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 .
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 01/08/2026. Claims 1-16, 18, 20 are pending in this application and have been considered below.
Response to Amendment
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-16, 18, 20 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection because of the amendment changes the scope of the invention.
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) 1-9, 11-16, 18, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woods, JR. (US 2022/0155817 A1) (Woods herein after) in view of Lee et al. (US 2022/0287117 A1) (Lee herein after) and Tzelepis et al. (US 2017/0318610 A1) (Tzelepis herein after).
Re Claim 1, Woods discloses a system including a wearable device, the system comprising:
a wireless user device enabled for 5G millimeter-wave communication (electronic device, Figure 4, [0041]-[0042]); and
a wearable device including a body portion including a frontend system (wearable accessory 120, [0029]), a display screen (display, [0047]), a plurality of body antennas arranged on a peripheral edge of the body portion facing orthogonal to the display screen (watch, Figure 3, [0038]-[0040]), and a beam management circuit (Control circuitry, [0043]), and an external portion (watch band, [0029]) connected to the body portion (watch body, [0029]) configured to form a loop when secured around a user’s wrist (Figure 3B), the external portion including a first antenna array having one or more first antenna elements (array antenna, [0049]) arranged to face outward along the length of the external portion (Figure 3B), the frontend system being electrically connected to the first antenna array (the accessory 120 is a watch including one or more of circuitry 131, control circuitry 132, wireless circuitry 133, power source 134, local communication system 135, memory 136, sensor 137, and display 138. Circuitry 131 may be used to operatively connect components within the accessory, and may comprise a bus for example [0043]) and operable to condition a plurality of radio frequency signals each communicated by a corresponding first subset of the one or more first antenna elements of the first antenna array to thereby form a beam (beam steering, [0049]), the plurality of radio frequency signals having a frequency between 6 GHz and 300 GHz (millimeter wave, [0049]).
Woods teaches the claimed invention except explicitly teaches a wearable device configured, when the wireless user device is temporarily incapable of 5G millimeter-wave communication, to augment connectivity of the wireless user device by transmitting, to the wireless user device, data received by the wearable device from a base station via a 5G millimeter-wave connection, and by transmitting to the base station via the 5G millimeter-wave connection, data received from the wireless user device and the external portion including a first antenna array having one or more first antenna elements arranged to face outwards along the length of the external portion to provide substantially 360-degree communications field-of-view.
However, Lee discloses electronic device for providing tethering service and method comprising: electronic device 215 may connect to a cellular base station (BS) 425 by an RAT such as cellular/LTE or cellular/5G and connect to the Internet 230 through a cellular network including the cellular BS 425. When the tethering service is required, the electronic device 215 may operate as a host device that provides the tethering service to external electronic devices (e.g., the first external electronic device 205 or the second external electronic device 210) and share the connection to the Internet 230 through the cellular network with the external electronic devices (e.g., the first external electronic device 205 or the second external electronic device 210) by the tethering service. Accordingly, the backbone network for the tethering service of the external electronic devices (e.g., the first external electronic device 205 or the second external electronic device 210) may be the cellular network ([0101]); and electronic devices may include, for example, a portable communication device (e.g., a smartphone), a computer device, a portable multimedia device, a portable medical device, a camera, a wearable device, or a home appliance ([0071]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify method and system of Woods, by making use of the technique taught by Lee, in order to improve the connectivity reliability.
Both references are within the same field of telecommunication, and in particular of wireless communication, the modification does not change a fundamental operating principle of Woods, nor does Woods teach away from the modification (Woods merely discloses a preferred embodiment). The combination has a reasonable expectation of success in that the modifications can be made using conventional and well known engineering and/or programming techniques, the method and system taught by Lee is not altered and continues to perform the same function as separately, and the resultant combination produces the highly predictable result of a wearable device configured, when the wireless user device is temporarily incapable of 5G millimeter-wave communication, to augment connectivity of the wireless user device by transmitting, to the wireless user device, data received by the wearable device from a base station via a 5G millimeter-wave connection, and by transmitting to the base station via the 5G millimeter-wave connection, data received from the wireless user device.
