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 7/8/2025 was filed after the mailing date of the application on 7/8/2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9/11/2025 was filed after the mailing date of the application on 7/8/2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woodburn (US Patent 2022/0167255) in view of Woodford (US Patent 10,187,756).
As per claims 1, 9 and 11: Woodburn discloses a device for collecting occupant information in a vehicle, the device comprising (See Abstract):
a processor configured to collect occupant information in the vehicle (Paragraph 31; the driver receives alert tones, as well as a bar graph indicating signal strengths, an alert light and other alerts to indicate the identity, number, and range of any nearby emergency vehicle); and
a memory that stores at least one instruction executed by the processor (see fig. 1 element 101; memory), collect occupant information from the user terminal connected via the eWIFI (Paragraph 5; track a wireless signal, referred to herein as “wifi”, created by an emergency vehicle to display alerts when emergency vehicle wifi signals are detected. The wifi signals can be any kind of wireless signal).
Woodford does not specifically disclose wherein, in response to an emergency occurring in the vehicle, the processor is configured to (claim 1; an emergency mobile positioning (EMP) server communicating over a public switched telephone network (PSTN), a cellular network and an internet protocol (IP) network):
broadcast emergency Wi-Fi connection information to connect with a user
terminal via emergency Wi-Fi (eWIFI) (Col 5, lines 58-62; transmit “beacons”, which are used to periodically broadcast information concerning at least the presence of the device. In addition, beacons often include additional information, such as the network configuration, timing codes, etc.); transmit the occupant information to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) server (Col 1, lines 59-62; A public safety answering position (PSAP), or emergency call center, is used by emergency services to answer calls from the public to notify emergency personnel, such as police or firemen, to respond to an emergency situation).
Therefore, it 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, having the teachings of Woodburn and Woodford in it’s entirety, to modify the technique of Woodburn for emergency vehicle detector with false detection processing by adopting Woodford's teaching for an emergency location informer system. The motivation would have been to improve collecting occupant information in a vehicle.
As per claims 2: The device of claim 1, wherein the processor is included in a Telematics Control Unit (TCU) mounted in the vehicle (Paragraph 33; After startup, the system uses information from the GPS device 145 to find its location at 305. The display displays the message “GPS scan” and begins the GPS scanning mode. First the GPS latitude and longitude is determined by the GPS USB chip 145 inserted into the computer).
As per claim 3: The device of claim 1, wherein, in response to a request for occupant
information from the PSAP server, the processor is further configured to:
transmit a request for the emergency Wi-Fi connection information to a Mobile
Network Operator (MNO); and receive the emergency Wi-Fi connection information from the MNO (Paragraph 3; the vehicle transmits a message. However, the vehicle operators only transmit infrequently and there are numerous repeaters on the same frequency. Many police scanners have a proximity detector that performs this function).
As per claim 4: The device of claim 1, wherein the emergency Wi-Fi connection information includes a Service Set Identifier (SSID) for identifying Wi-Fi broadcast by the processor and a personal information encryption key (Col 8, lines 40-50; Beacon interval Capability information (16 bits)—capability of the device/network including type of network, support for polling, encryption details, etc. Service Set Identifier (SSID) is a sequence of 0-32 octets. It is used as an identifier for a wireless LAN, and is intended to be unique for a particular area. It is often a human readable string entered by a user, aka “network name.”).
As per claim 5: The device of claim 4, wherein the user terminal is configured to:
receive the personal information encryption key from the MNO; encrypt the personal information using the received personal information encryption key; and transmit the encrypted information to the TCU (Col 8, lines 40-50; Beacon interval Capability information (16 bits)—capability of the device/network including type of network, support for polling, encryption details, etc. Service Set Identifier (SSID) is a sequence of 0-32 octets. It is used as an identifier for a wireless LAN, and is intended to be unique for a particular area. It is often a human readable string entered by a user, aka “network name.”).
As per claim 6: The device of claim 5, wherein the PSAP server is configured to:
request a decryption key from the MNO to decrypt the occupant information; and
receive the decryption key from the MNO to decrypt the occupant information (Col 8, lines 40-50; Beacon interval Capability information (16 bits)—capability of the device/network including type of network, support for polling, encryption details, etc. Service Set Identifier (SSID) is a sequence of 0-32 octets. It is used as an identifier for a wireless LAN, and is intended to be unique for a particular area. It is often a human readable string entered by a user, aka “network name.”).
