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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1, 10 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article “A New Adaptive Channel Reservation Scheme for Handoff Calls in Wireless Cellular Networks” (hereinafter, Xu et al.) and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409).
Regarding claims 1, 10 and 16, Cao discloses a method and a computing apparatus comprising a processor or computer; and a memory or non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by the processor or computer, configure the apparatus to perform the method (paragraph 71, lines 1-8: “The present disclosure also may be embedded in non-transitory fashion in a computer-readable storage medium … which when loaded in a computer system is able to carry out these methods. Computer program in the present context means any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause a system having an information processing capability to perform a particular function”) comprising:
determining a client device connected to a first Access Point (AP) will roam (paragraph 37, lines 2-3: “Based on the roaming characteristic of the client device, AP1 410 determines whether the client device is likely to roam under a particular circumstance.”); and
based on the determination, generating a list of APs that are roam candidates supportive of one or more resources needed by the client device (paragraph 37, lines 5-7: “if AP1 410 or another network device determines that the client device is likely to roam under the particular circumstance, AP1 410 or another network device can allow the client device to select the particular access point, from the plurality of access points, for the client device.”; Paragraph 69, lines 5-7: “transmitting mechanism 660 can transmit a message, to the client device, identifying a new access point that the client device is to connect to in order to access one or more network resources, thereby guiding the client device to select the new access point to connect to.”).
Cao fails to disclose issuing a reservation request to the roam candidates, wherein the reservation request includes a timeout feature that persists the reservation at each AP on the list of APs for a set period of time.
However, in an analogous art, Xu discloses issuing a reservation request to the roam candidates (Section 2, lines 12-15: “When a MS enters the reservation area of a cell from the inner part of that cell (or a new call is generated inside the reservation area), and at the same time, is heading to a new cell, a reservation request will be sent to that new cell’s BS.”), wherein the reservation request includes a timeout feature that persists the reservation at each AP on the list of APs for a set period of time (Section 2.1, lines 1-4: “we use threshold time Tth instead of threshold distance to reflect possible reservation requests. Here Tth is a constant time value. According to each MS’ current moving speed, orientation and location information, BSs can predict the time within which the MS will reach the boundary of its next target cell”; A reservation request is sent only when the predicted time to enter the candidate cell is less than this threshold, thereby persisting a reservation for a set period. Section 2.3, lines 1-4: “A reservation may be invalid (false reservation) at a later time because the MS may change its moving direction, slow down its moving speed or because the call may terminate before the MS reaches the candidate cell. In this case, the false reservation will be canceled and a reserved channel will be released”; The ACR scheme cancels reservation when they are no longer needed, thereby including a timeout reservation persistence.). 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 method in Cao by incorporating these features taught in Xu for the purpose of increasing handoff reliability and success rate and reducing latency and packet loss.
The combination of Cao and Xu fails to disclose determining that a second AP within the list of APs will honor the reservation request; and automatically withdrawing the reservation request when the timeout feature has expired and the client device has not connected to the second AP, wherein the withdrawal of the reservation request frees up the one or more resources associated with the reservation request at each AP on the list of APs.
However, an analogous art, Lee discloses determining that a second AP within the list of APs (neighboring routers) will honor the reservation request (paragraph 63, lines 2-4: “the mobile node MN sends the FREE initiation message to the manager FM through the router AR1 (S701). If the FREE initiation message is received from the mobile node MN, the manager FM sends to the neighboring routers AR2, AR3, and AR4 a path request message for advance resource reservations (S703).”; This corresponds to issuing reservation requests to multiple candidate APs ; Paragraph 64, lines 1-4: “The neighboring routers AR2, AR3, and AR4 decide whether the mobile node MN arrives in their communication ranges (S705). The decision on whether the mobile node MN arrives in the communication ranges of the neighboring routers AR2, AR3, and AR4 is performed by using an SNR signal between the mobile node MN and the neighboring routers AR2, AR3, and AR4”; A second AP (a selected candidate among the list) will actually honor or accept the reservation request because the mobile node enters its range.);
and automatically withdrawing (releasing) the reservation request when the timeout feature (based on a time interval) has expired and the client device has not connected to the second AP (paragraph 59, lines 13-16: “A transmission time interval for sending a path request message is pre-set to a certain value in consideration of a handoff delay time, and it is preferable that advance resource reservations by the neighboring routers AR2, AR3, and AR4 are performed within the transmission time interval for the path request message.”; paragraph 67, lines 5-7: “as for the neighboring routers AR3 and AR4 in the communication ranges in which the mobile node MN does not arrive, even though resources are pre-reserved by the received path request message, the pre-reserved resources are automatically released when a time interval for the advance reservations ends”),
wherein the withdrawal of the reservation request frees up the one or more resources associated with the reservation request at each AP on the list of APs (paragraph 76, lines 1-4: “the manager receives the BU message sent from the mobile node MN and, at the same time, sends the reverse path release message … and the resource release message … to the router AR1 (number 7). The path between the router AR1 and the manager FM is released by the sent reverse path release message and resource release message (number 8).”). 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 method in Cao and Xu by incorporating these features taught in Lee for the purpose of preventing leakage caused by incorrect roaming predictions and improving resource utilization across multiple access points.
