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 § 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.
Claim(s) 1, 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over applicant’s admitted prior art ‘AAPA’ in view of Dai WO 2005055467.
Regarding claim 1, 6, AAPA teaches a method of operating a first communication node (CN) (access node, [0004])
wherein the first CN is configurable for transmitting, to a second CN (UE, [0004]) on a radio channel, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols (OFDM, [0005]) via a first propagation path and a second propagation path (several CEDs may be used in parallel to transmit the signals from the AN to the UE, [0004]),
wherein each OFDM symbol comprises a prefix, in particular a cyclic prefix (cyclic prefix, [0005]),
wherein transmitting the OFDM symbols via the first propagation path comprises transmitting the OFDM symbols to the second CN via a coverage enhancing device (CED) that is semi-passive and configured to reflect incident signals with a configurable phase shift ([0003]),
AAPA is silent on wherein the method comprises
providing, to the CED, a message indicative of a delay which is to be applied, by the CED, to the incident signals,
wherein the first CN selects the delay which is to be applied, by the CED, to the incident signals, to result in an arrival, at the second CN, of a first signal portion
transmitted via the first propagation path of a first OFDM symbol which is aligned with an arrival, at the second CN, of a second signal portion transmitted via the second propagation path of a second OFDM symbol.
Examiner maintains that the limitation above is analogous to a rake receiver as shown by Dai wherein
providing, to the CED / (fig. 4 second-level buffer for example 11), a message indicative of a delay which is to be applied, by the CED, to the incident signals (they adjust the time delay of the received multipath signals according to the synchronization control information and multipath information sent by synchronization control and channel estimation unit 242),
wherein the first CN / (fig. 4 element synchronization control and channel estimation unit 242) selects the delay which is to be applied, by the CED, to the incident signals, to result in an arrival, at the second CN / (fig. 4 box 26), such that the signal arriving at the second CN / (fig. 4 box 26) are time synchronized. Note, in both the instant application and Dai, a non-terminal node send a signal to a relay node of a plurality of relay nodes in order to delay the incoming data such that the outputs from the plurality of relay nodes are time synchronized.
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 the system of AAPA by providing, to the CED, a message indicative of a delay which is to be applied, by the CED, to the incident signals, wherein the first CN selects the delay which is to be applied, by the CED, to the incident signals, to result in an arrival, at the second CN, of a first signal portion transmitted via the first propagation path of a first OFDM symbol which is aligned with an arrival, at the second CN, of a second signal portion transmitted via the second propagation path of a second OFDM symbol, as suggested by Dai. This modification would benefit the system by synchronizing in time the received signals at the second CN.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of AAPA and Dai as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Hampel US 20170295598.
The combination is silent on obtaining, from the CED, a message indicative of a capability of the first CED to apply a delay to the incident signals.
Hampel teaches obtaining, from the CED, a message indicative of a capability of the first CED to apply a delay to the incident signals (fig. 7, At 725, the relay device 710 may determine a capability configuration that includes a determination of whether there the relay device 710 support forwarding of delay tolerant messages. The relay device 710 may determine that it can support the requested service, as indicated in the service type indicator, [0071]).
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 the system of the combination by obtaining, from the CED, a message indicative of a capability of the first CED to apply a delay to the incident signals, as shown by Hampel. This modification would benefit the system by informing the CN if the CED is capability of supporting transmission with the specified delay.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5 and 7-10 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the amended independent claim(s) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 RONALD B ABELSON whose telephone number is (571)272-3165. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ayaz Sheikh can be reached at 571-272-3795. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RONALD B ABELSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476
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