DETAILED ACTION
Applicant's submission filed on 5 December 2025 has been entered. Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 are currently amended; claim 2 is cancelled; claim 5 is previously presented; no claims have been added. Claims 1 and 3-7 are pending and ready for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
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.
Claims 1, 6, and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP2007067614 A in view of CN 1751488 A. A machine language translation is referenced for JP2007067614 A, hereby referred Senda, and another translation is referenced for CN 1751488 A, hereby referenced Uchida, where JP2007067614 was cited by applicant’s IDS filed 22 June 2023.
Regarding claim 1, Senda teaches a wireless communication management apparatus comprising a processor including a hardware, configured to:
correct, on the basis of a characteristic of each terminal, a first error rate in wireless communication between a base station and the terminal based on first wireless environment information collected from one or more terminals configured to wirelessly communicate with the base station (Senda, p. 3-5; in the above solution, the threshold value is a value corrected according to a variation amount of the first parameter depending on a change in a moving speed of the wireless communication terminal and a variation amount of the first parameter depending on the type of reception method, where the first parameter is a signal-to-noise ratio and the threshold value a is a frame error rate required at least in the wireless communication system);
evaluate a second error rate obtained by correction (Senda, p. 3; the average SNR is compared with the threshold value a set in FER and used to determine the modulation scheme); and
determine a modulation/demodulation scheme for wireless communication for each of the terminals on the basis of a result of the evaluation (Senda, p. 3; the modulation scheme determination unit determines a modulation scheme in which FER is equal to or less than the threshold value a in order to set the FER value to be equal to or less than the threshold value a).
Senda does not expressly teach determine the modulation/demodulation scheme by using the first wireless environment information when a difference between the second error rate and a third error rate assumed in a wireless environment in which there is no interference in wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is less than a first threshold, and
determine the modulation/demodulation scheme by using second wireless environment information calculated from the second error rate when a difference between the second error rate and the third error rate is greater than a second threshold.
However, Uchida teaches determine the modulation/demodulation scheme by using the first wireless environment information when a difference between the second error rate and a third error rate assumed in a wireless environment in which there is no interference in wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is less than a first threshold (Uchida, p. 3-4, 8-10, and 15-16; using adaptive modulation control to select MCS, where adaptive modulation control use the curve of modulation and coding characteristics under the condition of no interference and based on the measured channel quality to select the MCS, where a measure for the channel quality is the difference between the block error rate and the target error rate in the vicinity of the current threshold and the target error rate comprises calculating the intersection of the following curve error rate according to the value of the higher modulation encoding process and the curve representing the higher and lower than the threshold value modulation encoding process of the throughput under the condition without interference and channel quality-related characteristics), and
determine the modulation/demodulation scheme by using second wireless environment information calculated from the second error rate when a difference between the second error rate and the third error rate is greater than a second threshold (Uchida, p. 3-4, 8-10, and 15-16; using adaptive modulation control to select MCS, where adaptive modulation control use the curve of modulation and coding characteristics under the condition of no interference and based on the measured channel quality to select the MCS, where a measure for the channel quality is the difference between the block error rate and the target error rate in the vicinity of the current threshold and the target error rate comprises calculating the intersection of the following curve error rate according to the value of the higher modulation encoding process and the curve representing the higher and lower than the threshold value modulation encoding process of the throughput under the condition without interference and channel quality-related characteristics).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to create the invention of Senda to include the above recited limitations as taught by Uchida in order to provide adaptive modulation to select MCS (Uchida, p. 3).