Claims 2, 11 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article Xu et al. and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409), and further in view of Palanki et al. (US 2010/0202391).
Regarding claims 2, 11 and 17, the combination of Cao, Xu and Lee fails to discloses for each AP within the list of APs, negotiating among other APs within the list of APs which AP is a best roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources needed by the client device; receiving a determination from at least one AP within the list of APs that the second AP will honor the reservation request based on the negotiation among the list of APs.
However, in an analogous art, Palanki discloses for each AP within the list of APs, negotiating among other APs within the list of APs which AP is a best roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources needed by the client device (paragraph 54, lines 1-4: “Access point 204 includes a resource negotiation receiving component 312 that obtains one or more parameters related to requesting a resource allocation from a disparate access point, a resource allocating component 314 that determines a set of resources or one or more parameters regarding a set of resources for providing to the disparate access point based on the one or more parameters”); and receiving a determination from at least one AP within the list of APs that the second AP will honor the reservation request based on the negotiation among the list of APs (paragraph 62, lines 5-6: “access points 202 and 204 can communicate to determine which access point will allocate resources”; Paragraph 54, lines 4-7: “a resource scheduling component 316 that schedules an actual set of resources for the disparate access points and provides a related indication thereto, and an air interface communicating component 214 that facilitates such communicating with the disparate access point (and/or with one or more wireless devices).”). 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 method in Cao, Xu and Lee by incorporating these features taught in Palanki for the purpose of improving the reliability and efficiency of resource reservation for roaming in a distributed wireless network with uncertain client attachment to APs.
Claims 3, 12 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article Xu et al. and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409), and further in view of Palanki et al. (US 2010/0202391), Kostic et al. (US 2008/0259866) and Kano (US 2012/0142387).
Regarding claims 3, 12 and 18, the combination of Cao, Xu, Lee and Palanki fails to disclose based on the negotiation among the list of APs, identifying that the one or more resources with one or more specified parameters can be supported by the second AP if a second client device currently connected with the second AP is moved to a third AP within the list of APs; and moving a connection of the second client device from the second AP to the third AP.
However, in an analogous art, Kostic discloses based on the negotiation among the list of APs, identifying that the one or more resources with one or more specified parameters can be supported by the second AP (distributing access point loading among APs) if a second client device (a mobile station) currently connected with the second AP is moved to a third AP (having lower traffic loading level) within the list of APs (paragraph 16, lines 5-9: “an access point can terminate a mobile station association under certain conditions to distribute access point loading. For example, a mobile station may transmit an indication to an overloaded access point that there are other access points to which the mobile station can associate itself. The overloaded access point may terminate the association and the mobile station can attempt to associate with another access point having a lower traffic loading level.”); and moving a connection of the second client device from the second AP to the third AP (paragraph 27, lines 3-5: “Based upon mobile station options for association and access point loading, each access point accepts or rejects new association requests and selectively terminates existing associations to optimize overall access point load levels.”). 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 method in Cao, Xu, Lee and Palanki by incorporating these features taught in Kostic for the purpose of enabling higher priority or higher demand resource requests without degrading overall network performance.
The combination of Cao, Xu, Lee, Palanki and Kostic fails to disclose based on moving the connection, honoring the reservation request with the client device by returning a reservation ID.
