DETAILED ACTIONNotice 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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 2, 4-8 and 14-24 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 20 January 2026, with respect to the 112(a) rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 112(a) rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-8 and 14-24 has been withdrawn.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4-8 and 14-24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vescovi et al (2015/0277559) (herein “Vescovi”) in view of Brown et al (2017/0200353) (herein “Brown”) and further in view of KANG et al (2016/0018942) (herein “KANG”). In regards to claims 1, 14 and 21, Vescovi teaches a smart ring, comprising: a ring body configured to be worn on a finger of a user(See; Figs. 1-6 for a ring body worn on a finger); at least one haptic stimulator configured to receive a drive signal and communicate data to the user via a haptic stimulation of the finger (See; Fig. 7 and p[0060] for one or more tactile output generators 763 coupled to a haptic feedback controller 761. The tactile output generators may consist of various actuators or other electromechanical devices to exert “pressure” onto the user’s skin); and at least one processor coupled to the at least one haptic stimulator (See; Fig. 7 and p[0060] for processor(s) 722 connected to the haptic feedback controller 761 to provide drive signals to the tactile output generators 763), wherein the at least one processor is configured to: receive a notification; generate the drive signal based on the notification (See; Fig. 13, p[0070] for generating haptic feedback in response to information received by device 700), wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a characteristic of the notification and a temporal vibration pattern (See; p[0163] for individual actuation of the haptic feedback generators and p[0139] where the haptic feedback may be vibrations or pulses); and drive the at least one haptic stimulator according to the drive signal to communicate the data to the user (See p[0180] where a haptic message received by the user may be associated with a pattern or symbol. Further see p[0182] where certain patterns of haptic feedback pulses may be provided to a user along with a visual display of the message where the user may not need to view the touchscreen upon subsequent receipts of the haptic feedback pattern. Further see p[0165] where information such as Morse code may be sent to the haptic generators). Vescovi fails to explicitly teach generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification. However Brown teaches generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification and a temporal vibration pattern (See; p[0034] where relevant metadata such as who/where (source) an event has come from is when determining how to send the haptic notification to the user. For example, a text message from a family member may have a unique haptic signal and a weather alert may have a different unique haptic signal). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify Vescovi’s haptic notifications to consider the source of the notification so as to better notify the user haptically as to where the notification comes from. The combination of Vescovi and Brown fail to explicitly teach receive a first user input while operating in an inactive operational state responsive to receiving the first user input while operating in the inactive operational state, elect to not act on the first user input receive the first user input while operating in an active operational state and responsive to receiving the first user input while operating in the active operational state, act on the first user input. However, KANG teaches receive a first user input while operating in an inactive operational state responsive to receiving the first user input while operating in the inactive operational state, elect to not act on the first user input receive the first user input while operating in an active operational state and responsive to receiving the first user input while operating in the active operational state, act on the first user input (See; p[0196] where when the device is in an inactive state the touch screen ignores input. Thus when the device is in an active state, touch input is not ignored). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify Vescovi’s touch screen to ignore touch input as to prevent erroneous touches when the device is in an inactive or sleeping state. Claim 14 further amends that the vibration patterns are based on the content of the data input, this is covered in the rejection above such as in Vescovi (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182]). In regards to claims 2, 17 and 22, Vescovi teaches wherein the notification is one of text data, an alert, or a social media notification (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182]).
In regards to claim 4, Vescovi teaches wherein the notification is a first notification, the characteristic is a first characteristic, and the temporal vibration pattern is a first temporal vibration pattern, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to: receive a second notification; generate the drive signal based on the second notification, wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a second characteristic of the second notification and corresponds to a second temporal vibration pattern that differs from the first temporal vibration pattern; and drive the at least one haptic stimulator according to the drive signal to communicate the data to the user, the data being representative of the second characteristic (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182] for various different messages / notifications which will each have their own unique vibration patterns). Vescovi fails to explicitly teach generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification, where the first notification comes from a first source and the second notification comes from a second source. However Brown teaches generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification and a temporal vibration pattern, where the first notification comes from a first source and the second notification comes from a second source (See; p[0034] where relevant metadata such as who/where (source) an event has come from is when determining how to send the haptic notification to the user. For example, a text message from a family member may have a unique haptic signal and a weather alert may have a different unique haptic signal). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify Vescovi’s haptic notifications to consider the source of the notification so as to better notify the user haptically as to where the notification comes from.