Regarding claim 6, Senda teaches a wireless communication management method comprising:
correcting, on the basis of a characteristic of each terminal, a first error rate in wireless communication between a base station and the terminal based on first wireless environment information collected from one or more terminals configured to wirelessly communicate with the base station (Senda, p. 3-5; in the above solution, the threshold value is a value corrected according to a variation amount of the first parameter depending on a change in a moving speed of the wireless communication terminal and a variation amount of the first parameter depending on the type of reception method, where the first parameter is a signal-to-noise ratio and the threshold value a is a frame error rate required at least in the wireless communication system);
evaluating a second error rate obtained by correction (Senda, p. 3; the average SNR is compared with the threshold value a set in FER and used to determine the modulation scheme); and
determining a modulation/demodulation scheme for wireless communication for each of the terminals on the basis of an evaluation result (Senda, p. 3; the modulation scheme determination unit determines a modulation scheme in which FER is equal to or less than the threshold value a in order to set the FER value to be equal to or less than the threshold value a).
Senda does not expressly teach wherein determining the modulation/demodulation scheme includes:
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using the first wireless environment information when a difference between the second error rate and a third error rate assumed in a wireless environment in which there is no interference in wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is less than a first threshold, and
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using second wireless environment information calculated from the second error rate when a difference between the second error rate and the third error rate is greater than a second threshold.
However, Uchida teaches wherein determining the modulation/demodulation scheme includes:
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using the first wireless environment information when a difference between the second error rate and a third error rate assumed in a wireless environment in which there is no interference in wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is less than a first threshold (Uchida, p. 3-4, 8-10, and 15-16; using adaptive modulation control to select MCS, where adaptive modulation control use the curve of modulation and coding characteristics under the condition of no interference and based on the measured channel quality to select the MCS, where a measure for the channel quality is the difference between the block error rate and the target error rate in the vicinity of the current threshold and the target error rate comprises calculating the intersection of the following curve error rate according to the value of the higher modulation encoding process and the curve representing the higher and lower than the threshold value modulation encoding process of the throughput under the condition without interference and channel quality-related characteristics), and
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using second wireless environment information calculated from the second error rate when a difference between the second error rate and the third error rate is greater than a second threshold (Uchida, p. 3-4, 8-10, and 15-16; using adaptive modulation control to select MCS, where adaptive modulation control use the curve of modulation and coding characteristics under the condition of no interference and based on the measured channel quality to select the MCS, where a measure for the channel quality is the difference between the block error rate and the target error rate in the vicinity of the current threshold and the target error rate comprises calculating the intersection of the following curve error rate according to the value of the higher modulation encoding process and the curve representing the higher and lower than the threshold value modulation encoding process of the throughput under the condition without interference and channel quality-related characteristics).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to create the invention of Senda to include the above recited limitations as taught by Uchida in order to provide adaptive modulation to select MCS (Uchida, p. 3).
Regarding claim 7, Senda teaches a non-transitory storage medium storing a wireless communication management program for causing a processor to execute:
correcting, on the basis of a characteristic of each terminal, a first error rate in wireless communication between a base station and the terminal based on first wireless environment information collected from one or more terminals configured to wirelessly communicate with the base station (Senda, p. 3-5; in the above solution, the threshold value is a value corrected according to a variation amount of the first parameter depending on a change in a moving speed of the wireless communication terminal and a variation amount of the first parameter depending on the type of reception method, where the first parameter is a signal-to-noise ratio and the threshold value a is a frame error rate required at least in the wireless communication system);
evaluating a second error rate obtained by correction (Senda, p. 3; the average SNR is compared with the threshold value a set in FER and used to determine the modulation scheme); and
determining a modulation/demodulation scheme for wireless communication for each of the terminals on the basis of an evaluation result (Senda, p. 3; the modulation scheme determination unit determines a modulation scheme in which FER is equal to or less than the threshold value a in order to set the FER value to be equal to or less than the threshold value a).
Senda does not expressly teach wherein determining the modulation/demodulation scheme includes:
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using the first wireless environment information when a difference between the second error rate and a third error rate assumed in a wireless environment in which there is no interference in wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is less than a first threshold, and
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using second wireless environment information calculated from the second error rate when a difference between the second error rate and the third error rate is greater than a second threshold.
