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 .
Drawings
The drawings filed on 5/30/2023 are accepted.
Election/Restrictions
Claims 13-25 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 10/2/2025.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3, 10 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
A polygon requires at least one side to be a straight line. Accordingly, a circle is not a polygon. The question then presented to the Examiner, is how can the geofence be both a “polygonal area” and a “plurality of circular areas”?
The Examiner suggests describing the “area of the facility” as having a “polygonal shape”. The geofence can then be described as being the composite of a plurality of overlapping circles, with the outline of the overlapping circles representing or covering the “polygonal shape”. The Examiner suggests to the Applicant to review US-10,433,107 to Zhao et al. which is very related to this subject matter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Belghoul et al. (US-2020/0008007 hereinafter, Belghoul).
Regarding claim 1, Belghoul teaches a handheld two-way radio transceiver device (Fig. 3 and Fig. 12 [1020]) comprising:
a facility-specific subscriber identity module component (facility-specific SIM component) (Pages 10-11 [0151] “ A geofencing area(s) 1014 representative of CBRS small cell coverage may be established and/or identified. Device 1020 may include an additional SIM, for example eSIM 1012 storing user credential information. The additional SIM or eSIM (exemplified by eSIM 1012 in FIG. 12) in device 1012 is in addition to a main SIM associated with a main account, e.g. a commercial/major cellular network account”), the local private network (note: this is outside the scope of patentability of the “handheld two-way radio transceiver device”, for compact prosecution, see Pages 1-2 [0006] “CBRS provides potential benefits of indoor and outdoor cellular services, e.g. LTE/NR services within a shared 3.5 GHz spectrum by opening up those bands for commercial use such as carrier-based cellular service extensions and private LTE/NR networks within enterprises, sports stadiums and conference centers, among others.”) enabling communication with one or more other handheld two-way radio transceiver devices currently being operated with certain user identities that are associated with the facility and selected by a cloud computing system; (note: this is outside the scope of patentability of the “handheld two-way radio transceiver device”)
a non-facility-specific subscriber identity module component (non-facility-specific SIM component) (Pages 10-11 [0151] “a main SIM associated with a main account, e.g. a commercial/major cellular network account”) configured to enable a wireless connection to a commercial cellular network that is non-specific to the facility and the certain user identities (Page 2 [0010] “The device may also communicate according to a first wireless radio access technology (RAT) over a commercial cellular network”), the commercial cellular network enabling communication with the cloud computing system; (note: this is outside the scope of patentability of the “handheld two-way radio transceiver device”)
a processor; (Fig. 3 [302]) and
a memory (Fig. 3 [306 & 350]) storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the handheld two-way radio transceiver device to:
obtain facility-specific location data that defines a geofence that is designated for facility-specific activity; (Pages 10-11 [0150-0151] and Fig. 13 [1104-1108])
while the handheld two-way radio transceiver device is located within the geofence defined by the facility-specific location data, connect to the local private network for the facility via the facility-specific SIM component; (Fig. 13 [1112, Yes, 1116, Idle Mode, 1120, 1122, Yes, “Connected to CBRS network”], Page 11 [0152-0153] and Claim 1 “determine, based at least on the information, whether the device is located within the coverage area; and connect to a first private cellular network of the private cellular networks and switch from communicating over the commercial cellular network to communicating over the first private cellular network at least in response to determining that the device is located within the coverage area”) and
in response to determining that the handheld two-way radio transceiver device has exited the geofence defined by the facility-specific location data, switch to a connection to the commercial cellular network via the non-facility-specific SIM component. (Page 10 [0149] i.e. the problem being solved by the invention, Fig. 13 [1122, No, 1124] and Pages 10-11 [0150-0151 & 0153]])
Regarding claim 2, Belghoul teaches wherein switching to the connection to the commercial cellular network comprises preventing a connection to the local private network. (Page 10 [0149] and Fig. 13 [1110, 1112, No, 1114] as compared to Fig. 13 [1112, Yes, 1120 and “Connected to CBRS”] i.e. if the device is not within the geofence for the CBRS, it will not attempt to connect to the CBRS)
Regarding claim 4, Belghoul teaches wherein the instructions further cause the handheld two-way radio transceiver device to:
determine a location of the handheld two-way radio transceiver device using a position tracking component within the handheld two-way radio transceiver device. (Page 10 [0150] “GPS”)
Regarding claim 5, Belghoul teaches wherein the geofence is one of a plurality of geofences that each correspond to a respective set of communication channels (Page 11 [0155]), and wherein connecting to the local private network for the facility while the handheld two-way radio transceiver device is located within the geofence comprises:
providing access to the respective set of communication channels associated with the geofence. (Page 11 [0155-0158] and Page 11 [0153] “If the device is in idle mode on its SIM network (“Idle Mode” at 1116), it may begin performing inter-frequency measurements in the CBRS band after each paging (1120), finding a CBRS public land mobile network (PLMN)”)
Regarding claims 8, 9 and 11, the limitations of claims 8, 9 and 11 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 1, 2 and 5, respectively.