In regards to claim 5 and 23, Vescovi teaches wherein generating the drive signal comprises selecting the temporal vibration pattern from among multiple temporal vibration patterns based on the unique correspondence between the characteristic of the notification and the temporal vibration pattern (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182] for various different messages / notifications which will each have their own unique vibration patterns, thus choosing from among various patterns for the particular notification). Vescovi fails to explicitly teach generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification. However Brown teaches generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification and a temporal vibration pattern (See; p[0034] where relevant metadata such as who/where (source) an event has come from is when determining how to send the haptic notification to the user. For example, a text message from a family member may have a unique haptic signal and a weather alert may have a different unique haptic signal). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify Vescovi’s haptic notifications to consider the source of the notification so as to better notify the user haptically as to where the notification comes from.
In regards to claim 6, Vescovi teaches wherein each temporal vibration pattern of the multiple temporal vibration patterns uniquely corresponds to one characteristic of multiple characteristics of the notification including at least the characteristic (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182] for various different messages / notifications which will each have their own unique vibration patterns, thus choosing from among various patterns for the particular notification). Vescovi fails to explicitly teach generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification. However Brown teaches generating drive signals based on the notification wherein the drive signal has a unique correspondence to a source of the notification and a temporal vibration pattern (See; p[0034] where relevant metadata such as who/where (source) an event has come from is when determining how to send the haptic notification to the user. For example, a text message from a family member may have a unique haptic signal and a weather alert may have a different unique haptic signal). Therefore it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify Vescovi’s haptic notifications to take into account the source of the notification so as to better notify the user haptically as to where the notification comes from.
In regards to claims 7 and 24, Vescovi teaches wherein the at least one haptic stimulator includes a first haptic stimulator, and wherein the temporal vibration pattern consists of multiple stimulations by the first haptic stimulator (See; p[0163]).
In regards to claim 8, Vescovi teaches wherein the at least one haptic stimulator includes a first haptic stimulator and a second haptic stimulator, and wherein and the temporal vibration pattern comprises stimulation by the first haptic stimulator and the second haptic stimulator (See; p[0163] for two or more haptic feedback generators). In regards to claim 15, Vescovi teaches further comprising: detecting, via a touch sensor (See; Fig. 1 for touch screen 110), a gesture; and transmitting a control signal to a device to control the device according to the gesture (See; p[0066], p[0158], p[0161] where detected hand gestures can be sent to another device in the form of a commands).
In regards to claim 16, Vescovi teaches wherein the gesture is a swipe gesture, and wherein the control signal comprises a scroll command to cause the device to perform a scroll operation responsive to the control signal (See; p[0066], p[0161]).
In regards to claim 18, Vescovi teaches wherein each type of data input uniquely corresponds to one of the multiple temporal vibration patterns (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182] for various different messages / notifications which will each have their own unique vibration patterns).
In regards to claim 19, Vescovi teaches further comprising: receiving a second data input; mapping the second data input to a second temporal vibration pattern from among the multiple temporal vibration patterns; and controlling the haptic stimulator to provide second haptic stimulation according to the second temporal vibration pattern (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182] for various different messages / notifications which will each have their own unique vibration patterns).
In regards to claim 20, Vescovi teaches wherein the data input is mapped to the temporal vibration pattern based on a content of the data input or a type of the data input (See; p[0165], p[0180] and p[0182] for various different messages / notifications which will each have their own unique vibration patterns).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN A BOYD whose telephone number is (571)270-7503. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 8:00 - 5:00.
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/JONATHAN A BOYD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2627
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