknown, activate, by the at
least one processor, the illumination device on the exterior door lock
interface to be in a deterrence state, otherwise, deactivate the illumination device to be in a non-deterrence state or maintain the illumination device in a deactivated state.
As per claim 13, Carter discloses the electronics, in sensing that a person approaches the door, are further configured to (paragraphs 0135-0136):
capture at least one image inclusive of the person; and determine that the person captured in the at least one image is positioned proximate to the door.
As per claim 14, Carter discloses the electronics, in sensing that a person approaches the door, are further configured to sense distance of a person from the door to be within a predetermined distance (paragraphs 0175, 0179 and 0187).
As per claim 19, Carter discloses the electronics further include an antenna and signal processor, and are further (paragraphs 0078, 0107, and 0177-0179) configured to:
sense a wireless signal of an electronic device with the person approaching the door;
determine whether an identifier associated with the electronic device is registered as an approved identifier; and
in response to determining that the identifier is not registered, activate the illumination device to be in the deterrence state if in a non-deterrence state,
otherwise, deactivate the illumination device to be in the non-deterrence state.
As per claim 20, Carter discloses the electronics are further configured to: store, in a non-transitory memory, an identification of a known person that a user of the exterior door lock interface wants to notify a monitoring service or public authority that the known person approaches the door; in response to determining that the person is the known person, generate a message indicative of the identification of the known person; and communicate the message to cause a notification to be communicated to the monitoring service or public authority (paragraphs 0068, 0154 and 0317).
As per claims 1-3, 8-11, The method claims 1-3 and 8-11 are essentially the same in scope as system claims 12-14 and 19-20 above and are rejected similarly.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 and 15-18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TAI T. NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2961. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9am-6pm.
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/TAI T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2685 June 11, 2026
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