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, 9, 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over applicant’s admitted prior art ‘AAPA’ in view of TATSUYA JP 2009206735 Mao CN 113497660.
Regarding claim 1, 6, 9, 10, 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 obvious in view of signal source synchronization as shown by Mao.
As shown above, AAPA teaches a CED, first CN, second CN, first and second propagation paths, and OFDM.
TATSUYA teaches synchronization of signals transmitted from a first CN / “centralized base station” to a second CN / “terminal station” via a CED / “remote base station” by delaying signals along given paths by a specific time ( Also, a signal transmitted from a wireless terminal station via a plurality of different remote base stations is combined at the maximum ratio at the centralized base station, and a signal transmitted from the centralized base station via a plurality of remote base stations is maximized at the wireless terminal station. The effect of improving the carrier level-to-noise ratio CNR (Carrier-to-Noise Ratio) is greater in the combined site diversity to be ratio-combined than in the selected site diversity. However, in order to perform synthetic site diversity, synchronization between remote base stations, that is, the delay time of each transmission path in which a wireless terminal station and a centralized base station are connected via a plurality of different remote base stations is measured and received. / Adjustment of transmission timing is required)
Furthermore, Mao teaches providing, to the CED / “calibration board card”, a message indicative of a delay which is to be applied, by the CED, to the incident signals (the signal source device determines the standard link time delay of at least one calibration board card),
wherein the first CN / “signal source device” 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 which is aligned with an arrival, at the second CN, of a second signal portion transmitted via the second propagation path (A channel synchronization method of a signal source device, wherein the method comprises: the signal source device determines the standard link time delay of at least one calibrating board card; calibrating the internal loop time delay of at least two channels by the signal source device according to the standard link time delay; and the signal source device synchronizes at least two channels of the signal source device according to the calibrated result, claim 9).
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 the combination of TATSUYA and Mao. 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, TATSUYA and Mao 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 2-4 and 7-8 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
Regarding applicant’s arguments that the Background of the instant application should not be considered prior art, the Examiner has not referenced [0002] in the office action. Furthermore, [0003] specifically states “an RRD can be implemented”, [0004] specifically states “an access node may transmit signals via a CED”, and [0005] specifically states, “Typically, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols are transmitted from the AN to the UE, wherein each OFDM symbol comprises a cyclic prefix”.
The Examiner has modified the rejection by removing the Dai reference and incorporating the TATSUYA and Mao references.
Conclusion
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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/RONALD B ABELSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476
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