In additional, Tzelepis discloses wearables making a link to communication systems comprising: each band 320A, 320B comprises a wide band antenna 370A, 370B. Each antenna 370A, 370B is a planar log periodic antenna. The antennas 370A, 370B are radio frequency (RF) antennas that may transmit and/or receive signals having a variety of different frequency bands including, but not limited to, S-band, C-band, L-band, X-band, Ku-band, and/or Ka-band. Each antenna 370A, 370B is shown to comprise three monopole antennas of different lengths, whereby each length is tuned to a different frequency band. It should be noted that in one or more embodiments, each antenna 370A, 370B, may comprise more or less monopole antennas than is shown in FIG. 3. In addition, it should be noted that in one or more embodiments, various different types of antennas may be employed for the antennas 370A, 370B of the disclosed wearable device 110 other than a plurality of monopole antennas as shown in FIG. 3 including, but not limited to, patch antennas. Also, it should be noted that in one or more embodiments, each band 320A, 320B may comprise more than one antenna 370A, 370B than is shown in FIG. 3 ([0043], Figure 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify method and system of Woods, by making use of the technique taught by Tzelepis, in order to improve the signal connection.
Both references are within the same field of telecommunication, and in particular of wireless communication, the modification does not change a fundamental operating principle of Woods, nor does Woods teach away from the modification (Woods merely discloses a preferred embodiment). The combination has a reasonable expectation of success in that the modifications can be made using conventional and well known engineering and/or programming techniques, the method and system taught by Tzelepis is not altered and continues to perform the same function as separately, and the resultant combination produces the highly predictable result of the external portion including a first antenna array having one or more first antenna elements arranged to face outwards along the length of the external portion to provide substantially 360-degree communications field-of-view.
Re Claim 2, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the external portion is a strap for securing the wearable device to a user (watch band, [0029]).
Re Claim 3, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the external portion includes a plurality of antennas arranged along the length of the external portion (array antenna, [0049]).
Re Claim 4, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the first antenna array includes a plurality of first antenna elements (array antenna, [0049]) except extends along at least 75% the length of the external portion. However, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to extends the antenna element along at least 75% the length of the external portion, since it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art to achieve a customized solution. In re Boesch, 617 f.2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980).
Re Claim 5, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the beam management circuit is configured to adjust an angle of the beam (beam angle, [0024]).
Re Claim 6, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the external portion further includes a second antenna array including one or more second antenna elements (array antenna, [0049]).
Re Claim 7, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 6 Woods discloses wherein the beam management circuit is configured to control the frontend system to switch transmission from the first antenna array to the second antenna array (antenna switching, [0052]).
Re Claim 8, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the first antenna array includes a plurality of first antenna elements, and the beam management circuit is configured to control the frontend system to switch transmission to a second subset of the one or more first antenna elements of the first antenna array (Plural ones of the phased array antennas 130a-n may be used together or one of the antennas may be switched into use while other antenna(s) are switched out of use, [0052]).
Re Claim 9, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the wearable device further comprises one or more sensors configured to generate sensor data (sensors may be incorporated into antennas to gather sensor data in real time that is used in adjusting antennas if desired, [0052]), the beam management circuit configured to control the frontend system to adjust an angle of the beam based on the one or more received signals to maintain the beam pointed at an external device (control circuit 35 automatically determines a desired direction of the phased array antenna system 10 as defined by particular a combination of values of angles θ and φ. Based on determining the desired direction of the phased array antenna system 10, the control circuit 35 controls the phase shifters PS-1, PS-2, . . . , PS-i such that the combination of signals emitted by the respective antenna elements 15-1, 15-2, . . . , 15-i forms a beam (e.g., outgoing radiation) in the desired direction, [0027]).
Re Claim 11, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 Woods discloses wherein the one or more sensors include an accelerometer (accelerometer, [0046]), and wherein the beam management circuit is configured to control the frontend system to manage the beam based on sensor data generated by the accelerometer (Antenna adjustments may be made to tune antennas to perform in desired frequency ranges, to perform beam steering with a phased antenna array, and to otherwise optimize antenna performance. Sensors may be incorporated into antennas to gather sensor data in real time that is used in adjusting antennas if desired [0052]; control circuitry determines which of the plural different phased array antennas has the best signal to the external device based on comparing transmit-receive conditions of the plural different phased array antennas. In embodiments, the transmit-receive conditions used in the comparison may include at least one of: strength of signal between the accessory and the external device for each respective one of the plural different phased array antennas; and signal to noise ratio for each respective one of the plural different phased array antennas. Based on comparing the transmit-receive conditions of the plural different phased array antennas, the control circuitry deems one of the plural different phased array antennas as having the best signal to the external device, [0057]).
