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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/16/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claim(s) have been considered but are moot because of the new grounds of rejection.
Previous Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/13/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues in the remarks that the present application in contrast to Budhikot requires vehicular devices to collect interferences information and provide interference free frequencies or subranges to personal communications devices based on a request from a personal communications device.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Even if the applied reference is not exactly like the instant application, it still reads on the claims. In amending the claims, the applicant has amended the first clause by adding the term “mobile communication” to amend “the plurality of devices” to be the plurality of mobile communication devices. This is not a change of scope, as the amended term reads on any cellphone, mobile, smartphone, or a personal communication device. Budhikott clearly discloses a plurality of mobile communications devices.
The applicant refers to the plurality of mobile communication devices as vehicular device. In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., vehicular devices) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Applicant argues that Buddhikot does not disclose satisfying a request for bandwidth allocation.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Buddhikot discloses satisfying a request for bandwidth allocation. The system claim of claim 10 requires an analytics logic to satisfy the request for bandwidth allocation, by reassigning devices to a different spectrum.
Please see the rejection below to see how the applied reference(s) still disclose or teach the amended claims.
Thus, all the claimed and argues limitations have been met.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 1-4, 7-9, 10-13, 16-20 and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20160066214 herein Buddhikot in view of US 20130165131 A1 herein Martin in view of US 20130252657 A1 herein Kafle.
Claim 1, Buddhikot discloses a method for identifying interference in a shared spectrum environment of wireless devices, comprising:
gathering interference information including bandwidth ranges and locations from a plurality of mobile communication devices (0010, 0043, collecting data on interference temperature, i.e. amount of interference, at a location of a client device and measurement of adjacent bands; 0076, the users periodically collect data on the interference observed in the entire CAB or the adjacent bands of the spectrum being used and communicate the interference information back to the SPIM server via, for example, the SPI channels, such that the SPIM server is able to construct a dynamic map of radio usage and interference temperature for the region, R);
storing an indication of a plurality of locations each within a region of a plurality of regions and interference at each region of the plurality of locations based on the interference information (0010, 0043, 0057, communicates the interference temperature back to a SPIM (spectrum and information management) server; 0076, SPIM constructs a dynamic radio usage map based on interference information fed back to the SPIM, thus storing, interference information is of coverage of base stations (regions) /adjacent bands (plurality of locations) within the entire region R); and
mapping the location information to interference detected at each of a plurality of bandwidth ranges at the region corresponding to the respective location (0076, SPIM constructs a dynamic radio usage map based on interference information fed back to the SPIM, interference information is of coverage of base stations (regions) /adjacent bands (plurality of locations) within the entire region R);
receiving a request for a bandwidth allocation, the request emanating from [[a first personal communications device at]] a remote location (0076, a request for dynamic allocation of radio spectrum;); and
satisfying the request by allocating a non-interfering bandwidth [[to the first personal communications device]] based on the stored indications (0076, reassign a different part of the spectrum to the operators/base stations in a region, such as the sub-region based on collection of interference information).
Buddhikot may not explicitly disclose coalescing the locations based on GPS information and Wifi positioning information of each location; receiving a request for a bandwidth allocation, the request emanating from a first personal communication device at a remote location; satisfying the request by allocating a non-interfering bandwidth to the first personal communication device based on the stored indications.
Martin discloses coalescing the locations based on GPS information and Wifi positioning information of each location (0035-0040, correlates/fuses GPS along with WLAN observations into a location of clustered areas with certainty). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Buddhikot to combine GPS with WLAN position information and report the data as taught by Martin so as to reduce the number of transmissions of the combined data between the UE and the server (0017).
Buddhikot may not explicitly disclose receiving a request for a bandwidth allocation, the request emanating from a first personal communication device at a remote location; satisfying the request by allocating a non-interfering bandwidth to the first personal communication device based on the stored indications.
Kafle discloses receiving a request for a bandwidth allocation, the request emanating from a first personal communication device at a remote location (0127-0128, available channel query sent by the white space device (UE, personal device, etc.)); satisfying the request by allocating a non-interfering bandwidth to the first personal communication device based on the stored indications (0128, receiving a list of channels for its use a geolocation database/WSDB; 0123, channels include channels not in use by primary users, thus non-interfering). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Buddhikot to include allocation of spectrum to a requesting personal device as taught by Kafle so as to provide better propagation characteristics for WLAN systems (0124).