However, Uchida teaches wherein determining the modulation/demodulation scheme includes:
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using the first wireless environment information when a difference between the second error rate and a third error rate assumed in a wireless environment in which there is no interference in wireless communication between the base station and the terminal is less than a first threshold (Uchida, p. 3-4, 8-10, and 15-16; using adaptive modulation control to select MCS, where adaptive modulation control use the curve of modulation and coding characteristics under the condition of no interference and based on the measured channel quality to select the MCS, where a measure for the channel quality is the difference between the block error rate and the target error rate in the vicinity of the current threshold and the target error rate comprises calculating the intersection of the following curve error rate according to the value of the higher modulation encoding process and the curve representing the higher and lower than the threshold value modulation encoding process of the throughput under the condition without interference and channel quality-related characteristics), and
determining the modulation/demodulation scheme by using second wireless environment information calculated from the second error rate when a difference between the second error rate and the third error rate is greater than a second threshold (Uchida, p. 3-4, 8-10, and 15-16; using adaptive modulation control to select MCS, where adaptive modulation control use the curve of modulation and coding characteristics under the condition of no interference and based on the measured channel quality to select the MCS, where a measure for the channel quality is the difference between the block error rate and the target error rate in the vicinity of the current threshold and the target error rate comprises calculating the intersection of the following curve error rate according to the value of the higher modulation encoding process and the curve representing the higher and lower than the threshold value modulation encoding process of the throughput under the condition without interference and channel quality-related characteristics).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to create the invention of Senda to include the above recited limitations as taught by Uchida in order to provide adaptive modulation to select MCS (Uchida, p. 3).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Senda in view of Uchida as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of JP2013106076 A, hereafter referred Ozeki. Ozeki was cited by applicant’s IDS filed 22 June 2023.
Regarding claim 3, Senda in view of Uchida teaches the wireless communication management apparatus according to claim 1 above. Senda in view of Uchida does not expressly teach wherein the processor is further configured to determine a packet size for wireless communication for each of the terminals by using the modulation/demodulation scheme.
However, Ozeki teaches wherein the processor is further configured to determine a packet size for wireless communication for each of the terminals by using the modulation/demodulation scheme (Ozeki, [0047]-[0057]; the radio resource allocation unit calculates the MCS that is required for transmission, then determines a packet size (TBS1) that can be transmitted with a predetermined error rate).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to create the invention of Senda in view of Uchida to include the above recited limitations as taught by Ozeki in order to improve the frequency efficiency (Ozeki, [0013]).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Senda in view of Uchida as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Yun (US 2012/0163210 A1).
Regarding claim 4, Senda in view of Uchida teaches the wireless communication management apparatus according to claim 1 above. Senda in view of Uchida does not expressly teach wherein the processor is configured to perform the evaluation on the basis of interference information collected in the terminal.
However, Yun teaches wherein the processor is configured to perform the evaluation on the basis of interference information collected in the terminal (Yun, [0020]; calculating a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) using the desired received signal strength and interfering received signal strength for the specific channel, then calculating a packet error rate using the calculate SINR).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to create the invention of Senda in view of Uchida to include the above recited limitations as taught by Yun in order to obtain the throughput of the communication system (Yun, [0020]).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Senda in view of Uchida as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Fakoorian et al. (US 2020/0169962 A1), hereafter referred Fakoorian.
Regarding claim 5, Senda in view of Uchida teaches the wireless communication management apparatus according to claim 1 above. Senda in view of Uchida does not expressly teach wherein the terminal is an loT terminal.
However, Fakoorian teaches wherein the terminal is an loT terminal (Fakoorian, [0070]-[0072]; a UE may refer to an Internet of Things (IoT) device).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the invention to create the invention of Senda in view of Uchida to include the above recited limitations as taught by Fakoorian in order to utilize low cost devices (Fakoorian, [0072]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
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.
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/R.M./Examiner, Art Unit 2416
/NOEL R BEHARRY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2416