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 Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 1/15/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 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.
Further it is noted that the claimed specifics of the status information of the receiver and exciter is nice but it is merely nonfunctional descriptive in nature as it fails to result in any affect to any of the steps of the method as there is no action performed with it. That is, nothing in the claim recites how or that any change or difference in information received would result in any difference to any step of the method.
Finally, it is noted that In response to applicant's argument that the references are not compatible, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 9-11, 14-18, and 20-29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Keskitalo et al. (2019/0313269) hereinafter “Keskitalo”, Sadr et al. (2009/0146792) hereinafter “Sadr” and Sadr et al. (2010/0039228) hereinafter “Sadr ‘228”
As to claim 1, (Currently Amended) Keskitalo discloses A wireless communication method, comprising:
Determining (steps 906/907), by a central node, a first topology (current and/or preferred) between a receiver (network node) and an exciter (network node) based on first information (measurements),
Sending (step 908), by the central node, second information to the receiver, wherein the second information indicates the first topology.
In an analogous art, Sadr discloses wherein a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader comprises the receiver (16-22) and the exciter (16-2), in order to define an interrogation space (see [0132]-[0133], etc.). Before the effective filing date of the instant invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Keskitalo wherein a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader comprises the receiver and the exciter, for the purpose of interrogating a defined space.
The combination fail to explicitly recite that the status information of the receiver including at least one of load information indicating current processing capacity of the receiver or information about a maximum quantity of exciters that can be bound to the receiver, or the status information of the exciter including position information of the exciter.
In an analogous art, Sadr ‘228 discloses [0055] acquiring the exciter position when the location of the exciter is not known, in order to improve the accuracy [0060]. Before the effective filing date of the instant invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to further modify Keskitalo wherein the status information of the exciter including position information of the exciter as taught by Sadr ‘228 for the purpose of improving the accuracy.
As to claim 2, (Original) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 1, Keskitalo discloses wherein the method further comprises:
Sending (step 903), by the central node, third information to the exciter, wherein the third information indicates identification information of the receiver. See [0052]-[0053]. Reads on the Control node transmission 503 of command to transmit to receiver at time/frequency receiver is set to receive.
As to claim 3, (Currently Amended) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 1, Sadr discloses wherein the exciter is deployed on a first distributed node; or the receiver is deployed on the central node; or the receiver is deployed on a second distributed node. Sadir provides for distributed exciters (see Fig.16, [0132]).
As to claim 6, (Currently Amended) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 3, Keskitalo discloses wherein the method is applied to an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) system (Figs 1-3), the central node is a donor node in the IAB system (see [0047]: “…combination of the donor node 301 and control unit 370 may be called a control node…”), the first distributed node is a first IAB node in the IAB system, and the second distributed node is a second IAB node in the IAB system (relay nodes). Application/Control Number: 18/361,552 Page 5 Art Unit: 2649
As to claim 9, (Currently Amended) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:
sending, by the central node, broadcast information, wherein the broadcast information indicates at least one of a first distributed node or a second distributed node to select a parent node. (see [0076]:”…third command to reconfigure backhauling”)
As to claim 14, (Original) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses A method (as applied above to claim 1), Keskitalo discloses wherein the method comprises:
receiving, by a receiver, (implied by step 908) second information from a central node, wherein the second information indicates a first topology, (see [0052]-[0053], [0058], [0075]-[0076]).
As to claim 15, (Currently Amended) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 14, Keskitalo discloses wherein the exciter is deployed on a first distributed node; or the receiver is deploved on the central node; or the receiver is deploved on a second distributed node. Sadr provides for distributed exciters (see Fig.1, col 9 line 63 – col 10 line 15).
As to claim 16, (Original) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 14, Sadr discloses wherein the receiver is deployed on the central node. See Fig.16.
As to claim 17, (Original) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 14, Keskitalo discloses wherein the receiver is deployed on a second distributed (relay) node.
As to claim 18, (Currently Amended) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The method according to claim 15, wherein the method is applied to an IAB system, as applied above to claim 6.
As to claim 20, (Original) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses A communication apparatus as applied above to claim 1, Keskitalo further discloses apparatus (1201), comprising:
a transceiver (Keskitalo 1210); at least one processor [0085]; and one or more memories (Keskitalo 1230) coupled to the at least one processor and storing programming instructions for execution by the at least one processor to cause the communication apparatus to:
determine and send as applied above to claim 1.
As to claims 21-24, See corresponding citations for claims 2-3, 17, & 9, respectively.
As to claim 10, (Currently Amended) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the exciter is deployed on a first distributed node. Sadir provides for distributed exciters (see Fig.16, [0132]) as applied above to claim 3.
As to claim 11, (Currently Amended) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses The apparatus according to claim 22 and corresponding claim 6.
As to claim 25, (Original) the combination of Keskitalo, Sadr, and Sadr ‘228 discloses A communication apparatus (see citations to claim 20 above), to: receive as applied above to claim 14.
As to Claims 26-29, See corresponding citations for claims 15-18 respectively.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-8, 12-13, 19, and 30 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
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 LESTER KINCAID whose telephone number is (571)272-7922. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th: 7-5.
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LESTER G. KINCAID
Primary Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2649
/LESTER G KINCAID/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649