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 .
Claims 1-9 are pending.
RCE of 01/15/2026 is entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments are directed to new amendments introduced to the claims which necessitate a new ground of rejection, thus they are moot. A new reference is incorporated to address the amendments, i.e. “the first control information includes a transmission time period of uplink traffic from the terminal to the base station”.
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, 8 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2013/0279438) in view of Eyuboglu (US 11,375,527) and in further view of Merlin et al. (US 2015/0016268).
As to claims 1 and 8:
Kwon discloses:
A wireless communication management apparatus (¶0009, a wireless network access point with processor/memory) comprising processing circuitry configured to:
receive first wireless environment information from a terminal configured to wirelessly communicate with a base station; (¶0048, the AP requests and receives RF environment reports from its associated stations with information regarding the RF environments in the area)
generate first control information of the terminal based on the first wireless environment information; (¶0050-0051, 0054, on the basis of the report, the AP generates control information for use by the stations and to be sent to the stations)
transmit the first control information to update a setting of the terminal, the first control information includes a transmission time period between the base station and the terminal. (¶0051-0055, the AP transmitting the generated control information, which includes at least an adjusted transmission timing or a transmission timing offset period to the stations, which per 0069-0070 causes the stations to adjust their timing configuration to adapt to new timing of the AP)
Kwon however does not explicitly state said control information to update a setting of the terminal includes a transmission time period of uplink (UL) traffic from the terminal to the base station.
However, feedback-based management including reconfiguration of UL is also well-established in the art, as evidenced by Eyuboglu’s disclosure as discussed below:
Eyuboglu, in a related field of feedback-based transmission update, discloses in at least Abstract, Col. 97, lines 1-30, 50-60, wherein the network obtains measurement reports from the UE indicative of network conditions (CRI/CQI/PMI/RSRP), and in response, the serving network node performs updates to time/frequency resources used by the UE, in which the serving network node sends UL timing adjustment information to the UE to reconfigure/optimize the UE’s timing advance, i.e. updating a setting of the UE with an updated UL timing data which changes UL transmissions’ timing.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the feed-back based transmission reconfiguration system of Kwon can also incorporate Eyuboglu to cover both DL and UL transmissions. Both Kwon and Eyuboglu are concerned with timing adjustments between network and user devices, and by adjusting timing both DL and UL sides of the system, the combination advantageously provides optimizations of timing for better collaboration between the network elements.
Regarding:
wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is compliant with IEEE 802.11 ah.
Kwon discloses the wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is compliant with IEEE 802.11 (See ¶029, 0030, 0033), however is silent on a specific version of 802.11, namely ‘ah’.
Merlin, in same field of WLAN transmission management, discloses a system/method for dynamic adaptation of transmission with IEEE 802.11 family, and specifically 802.11 ah protocol (See at least ¶0027, 0033)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that Kwon’s 802.11 system can be implemented in any specific sub-version, such as the 802.11 ‘ah’ based on a specific targeted design and benefit. Merlin in at least ¶0027 discloses a benefit of the 802.11 ah as having an extended band (i.e. sub-1 GHz bands), thus extending resources range and bandwidth of the system with vastly larger range (specification of 1km range) as compared to a few hundred meters range of other version such as n/ac/ax etc.
Claim 8 is directed to a wireless communication method with steps performed as similar to the apparatus of claim 1 and is rejected by the same reasoning.
Claim 9 is directed to a non-transitory CRM (i.e. memory of the wireless network controller in Liu) with a program causing a computer to perform a process with steps similar to those performed in the device of claim 1 and thus is rejected by the same reasoning.
As to claim 2:
Kwon in view of Merlin and Eyuboglu discloses all limitations of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication management apparatus is configured to specify the terminal as a management target before receiving the first wireless environment information. (Kwon, ¶0069, 0065, the station(s) (UE) considered by the access point as a target for configuring/reconfiguration by virtues of the commands to scan, report, and adjust settings.)
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2013/0279438) in view of Eyuboglu (US 11,375,527) and in further view of Merlin et al. (US 2015/0016268) and in view of Su et al. (CN 102014445).
As to claim 3:
Kwon in view of Merlin and Eyuboglu discloses all limitations of claim 1, however is silent on the wireless communication management apparatus is configured to: generate a command to restart the updated terminal; and connect communication with the restarted terminal.
Su, in a related field of reconfiguring a UE in a wireless network discloses in at least ¶0125 that a controller device to reconfigure a UE, and transmits a control message to restart the UE and connect communication with the restarted the terminal (i.e. “starts receiving the measurement report sent by the UE).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the wireless communication management apparatus of Kwon in view of Merlin is configured transmits a control message to restart the UE and connect communication with the restarted the terminal. This implementation is intuitive and advantageous as it allows the existing processes/computation to be refreshed and implemented with the brand new configurations, avoiding stale data.