Re Claim 12, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 2 Woods discloses wherein the wearable device is a wristwatch (Figure 3, [0029]).
Re Claim 13, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 12 Woods discloses wherein the external portion is a wrist strap, and the body portion is a watch body (Figure 3, [0029]).
Re Claim 14, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 13 Woods discloses wherein the display screen is configurable to display a time (display [0030]).
Re Claim 15, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 13 Woods discloses wherein the first antenna array includes a plurality of first antenna elements (antenna array, [0039]-[0041]) except extends along at least 75% the length of the wrist strap. However, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to extends the antenna element along at least 75% the length of the external portion, since it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art to achieve a customized solution. In re Boesch, 617 f.2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980).
Re Claim 16, Woods discloses a system including a wearable device, the system comprising:
a wireless user device enabled for 5G millimeter-wave communication (electronic device, Figure 4, [0041]-[0042]); and
a wearable device including a body portion including a frontend system (wearable accessory 120, [0029]), a beam management circuit (Control circuitry, [0043]), a display screen (display, [0047]), and a plurality of body antennas arranged on a peripheral edge of the body portion facing orthogonal to the display screen (watch, Figure 3, [0038]-[0040]), and an external portion (watch band, [0029]) connected to the body portion (watch body, [0029]) configured to form a loop when secured around a user’s wrist (Figure 3B), the external portion including a first antenna array having one or more first antenna elements (array antenna, [0049]) arranged to face outward along the length of the external portion (Figure 3B), the frontend system being electrically connected to the first antenna array (the accessory 120 is a watch including one or more of circuitry 131, control circuitry 132, wireless circuitry 133, power source 134, local communication system 135, memory 136, sensor 137, and display 138. Circuitry 131 may be used to operatively connect components within the accessory, and may comprise a bus for example [0043]) and operable to condition a plurality of radio frequency signals each communicated by a corresponding first subset of the one or more first antenna elements of the first antenna array to thereby form a beam (beam steering, [0049]), the plurality of radio frequency signals having a frequency between 6 GHz and 300 GHz (millimeter wave, [0049]), the first antenna array of the external portion configured for operation at frequencies at or above 6 GHz, the plurality of body antennas of the body portion configured for operation below 6 GHz (3G frequencies (e.g., between 850 MHz and 2100 MHz) and/or 4G frequencies (e.g., between 600 MHz and 5200 MHz) [0019], accessory includes circuitry that is configured for 5G communication [0021], each phased array antenna 130a-n is configured for millimeter wave communications at frequencies between about 10 GHz and 300 GHz, and more preferably between 27 GHz and 39 GHz [0039], it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to place antenna array in various location for 4G/5G communication since it has been held that rearranging parts of component involves only routine skill in the art).
Woods teaches the claimed invention except explicitly teaches a wearable device configured, when the wireless user device is temporarily incapable of 5G millimeter-wave communication, to augment connectivity of the wireless user device by transmitting, to the wireless user device, data received by the wearable device from a base station via a 5G millimeter-wave connection, and by transmitting to the base station via the 5G millimeter-wave connection, data received from the wireless user device and the external portion including a first antenna array having one or more first antenna elements arranged to face outwards along the length of the external portion to provide substantially 360-degree communications field-of-view.
However, Lee discloses electronic device for providing tethering service and method comprising: electronic device 215 may connect to a cellular base station (BS) 425 by an RAT such as cellular/LTE or cellular/5G and connect to the Internet 230 through a cellular network including the cellular BS 425. When the tethering service is required, the electronic device 215 may operate as a host device that provides the tethering service to external electronic devices (e.g., the first external electronic device 205 or the second external electronic device 210) and share the connection to the Internet 230 through the cellular network with the external electronic devices (e.g., the first external electronic device 205 or the second external electronic device 210) by the tethering service. Accordingly, the backbone network for the tethering service of the external electronic devices (e.g., the first external electronic device 205 or the second external electronic device 210) may be the cellular network ([0101]); and electronic devices may include, for example, a portable communication device (e.g., a smartphone), a computer device, a portable multimedia device, a portable medical device, a camera, a wearable device, or a home appliance ([0071]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify method and system of Woods, by making use of the technique taught by Lee, in order to improve the connectivity reliability.