As per claim 7: The device of claim 1, wherein the user terminal is further configured to:
transmit an update request for the emergency Wi-Fi connection to the MNO;
receive the emergency Wi-Fi connection information from the MNO in response to
the update request; and update security information for the emergency Wi-Fi connection based on the received emergency Wi-Fi connection information (Paragraph 3; the vehicle transmits a message. However, the vehicle operators only transmit infrequently and there are numerous repeaters on the same frequency. Many police scanners have a proximity detector that performs this function).
As per claim 8: The device of claim 7, wherein the user terminal establishes and completes the emergency Wi-Fi connection in response to the updated security information matching the emergency Wi-Fi connection information broadcasted by the processor (Col 8, lines 40-50; Beacon interval Capability information (16 bits)—capability of the device/network including type of network, support for polling, encryption details, etc. Service Set Identifier (SSID) is a sequence of 0-32 octets. It is used as an identifier for a wireless LAN, and is intended to be unique for a particular area. It is often a human readable string entered by a user, aka “network name.”).
As per claim 10: The method of claim 9, further comprising:
transmitting, by the processor, a request for the emergency Wi-Fi connection
information to a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in response to an occupant information request from the PSAP server; and receiving, by the processor, the emergency Wi-Fi connection information from the MNO (Paragraph 33; After startup, the system uses information from the GPS device 145 to find its location at 305. The display displays the message “GPS scan” and begins the GPS scanning mode. First the GPS latitude and longitude is determined by the GPS USB chip 145 inserted into the computer),
wherein the connection with the user terminal via the emergency Wi-Fi includes
transmitting a personal information encryption key included in the received emergency
Wi-Fi connection information to the user terminal, the transmitting of the information to
the PSAP server including transmitting the personal information encryption key along with the occupant information to the PSAP server (Col 8, lines 40-50; Beacon interval Capability information (16 bits)—capability of the device/network including type of network, support for polling, encryption details, etc. Service Set Identifier (SSID) is a sequence of 0-32 octets. It is used as an identifier for a wireless LAN, and is intended to be unique for a particular area. It is often a human readable string entered by a user, aka “network name.”).
As per claim 12: The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to:
transmit a request for the emergency Wi-Fi connection information to a
Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in response to an occupant information request
from the PSAP server; and receive the emergency Wi-Fi connection information from the MNO, and wherein the MNO is configured to transmit a personal information encryption key included in the received emergency Wi-Fi connection information to the user terminal (Paragraph 33; After startup, the system uses information from the GPS device 145 to find its location at 305. The display displays the message “GPS scan” and begins the GPS scanning mode. First the GPS latitude and longitude is determined by the GPS USB chip 145 inserted into the computer), and
wherein the encrypted occupant information transmitted to the PSAP server
includes the personal information encryption key (Col 8, lines 40-50; Beacon interval Capability information (16 bits)—capability of the device/network including type of network, support for polling, encryption details, etc. Service Set Identifier (SSID) is a sequence of 0-32 octets. It is used as an identifier for a wireless LAN, and is intended to be unique for a particular area. It is often a human readable string entered by a user, aka “network name.”).
As per claim 13: The system of claim 12, wherein the PSAP server is configured to decrypt the encrypted occupant information by using the decryption key received from the MNO (Paragraph 33; After startup, the system uses information from the GPS device 145 to find its location at 305. The display displays the message “GPS scan” and begins the GPS scanning mode. First the GPS latitude and longitude is determined by the GPS USB chip 145 inserted into the computer).
As per claim 14: The system of claim 11, wherein the occupant information comprises at least one of medical information or legal information, or a combination thereof,
wherein the medical information includes any personal information related to a
preexisting medical condition, a blood type, or allergies, and
wherein the legal information includes any information related to finances, a national
identity number, a home address, a next of kin, or a legal representative (Paragraph 35; A list of Counties/Cities and their lat/long pairs and radius is searched to determine if there is signal data stored for the current location. The List also contains pointers to the city/county Police/Emergency Vehicle's Manufacturer MAC code and SSID Patterns, MAC address patterns and known MAC identifiers of specific vehicle wifi' access points. The device performs differently based on whether there is existing data for that location or not).
Relevant Prior Art References
The following prior art is cited as being of interest to the claimed invention but has not been applied in any of the current rejections.
Sterman et al.- US Patent Publication 2016/0309026- the prior art teaches techniques for virtual identifier for emergency.
Xue et al.- US Patent 8,718,596 - the prior art teaches techniques for wireless device location for emergency calls.
Snapp et al.- US Patent Pub. 2016/0077186 - the prior art teaches techniques for wireless Beacon location validation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANTHONY D BROWN whose telephone number is (571)270-1472. The examiner can normally be reached 730-330pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Linglan Edwards can be reached at 5712705440. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANTHONY D BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2408
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