However, an analogous art, Kano discloses based on moving the connection, honoring the reservation request with the client device by returning a reservation ID (permission ID) (paragraph 84, lines 1-3: “In Step S115, the radio base station 10-1 sends a handover request to the radio base station 10-3 which can reserve the resource, the handover request including the permission ID included in the resource reservation response and a terminal ID of the radio terminal 20 which is a sender of the connection request.”). 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 method in Cao, Xu, Lee, Palanki and Kostic by incorporating these features taught in Kano for the purpose of allowing the client to rely on guaranteed resources that are actionable and verifiable rather than on speculative network conditions.
Claims 4, 6, 13, 15, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article Xu et al. and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409), and further in view of Randall et al. (US 2017/0134362).
Regarding claims 4, 13 and 19, the combination of Cao, Xu and Lee fails to disclose monitoring a number of timeout feature expirations associated with the client device; and flagging the client device as a potential abuser based on the number of timeout feature expirations exceeding a threshold value.
However, in an analogous art, Randall discloses monitoring a number of timeout feature expirations (count of login attempts over a time period) associated with the client device (paragraph 21, lines 3-5: “a count of login attempts with the username over a time period is maintained. This time period is configurable, may be fixed or rolling, and may be the same or different from the time period used for the global anomalous activity detection.”); and flagging the client device as a potential abuser based on the number of timeout feature expirations exceeding a threshold value (paragraph 21, lines 5-7: “The count of login attempts for the username is compared against a login attempt threshold. In such embodiments, an abnormal state is returned if the count of unique usernames satisfies the unique username threshold and/or the count of login attempts for the current username exceeds the login attempt threshold.”). 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 method in Cao, Xu and Lee by incorporating these features taught in Randall for the purpose of allowing the network to protect shared resources and apply targeted mitigation without immediately denying service.
Regarding claims 6, 15 and 20, Randall further discloses that the reservation request of the client device is prohibited (by disablement of password-based authentication, for example) when the client device is flagged as the potential abuser (paragraph 31, lines 1-3: “If an abnormal state is returned at block 208, one or more enhance authentication requirements are invoked, as shown at block 212. Such enhanced authentication requirements could include, but are not limited to, CAPTCHAs, rate limitations, disablement of password-based authentication, password reset, etc.”). 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 method in Cao, Xu, Lee and Randall by incorporating this feature further taught in Randall for the purpose of preventing a flagged client device from consuming or reserving shared network resources, thereby ensuring fair access for compliant clients.
Claims 5 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article Xu et al. and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409), and further in view of Randall et al. (US 2017/0134362) and Knecht et al. (US 9,634,837).
Regarding claims 5 and 14, the combination of Cao, Xu, Lee and Randall fails to disclose that the reservation request of the client device is honored at sequentially later time periods when the client device is flagged as the potential abuser.
However, in an analogous art, Knecht discloses that a reservation request of a client device is honored at sequentially later time periods when the client device is flagged as a potential abuser (Abstract, lines 2-6: “The server transmits a response to the first client device indicating that access to the resource is temporarily denied. The response includes a cryptographic token associated with the first request and a predetermined period of time during which the first client device is to wait prior to transmitting another request to access the resource. The server receives a second request for the resource, upon determining that the second request includes a valid cryptographic token, the server causes the second request to be processed.”; Column 11, lines 29-31: “The server 120 generates the cryptographic token such that the token value would be difficult to predict by malicious users”). 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 method in Cao, Xu, Lee and Randall by incorporating these features taught in Knecht for the purpose of providing a controlled throttling mechanism that discourages abusive behavior without fully denying service, thereby maintaining network stability.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article Xu et al. and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409), and further in view of Jokela et al. (US 2008/0123607).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Cao, Xu and Lee fails to disclose receiving, at the client device, a response from each of the APs whether each AP is a roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources needed by the client device; selecting, at the client device, the second AP; and sending the reservation request to the second AP based on the selection.
However, in an analogous art, Jokela discloses receiving, at the client device, a response from each of the APs whether each AP is a roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources needed by the client device; selecting, at the client device, the second AP; and sending the reservation request to the second AP based on the selection (admission control) (claim 16, lines 1-4: “A method of providing information regarding devices in a network to a roaming device, comprising: receiving a neighbor report request frame from a roaming device within the network; and transmitting a neighbor report response frame to the roaming device in response to the transmitted neighbor report request frame, the neighbor report response frame including information concerning whether admission control is mandated by one or more neighboring access points”; Paragraph 37, lines 1-3: “in order to indicate whether a neighbor AP supports (and is using) admission control, an Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) Parameter Set (defined in 802.11e) element is added to the neighbor report.”). 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 method in Cao, Xu and Lee by incorporating these features taught in Jokela for the purpose of maintaining consistent quality of service while minimizing network signaling and disruption.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article Xu et al. and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409), and further in view of Trudeau (US 2008/0146240) and Kano (US 2012/0142387).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Cao, Xu and Lee fails to disclose receiving, at a controller, a response from each of the APs whether each AP is a roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources needed by the client device; determining, at the controller, that the second AP within the list of APs will honor the reservation request.