Both references are within the same field of telecommunication, and in particular of wireless communication, the modification does not change a fundamental operating principle of Woods, nor does Woods teach away from the modification (Woods merely discloses a preferred embodiment). The combination has a reasonable expectation of success in that the modifications can be made using conventional and well known engineering and/or programming techniques, the method and system taught by Lee is not altered and continues to perform the same function as separately, and the resultant combination produces the highly predictable result of a wearable device configured, when the wireless user device is temporarily incapable of 5G millimeter-wave communication, to augment connectivity of the wireless user device by transmitting, to the wireless user device, data received by the wearable device from a base station via a 5G millimeter-wave connection, and by transmitting to the base station via the 5G millimeter-wave connection, data received from the wireless user device.
In additional, Tzelepis discloses wearables making a link to communication systems comprising: each band 320A, 320B comprises a wide band antenna 370A, 370B. Each antenna 370A, 370B is a planar log periodic antenna. The antennas 370A, 370B are radio frequency (RF) antennas that may transmit and/or receive signals having a variety of different frequency bands including, but not limited to, S-band, C-band, L-band, X-band, Ku-band, and/or Ka-band. Each antenna 370A, 370B is shown to comprise three monopole antennas of different lengths, whereby each length is tuned to a different frequency band. It should be noted that in one or more embodiments, each antenna 370A, 370B, may comprise more or less monopole antennas than is shown in FIG. 3. In addition, it should be noted that in one or more embodiments, various different types of antennas may be employed for the antennas 370A, 370B of the disclosed wearable device 110 other than a plurality of monopole antennas as shown in FIG. 3 including, but not limited to, patch antennas. Also, it should be noted that in one or more embodiments, each band 320A, 320B may comprise more than one antenna 370A, 370B than is shown in FIG. 3 ([0043], Figure 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify method and system of Woods, by making use of the technique taught by Tzelepis, in order to improve the signal connection.
Both references are within the same field of telecommunication, and in particular of wireless communication, the modification does not change a fundamental operating principle of Woods, nor does Woods teach away from the modification (Woods merely discloses a preferred embodiment). The combination has a reasonable expectation of success in that the modifications can be made using conventional and well known engineering and/or programming techniques, the method and system taught by Tzelepis is not altered and continues to perform the same function as separately, and the resultant combination produces the highly predictable result of the external portion including a first antenna array having one or more first antenna elements arranged to face outwards along the length of the external portion to provide substantially 360-degree communications field-of-view.
Re Claim 18, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 16 Woods discloses wherein the external portion is a strap for securing the wearable device to a user (watch band, [0029]).
Re Claim 20, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 16 Woods discloses wherein the first antenna array includes a plurality of first antenna elements (antenna array, [0049]) except extends along at least 75% the length of the external portion. However, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to extends the antenna element along at least 75% the length of the external portion, since it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art to achieve a customized solution. In re Boesch, 617 f.2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woods, JR. (US 2022/0155817 A1) (Woods herein after), Lee et al. (US 2022/0287117 A1) (Lee herein after) and Tzelepis et al. (US 2017/0318610 A1) (Tzelepis herein after), further in view of Woods, JR. (US 2022/0155604 A1) (JR herein after).
Re Claim 10, the combined teachings disclose the system of claim 1 except further comprising one or more sensors that include a Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor, and wherein the beam management circuit is configured to control the frontend system to manage the beam based on sensor data generated by the Global Positioning System sensor.
However, JR discloses a wearable device comprising one or more sensors that include a Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor (GPS, [0034]), and wherein the beam management circuit is configured to control the frontend system to manage the beam based on sensor data generated by the Global Positioning System sensor (Antenna adjustments may be made to tune antennas to perform in desired frequency ranges, to perform beam steering with a phased antenna array, and to otherwise optimize antenna performance. Sensors may be incorporated into antennas to gather sensor data in real time that is used in adjusting antennas if desired [0050]; control circuitry determines which of the plural different phased array antennas has the best signal to the external device based on comparing transmit-receive conditions of the plural different phased array antennas. In embodiments, the transmit-receive conditions used in the comparison may include at least one of: strength of signal between the accessory and the external device for each respective one of the plural different phased array antennas; and signal to noise ratio for each respective one of the plural different phased array antennas. Based on comparing the transmit-receive conditions of the plural different phased array antennas, the control circuitry deems one of the plural different phased array antennas as having the best signal to the external device, [0055]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the time the invention was filed to utilize the teachings taught by JR with the combined art of reference to further improve the signal transmitted/received and to further achieve the same expected result.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENNETH T LAM whose telephone number is (571)270-1862. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hannah S. Wang can be reached at (571) 272-9018. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KENNETH T LAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631