Claim 2, Buddhikot discloses the method of claim 1 further comprising receiving the interference information from personal wireless devices, the personal wireless devices having nomadic and vehicular mobility for transmitting interference information from a plurality of locations (0010, 0043, client devices, since clients of varying mobilities exist in every cellular system, thus nomadic and vehicular mobility).
Claim 3, Buddhikot. The method of claim 1 further comprising: deploying an app in a plurality of personal wireless devices (0007, SDRs); recording, by each app of the personal wireless devices, the interference information (0057); and downloading the recorded interference information from each of the personal wireless devices (0057).
Claim 4, Buddhikot discloses the method of claim 1 further comprising: retrieving the interference information from a fleet of mobile monitors, the mobile monitors gathering the interference information over a predetermined coverage region (0057, individual and aggregate interference data is transferred from a region).
Claim 7, Buddhikot discloses the method of claim 1 further comprising: generating an interference map, the interference map having, for each of a plurality of subregions of a geographic region, the interference information for the respective subregion; and rendering the interference map in a tangible medium of expression (0043).
Claim 8, Buddhikot discloses the method of claim 1 wherein gathering retrieves information from mobile locations, further comprising: updating the stored indications based on receiving revised interference information, the revised information pertaining to a different location (0057, map/remapping based on mobility and interference).
Claim 9, Buddhikot discloses the method of claim 7 wherein the geographic region has a radius around the server between 1-100 miles (0082).
Claim 10, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 1.
Buddhikot discloses a system (title) for identifying interference and allocating bandwidth in a share spectrum environment (see analysis of claim 1). Buddhikot discloses a server (0010, 0043, 0076; SPIM gathers information on interference at locations); a database (0010, 0043, 0076; SPIM stores information and maps information, thus database); a network interface (0010, 0043, 0076; the system/SPIM receives requests from remote RANs and base stations for channels/resources; also receives interference information; thus network interface); analytics logic (0010, 0043, 0076; based on gathered information on interference, provides resources/channels to requesting devices; thus analytics logic).
Claim 11, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 2.
Claim 12, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 3.
Claim 13, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 4.
Claim 16, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 7.
Claim 17, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 8.
Claim 18, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 1. Buddhikot discloses A computer program embodying program code on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium (0040, processor and memory or SPIM server) that, when executed by a processor, performs steps for implementing a method for method for identifying interference in a shared spectrum environment of wireless devices (0041).
Claim 19, Buddhikot discloses The method in claim 4. Buddhikot discloses wherein the mobile monitors are equipped with multiband scanning devices (0010, 0043, since scanning information on adjacent bands and current band thus multiband scanning), wherein the multiband scanning devices measure the interference information in the predetermined coverage region and include a location estimate in the interference information (0010, 0043, 0076, interference collection in region and sending location information).
Claim 20, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 4.
Claim 22, Buddhikot discloses The method of claim 3 wherein receiving a request for a bandwidth allocation includes: requesting, by each app of the personal wireless devices, an interference-free frequency at the remote location (0056, requesting less interference area by sending interference information of the current region).
Claim(s) 6, 15 and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Buddhikot in view of Martin in view of Kafle in view of US 20210211911 A1 herein Kleinbeck.
Claim 6, Buddhikot disclose the method of claim 1. Buddhikot may not explicitly disclose further comprising: training a model using features indicative of the interference level of a bandwidth at the location for the time the interference was detected, and satisfying the request by computing a probability of interference at the location for a future time.
Kleinbeck discloses further comprising: training a model using features indicative of the interference level of a bandwidth at the location for the time the interference was detected, and satisfying the request by computing a probability of interference at the location for a future time (claim 1). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Buddhikot to include learning the interference as taught by Kleinbeck so as to provide the benefit of analyzing the RF environment in real time (0168).
Claim 15, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 6.
Claim 21, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 6.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 20170265189 A1 - Systems and methods are described herein relating to building and using one or more databases storing position-pair-dependent and/or node-dependent interference related information in a cellular communications system. In some embodiments, a method of operation of a node associated with one or more cellular communications networks comprises obtaining position-pair-dependent interference related information for pairs of positions. The position-pair-dependent interference related information comprises, for each pair of positions comprising a first position and a second position, information regarding interference caused by wireless transmissions originating at the first position to wireless receptions at the second position. The method further comprises storing interference related information comprising the position-pair-dependent interference related information in one or more databases and providing access to the one or more databases. The database(s) enable, for example, improved location-based Radio Resource Management (RRM).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mehmood B. Khan whose telephone number is (571)272-9277. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30 am-6:30 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nishant Divecha can be reached on (571) 270-3125. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Mehmood B. Khan/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468