However, in an analogous art, Trudeau discloses receiving, at a controller, a response from each of the APs whether each AP is a roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources (sufficient bandwidth for an additional call) needed by the client device; determining, at the controller, that the second AP within the list of APs will honor the reservation request (accepting the CAC request). (claim 1, lines 1-4: “A method of call admission control operative within a wireless network having a set of access points, comprising: in response to a call admission control request received at an access point from a mobile device, determining whether the access point has sufficient unused bandwidth to handle an additional call; and if the access point has sufficient unused bandwidth to handle the additional call, accepting the CAC request”). 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 method in Cao, Xu and Lee by incorporating these features taught in Trudeau for the purpose of ensuring efficient allocation, reliable service and coordinated admission control across the network.
The combination of Cao, Xu, Lee and Trudeau fails to disclose returning a reservation ID to the client device and the second AP.
However, an analogous art, Kano discloses returning a reservation ID (permission ID) to a client device and a second AP (paragraph 84, lines 1-3: “In Step S115, the radio base station 10-1 sends a handover request to the radio base station 10-3 which can reserve the resource, the handover request including the permission ID included in the resource reservation response and a terminal ID of the radio terminal 20 which is a sender of the connection request.”). 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 method in Cao, Xu, Lee and Trudeau by incorporating these features taught in Kano for the purpose of allowing the client to rely on guaranteed resources that are actionable and verifiable rather than on speculative network conditions.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao et al. (US 2017/0311259) in view of the article Xu et al. and Lee et al. (US 2004/0264409), and further in view Palanki et al.(US 2010/0202391) and Kano (US 2012/0142387).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Cao, Xu and Lee fails to disclose for each AP within the list of APs, negotiating among other APs within the list of APs which AP is a best roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources needed by the client device; reaching a consensus decision among the list of APs that the second AP will honor the reservation request.
However, Palanki discloses for each AP within the list of APs, negotiating among other APs within the list of APs which AP is a best roam candidate supportive of the one or more resources needed by the client device (paragraph 54, lines 1-4: “Access point 204 includes a resource negotiation receiving component 312 that obtains one or more parameters related to requesting a resource allocation from a disparate access point, a resource allocating component 314 that determines a set of resources or one or more parameters regarding a set of resources for providing to the disparate access point based on the one or more parameters”); and reaching a consensus decision among the list of APs that the second AP will honor the reservation request (paragraph 62, lines 5-6: “access points 202 and 204 can communicate to determine which access point will allocate resources”; Paragraph 54, lines 4-7: “a resource scheduling component 316 that schedules an actual set of resources for the disparate access points and provides a related indication thereto, and an air interface communicating component 214 that facilitates such communicating with the disparate access point (and/or with one or more wireless devices).”). 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 method in Cao, Xu and Lee by incorporating these features taught in Palanki for the purpose of improving the reliability and efficiency of resource reservation for roaming in a distributed wireless network with uncertain client attachment to APs.
The combination of Cao, Xu, Lee and Palanki fails to disclose returning a reservation ID to the client device and the second AP.
However, an analogous art, Kano discloses returning a reservation ID (permission ID) to a client device and a second AP (paragraph 84, lines 1-3: “In Step S115, the radio base station 10-1 sends a handover request to the radio base station 10-3 which can reserve the resource, the handover request including the permission ID included in the resource reservation response and a terminal ID of the radio terminal 20 which is a sender of the connection request.”). 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 method in Cao, Xu, Lee and Palanki by incorporating these features taught in Kano for the purpose of allowing the client to rely on guaranteed resources that are actionable and verifiable rather than on speculative network conditions.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Abhishek et al. (US 2007/0255834) discloses a key exchange module that negotiates a key exchange between a roaming client and roaming coordinator candidates.
Bourlas et al. (US 2013/0315145) discloses a non-contention reserved access identifier from the reserved set of access identifiers follows a handover request message.
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/SAM BHATTACHARYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646