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 3 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Belghoul in view of Zhao et al. (US-10,433,107 hereinafter, Zhao).
Regarding claim 3, Belghoul teaches the limitations of claims 1 and 8 above, but differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting wherein the geofence corresponds to a polygonal area within the facility, wherein the geofence is defined within the facility-specific location data via a plurality of circular areas.
In an analogous art, Zhao teaches a system and method for enabling polygon geofence services on mobile devices (Abstract) that includes a geofence corresponds to a polygonal area (Fig. 3 [118A/306] and Col. 7 lines 25-42), wherein the geofence is defined within specific location data via a plurality of circular areas. (Col. 5 lines 24-44, Fig. 3 [308] and Col. 8 lines 4-21 and for further reference, see Col. 8 lines 22-56)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Belghoul after modifying it to incorporate the ability to represent a polygonal geofence area by a plurality of circular areas of Zhao since the accuracy of the geofence and corresponding location-based information is increased when using several circular areas instead of a single circle. (Zhao Col. 7 line 53 through Col. 8 line 21)
Regarding claim 10, the limitations of claim 10 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 3.
Claims 6, 7 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Belghoul in view of Seydoux (US-8,054,987).
Regarding claim 6, Belghoul teaches the ability for the handheld two-way radio transceiver device to not be connected to the local private network (Fig. 13 [1122, No, 1124] nor the commercial cellular network (Fig. 13 [1116, Idle Mode]), but differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting receive a broadcasted radio signal, determine an intended destination indicated within the broadcasted radio signal, and based on the intended destination being different than the handheld two-way radio transceiver device, re-broadcast the broadcasted radio signal.
In an analogous art, Seydoux teaches a system for wireless audio signal distribution (Abstract) that includes receiving a broadcasted radio signal (Col. 17 Claims 6 and 7 i.e. “said audio signals broadcast over the network are audio signals encapsulated in digital data messages “), determine an intended destination indicated within the broadcasted radio signal (Col. 12 line 9-11), and based on the intended destination being different than the handheld two-way radio transceiver device, re-broadcast the broadcasted radio signal. (Col. 12 lines 9-11)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Belghoul after modifying it to incorporate the ability to receive a broadcast message, determine the destination and rebroadcast the message when not the recipient of Seydoux since it enables connecting to devices that are further away from the originating device, thereby increasing the effective signal range of the wireless communication system.
Regarding claim 7, Belghoul in view of Seydoux teaches based on the handheld two-way radio transceiver device being the intended destination, cause a message included in the broadcasted radio signal to be played by a speaker (Seydouz Col. 12 lines 10-13) of the handheld two-way radio transceiver device. (Belghoul Fig. 3 and Fig. 12 [1020])
Regarding claim 12, the limitations of claim 12 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW C SAMS whose telephone number is (571)272-8099. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Anderson can be reached at (571)272-4177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Matthew C Sams/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646