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 .
Response to Amendment
Claims 3-9, 14-32, 34 and 36-37 are canceled.
Claims 1, 10, 12-13, 33 and 35 are amended.
Claims 38-47 are newly added.
Response to Arguments
Claim objections are withdrawn.
Objections to drawings are withdrawn.
Objections to the title is maintained. The amended title fails to include descriptive aspects of the disclosed invention. Each of the nouns within the title are generic computing devices.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The following title is suggested:
-“A METHOD, NETWORK DEVICE, SIGNAL RELAY NODE AND STORAGE MEDIUM for managing a regional wireless relay topology”.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they do not include the following reference signs mentioned in the description: “S1261-S163”.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the “S1261-S163” must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Applicant is advised that should claim 38 be found allowable, claim 43 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2 and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Cai et al. U.S. Patent Application publication 2010/0046396.
Claim 1,
Cai discloses
An information interaction method, applied to a network device,
wherein, the network device, together with a plurality of wireless relay nodes (Fig. 1, plurality of relay stations), is arranged to form a regional wireless signal transmission network which is a multi-hop mobile communication network (Fig.1), the method comprises:
transmitting a second measurement signal to a wireless relay node, comprising:
obtaining a measurement periodicity; and
transmitting the second measurement signal to the wireless relay node according to the measurement periodicity
or
acquiring a topology change trigger signal (para 0067- agent node [relay node] reports change in topology node to a management node); and
transmitting the second measurement signal to the wireless relay node according to the topology change trigger signal (para 0091-0092- management node acquires wireless link information by performing links tests ):
receiving the node state information fed back by the wireless relay node first interaction information (para 0092-0093- return results to the management node); and
changing determining, constructing or maintaining topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network according to the node state (para 0095-0096).
Claim 2,
The method of claim 1, wherein the topology information comprises at least one of:
an area index of the wireless relay node,
a previous-hop node of the wireless relay node (para 0077- discloses transmitting wireless topology relationship table),
a next-hop node of the wireless relay node (para 0069- the management node determines the previous and next hops based on a threshold of hops),
beam information corresponding to the wireless relay node, or
beam information corresponding to a path leading to the wireless relay node.
Claim 12,
wherein the node state information comprises a network exited status or a network joined status (para 0067-New RS, connection termination of existing RS) ; and
correspondingly, the changing the topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network according to the first interaction information comprises:
:in response to the node state information being the network exited status, deleting the corresponding wireless relay node from the topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network and reconstructing the topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network (para 0067- the management node updates the wireless network topology information of the group when the network topology relationship of the wireless communication network group changes); and
in response to the node state information being the network joined status, adding the corresponding wireless relay node to the topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network and reconstructing the topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network. (para 0067- the management node updates the wireless network topology information of the group when the network topology relationship of the wireless communication network group changes;)
Claim 13,
The method of claim 8,wherein, after changing the topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network, the method further comprises:
transmitting a node identification instruction to a plurality of the wireless relay nodes according to the changed topology information of the regional wireless signal transmission network to systematically index and manage corresponding wireless relay nodes (para 0077- topology changes in the relationship table are propagated to other nodes) comprises at least one of:
a unique identifier (ID) of a target wireless relay node;
a network index of a target wireless relay node in the regional wireless signal transmission network; (para 0077- relationship table)
a network index of a previous-hop wireless relay node of a target wireless relay node (para 0077-relationship table);
a number of next-hop wireless relay nodes of a target wireless relay node and corresponding network indexes of the next-hop wireless relay nodes; or beam information corresponding to each next-hop wireless relay node of a target wireless relay node.
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.
Claims 33, 35, 38, 41-43 and 46-47are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cai et al. U.S. Patent Application publication 2010/0046396 in view of Official Notice.
Claims 33 and 35 are rejected under the same rationale as claim 1.
Although Cai discloses substantial limitations of the claimed invention, it fails to disclose
A network device, comprising a first memory, a first processor, and a computer program stored in the first memory and executable by the first processor, wherein, the computer program, when executed by the first processor and A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions .
Examiner takes official notice that the recited structural are conventional computing components that were well known in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to apply the teachings of Cai with the conventional computing components to produce the predictable result of managing a relay topology.
Claims 38 and 43 are rejected under similar rationale as claim 2.
Claims 41-42 and 46-47 are rejected under similar rationale as claim 12-13.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10-11, 39-40 and 44-45 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.
Conclusion
Relevant Prior art:
Zhang et al. U.S. Patent publication 8,885,520– discloses a method for managing paths within a multi-hop relay network.
Chen U.S. Patent Application publication 2024/0113970- discloses a path determination method based on delay information.
Elshafie et al. U.S. Patent Application publication 2025/0175219- discloses a method for configuring RIS devices based on classes.
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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/JMC/Examiner, Art Unit 2459
/TONIA L DOLLINGER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2459