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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang et al. (U.S. PGPub 2018/0220331), hereinafter referred to as Wang.
Regarding claim 1, Wang discloses a control apparatus (controller; See [0012]) comprising:
at least one memory (memory; See [0112]) storing instructions, and
at least one processor (processor; See [0112]) configured to execute the instructions to:
select a plurality of radio terminals that perform wireless communication through one of a plurality of antennas included in a wireless network at a predetermined timing (Three devices, labelled as terminals 32 and illustrated as mobile phones in the present embodiment, are operating within the DAS; See [0237]);
determine combinations of the plurality of antennas and the selected plurality of radio terminals (During time slot 1, all of the antenna units 20 of cluster 1 are operating on the Wifi network, and so are providing Wifi network coverage; See [0245]);
allocate radio resources for performing wireless communication at the predetermined timing, to the plurality of radio terminals (In time slot 1 of FIG. 3 the terminals 1, 2 and 3 (32a, 32b, 32c) are all operating on the Wifi network within the geographic area covered by the first cluster 24a; See [0245]);
determine whether or not a criterion for satisfying service quality (WiFi vs LTE) determined for data to be transmitted or received by each radio terminal is met for all radio terminals capable of performing wireless communication through one of the plurality of antennas (The processor may be configured to use a geo-location traffic specification or geo-location traffic data to derive a traffic estimate, wherein a traffic estimate is an estimate of the location and traffic type (or network requirement, including QoS specifications) of a device. Tables 1 and 2 show the location and QoS requirements changing over time; See Tables 1 and 2, [0066] and [0291]); and
select the plurality of radio terminals for which the criterion is not met from all the radio terminals (QoS-specific classifications such as User Priority for WLANs and QoS Class Identifiers in LTE systems may be taken into account and represented in the geo-location traffic specification. Meeting QoS-based requirements may be achieved by the antenna selection. Such QoS classifications may be handled and taken into account during antenna selection using methods known within the field to prioritise certain traffic which may be combined with or executed by embodiments of the present embodiment. Wherein certain devices are selected for LTE instead of WiFi based on their QoS, interpreted as the criterion not met for WiFi; See Tables 1-2 and [0138]).
Regarding claim 2, Wang further discloses the control apparatus according to claim 1,
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to select the radio terminals of the same number as the number of the antennas included in a predetermined area (in timeslot 1 there are three terminals and three antennas; See [0245]) or the radio terminals of the number smaller than the number of the antennas included in the predetermined area.
Regarding claim 3, Wang further discloses the control apparatus according to claim 1,
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to select the radio terminals of the number larger than the number of the antennas included in a predetermined area (In table 1, there are 14 terminals and three antennas; See Table 1).
Regarding claim 11, Wang discloses a control method comprising:
selecting a plurality of radio terminals that perform wireless communication through one of a plurality of antennas included in a wireless network at a predetermined timing (Three devices, labelled as terminals 32 and illustrated as mobile phones in the present embodiment, are operating within the DAS; See [0237]);
determining combinations of the plurality of antennas and the selected plurality of radio terminals (During time slot 1, all of the antenna units 20 of cluster 1 are operating on the Wifi network, and so are providing Wifi network coverage; See [0245]);
allocating radio resources for performing wireless communication at the predetermined timing, to the plurality of radio terminals (In time slot 1 of FIG. 3 the terminals 1, 2 and 3 (32a, 32b, 32c) are all operating on the Wifi network within the geographic area covered by the first cluster 24a; See [0245]); and
when selecting the radio terminals,
determining whether or not a criterion for satisfying service quality (WiFi vs LTE ) determined for data to be transmitted or received by each radio terminal is met for all radio terminals capable of performing wireless communication through one of the plurality of antennas (The processor may be configured to use a geo-location traffic specification or geo-location traffic data to derive a traffic estimate, wherein a traffic estimate is an estimate of the location and traffic type (or network requirement, including QoS specifications) of a device. Tables 1 and 2 show the location and QoS requirements changing over time; See Tables 1 and 2, [0066] and [0291]) and selecting the plurality of radio terminals for which the criterion is not met from all the radio terminals (QoS-specific classifications such as User Priority for WLANs and QoS Class Identifiers in LTE systems may be taken into account and represented in the geo-location traffic specification. Meeting QoS-based requirements may be achieved by the antenna selection. Such QoS classifications may be handled and taken into account during antenna selection using methods known within the field to prioritise certain traffic which may be combined with or executed by embodiments of the present embodiment. Wherein certain devices are selected for LTE instead of WiFi based on their QoS, interpreted as the criterion not met for WiFi; See Tables 1-2 and [0138]).
Regarding claim 12, Wang discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium (computer readable medium; See [0233]) storing a program for causing a computer to execute:
selecting a plurality of radio terminals that perform wireless communication through one of a plurality of antennas included in a wireless network at a predetermined timing (Three devices, labelled as terminals 32 and illustrated as mobile phones in the present embodiment, are operating within the DAS; See [0237]);
determining combinations of the plurality of antennas and the selected plurality of radio terminals (During time slot 1, all of the antenna units 20 of cluster 1 are operating on the Wifi network, and so are providing Wifi network coverage; See [0245]);
allocating radio resources for performing wireless communication at the predetermined timing, to the plurality of radio terminals (In time slot 1 of FIG. 3 the terminals 1, 2 and 3 (32a, 32b, 32c) are all operating on the Wifi network within the geographic area covered by the first cluster 24a; See [0245]); and
when selecting the radio terminals,
determining whether or not a criterion for satisfying service quality (WiFi vs LTE) determined for data to be transmitted or received by each radio terminal is met for all radio terminals capable of performing wireless communication through one of the plurality of antennas (The processor may be configured to use a geo-location traffic specification or geo-location traffic data to derive a traffic estimate, wherein a traffic estimate is an estimate of the location and traffic type (or network requirement, including QoS specifications) of a device. Tables 1 and 2 show the location and QoS requirements changing over time; See Tables 1 and 2, [0066] and [0291]) and selecting the plurality of radio terminals for which the criterion is not met from all the radio terminals (QoS-specific classifications such as User Priority for WLANs and QoS Class Identifiers in LTE systems may be taken into account and represented in the geo-location traffic specification. Meeting QoS-based requirements may be achieved by the antenna selection. Such QoS classifications may be handled and taken into account during antenna selection using methods known within the field to prioritise certain traffic which may be combined with or executed by embodiments of the present embodiment. Wherein certain devices are selected for LTE instead of WiFi based on their QoS, interpreted as the criterion not met for WiFi; See Tables 1-2 and [0138]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim 4 appears to be novel and inventive because prior art fails to show or teach the control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein an allowable delay is determined for data to be transmitted or received by the radio terminals, and the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to select the plurality of radio terminals that transmit or receive data for which a remaining period of the allowable delay is shorter than a predetermined period.
Claims 5-7 appear to be novel and inventive because prior art fails to show or teach the control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to select the plurality of radio terminals in accordance with a usage condition of a buffer for each of the radio terminals.
Conclusion
Additional prior art made of record and not relied upon but considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure can be found on the PTO-892 (Notice of References Cited) form.
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ASHLEY L SHIVERS whose telephone number is (571)270-3523. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm.
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/ASHLEY SHIVERS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477 1/10/2026