DETAILED ACTION
Claims 2-21 are considered in this office action. Claims 2-21 are pending examination.
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 .
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 2-21 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-18 of U.S. Patent No.10569786 and over claims 1-17 of US Patent No. 11400947. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because it would have been obvious to an ordinary person skilled in the art to modify the patents resulting to the pending claims.
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 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 2-3, 9-10 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hart et al. (US9491071) and in view of Wenhow et al. (US20150038130A1) and herein after will be referred as Hart and Wenhow respectively.
Regarding Claim 2, Hart teaches a method of managing a group of Internet of Things (loT) devices (Col.3 Line 60-62: “The present system and method includes various embodiments of dynamically grouping devices based on present device conditions.”), comprising:
receiving, by one or more processors, measurement data from sensors associated with a plurality of loT devices (Col.5 Line 47-49: “The monitor agent 220 collects information from the
Sources of device data, such as a database, a registry, the file system, or data collection protocols.”);
determining, based on the measurement data, conditions of usage for each of the plurality of loT devices (Col.5 Line 49-57: “The type of data can include various classes of information including: monitoring data, usage data, and configuration data. This data, for example, can include the operational status, operational data, usage information, location information, environmen tal information, SW/HW (software/hardware) version infor mation (i.e. 'configuration' information), or any data available on the device that can be communicated to the enterprise 100.”);
identifying a subset of the plurality of loT devices operating under a similar condition of usage (Col.6 Line 2-10: “The administrator can also set up dynamic group rules at the same time. These rules are based on business logic and can be changed and modified at any time, which will be dis cussed later in more detail below. The monitor agent software is used to collect data that can be used to locally monitor the data and evaluate the monitoring or dynamic group rules, or sent to the enterprise where it can be monitored and trigger other processing like dynamic grouping”);
Hart may not expressly teaches selecting a parameter set from among a plurality of parameter sets associated with the similar condition of usage; and transmitting the selected parameter set to each of the plurality of loT devices in the subset to cause application of one or more adjustable elements of each of the plurality of loT devices in the subset.
Wenhow teaches selecting a parameter set from among a plurality of parameter sets associated with the similar condition of usage and transmitting the selected parameter set to each of the plurality of loT devices in the subset to cause application of one or more adjustable elements of each of the plurality of loT devices in the subset (Para [0035] : “In one or more embodiments of the invention, the shared data repository (116) may be periodically updated based on changes to the local data repositories. In one or more embodiments of the invention, the shared data repository (116) may be distributed across multiple mobile devices (100) and changes or updates are pushed to every mobile device (100) directly, rather than to a centralized shared data repository (116).”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hart to incorporate the teachings of Wenhow to include selecting a parameter set from among a plurality of parameter sets associated with the similar condition of usage; and transmitting the selected parameter set to each of the plurality of loT devices in the subset to cause application of one or more adjustable elements of each of the plurality of loT devices in the subset. Doing so would optimize the group control of the devices.
Similarly Claim 9 and 16 are rejected on the similar rational.
Regarding Claim 3, Hart in view of Wenhow teaches the method of claim 2. Hart also teaches wherein the similar condition of usage includes one or more of: high or low ambient temperature, high or low humidity, high or low pressure, location (Col.7 Line 15-17).
Similarly Claim 10 and 17 are rejected on the similar rational.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-8, 11-15 and 18-21 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Pogorelik et al. (US 9848035) discloses measurement exchange networks and protocols to exchange measurements of a parameter amongst devices (e.g., IoT devices), select the best measurement(s), accuracy/precision-wise, and determine a process variable for a control system based on the selected best measurement(s). A device may select a peer-provided best measurement to output as the process variable in place of a local measurement, and/or compute the process variable from multiple best measurements (e.g., local and/or peer-provided measurements). Metadata may be used to select a measurement(s) and/or to increase reliability/trust of exchanged data. In this way, each device of an exchange group/network may obtain the highest measurement accuracy of all available collocated sensors with little or no additional processing or cloud connectivity. A best measurement(s) may be selected based on measurement quality specifications extracted from metadata, measurement qualities computed from measurements of respective sensors, locations/proximities of the sensors, a policy(ies), and/or device IDs (e.g., extracted from metadata).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDHESH K JHA whose telephone number is (571)272-6218. The examiner can normally be reached M-F:0800-1700.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James J Lee can be reached at 571-270-5965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ABDHESH K JHA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3668
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