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2013/0279438) in view of Eyuboglu (US 11,375,527) and in further view of Merlin et al. (US 2015/0016268) in view of Su et al. (CN 102014445) in view of Roddy et al. (CN 103650633).
As to claim 4:
Kwon in view of Merlin and Eyuboglu in view of Su discloses all limitations of claim 3, but is/are silent on the connecting includes connecting by a secure shell (SSH).
Roddy, in a related field of routing traffic across core network and access network entities, discloses in at least ¶0052 that SSH is among possible choices to be implemented for routing information between edge network nodes and core network.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the backhaul information exchange Kwon’s combination to be implemented with SSH. This implementation advantageously exploits various beneficial features of SSH: security (data is well encrypted and unmodifiable during transmission), easily upgradable/reconfigurable as needed.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2013/0279438) in view of Eyuboglu (US 11,375,527) and in further view of Merlin et al. (US 2015/0016268) in view of Lin (US 2011/0194527).
As to claim 5.
Kwon in view of Merlin and Eyuboglu discloses all limitations of claim 1, and regarding:
the reception unit is configured to receive second wireless environment information from a relay base station configured to wirelessly communicate between the base station and the terminal, the generation unit is configured to generate each of the first control information and second control information of the relay base station based on the first wireless environment information and the second wireless environment information, and the transmission unit is configured to transmit the second control information to update a setting of the relay base station.
Known, discloses the controller to receive the controller to receive multiple measurement reports by the UEs (¶0048, multiple reports reports) and by each round of reports, it is configured to send new reconfigurations to update the UE. Note that the UE discussed is representative for typical multiple UEs in a real world scenario (i.e. a cell serves multiple UEs, not just one single UE).
Except that Liu, does not explicitly disclose, among these UEs, a given UE can connect to the cell via another UE that acts the relay base station.
Lin, in a related field of endeavor, discloses in ¶0026 that the wireless network can also include relay base stations. “A relay base station (also called a relay station) is a station that receives a transmission of data and/or other information from an upstream station (e.g., an eNodeB, a UE, or the like) and sends a transmission of the data and/or other information to a downstream station (e.g., another UE, another eNodeB, or the like). A relay station may also be a UE that relays transmissions for other UEs. In the example shown in FIG. 1, a relay station 110r may communicate with the eNodeB 110a and a UE 120r, in which the relay station 110r acts as a relay between the two network elements (the eNodeB 110a and the UE 120r) in order to facilitate communication between them. A relay station may also be referred to as a relay eNodeB, a relay, and the like.”, and thus any two UEs in Liu’s network can be served and reconfigured by the network controller, while one connects to the cell via the other UE that acts as a relay station (in case of bridge connection).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the system of Kwon’s combination, where two served UEs can be in such a bridge connection. This bridge implementation can be advantageous in case where UEs are located at cell’s boundary where coverage might be unstable, bridge connection to a UE with better connection allow boundary UEs to communicate and reconfigured by the network controller in the same reliability as other UEs in inner areas of the cell.
Claim(s) 6 and 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2013/0279438) in view of Eyuboglu (US 11,375,527) and in further view of Merlin et al. (US 2015/0016268) in view of Li (US 2017/0367116).
As to claim 6:
Kwon in view of Merlin and Eyuboglu discloses all limitations of claim 1, with measurement reports with the wireless environment information (¶0048) however is silent on the first wireless environment information includes a remaining capacity of a battery of the terminal.
Li, in a related field of endeavor, discloses a complete measurement report with RSSI, RSRP, and even battery level of UE (¶0059).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the measurement report of Kwon to include a full spectrum of various measured parameter including RSSI and battery level. Such implementation allows the network controller to have a full spectrum of information pertaining the RF environment as well local context of the UE (battery) so as to formulate a configuration tailored to the specific situation of the UE, for example to save battery (¶0044, 0045 of Li).
As to claim 7:
Kwon in view of Merlin and Eyuboglu discloses all limitations of claim 1, with measurement reports with the wireless environment information including signal strength (¶0048) however is silent wherein the signal strength includes a received signal strength indication (RSSI) observed by the terminal.
Li, in a related field of endeavor, discloses a complete measurement report with RSSI, RSRP, and even battery level of UE (¶0059).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing time of the invention that the measurement report of Kwon to include a full spectrum of various measured parameter including RSSI and battery level. Such implementation allows the network controller to have a full spectrum of information pertaining the RF environment as well local context of the UE (battery) so as to formulate a configuration tailored to the specific situation of the UE (¶0044, 0045 of Li).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2004/0180701 - A method for battery conservation in a wireless communication system begins with requesting a battery level measurement from a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) by a radio network controller (RNC). The battery level is measured at the WTRU and is reported to the RNC. The battery level measurement is stored in the RNC, where it can be accessed by radio resource management (RRM) procedures. The battery level measurement is applied to the RRM procedures by making adjustments to the procedures based on the battery level measurement, whereby the battery of the WTRU is conserved.
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/QUAN M HUA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2645