DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-28 are pending and have been examined.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-7, 11-13, 15-18 and 27-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2009/0221320 A1 (Walley et al.), in view of US 2015/0138986 A1 (Gale).
As to Claim 1, Walley et al. disclose a device comprising:
a first communication interface having a first bandwidth (Walley et al. disclose the multi-standard device 200 having a plurality of radios {at least a first and second communication interface} of differing radio technologies including Bluetooth, GPS, Cellular and FM 240A-240D, each inherently has its own bandwidth and aggregated within the host controller packet mux/demux 234 – Fig. 2 and ¶¶ [0024, 0034, 0036, 0039, 0048, 0050]);
a second communication interface having a second bandwidth (Walley et al. disclose the multi-standard device 200 having a plurality of radios {at least a first and second communication interface} of differing radio technologies including Bluetooth, GPS, Cellular and FM 240A-240D, each inherently has its own bandwidth and aggregated within the host controller packet mux/demux 234 – Fig. 2 and ¶¶ [0024, 0034, 0036, 0039, 0048, 0050]); and
selection circuitry configured to aggregate communication associated with the first communication interface and the second communication interface to an aggregation interface (Walley et al. disclose the host controller packet mux/demux 234 – Fig. 2 and ¶¶ [0024, 0031, 0039, 0045, 0049]).
Walley et al. discloses a variety of communication interfaces of differing wireless technologies, which inherently implies each technology will have differing bandwidth capabilities. They also imply that the host controller packet mux/demux, 234, by virtue of concurrently facilitating communications between the various radios 240A – 240D and HCI Controller Driver 232, has a sum of bandwidth needed greater that each individual bandwidth of the four radios. However, having a third bandwidth greater than the first bandwidth or the second bandwidth is not explicitly disclosed. However, Gale discloses
having a third bandwidth greater than the first bandwidth or the second bandwidth (Gale discloses the sum bandwidth of individual links into one “aggregated link” or “logical link” - ¶¶ [0005-0006, 0025-0026]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine having a third bandwidth greater than the first bandwidth or the second bandwidth, taught by Gale, with selection circuitry configured to aggregate communication associated with the first communication interface and the second communication interface to an aggregation interface taught by Walley et al., in order to facilitate the sum of communications from four radios each employing different wireless technologies.
As to Claim 2, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1,
wherein the first communication interface includes transmitter circuitry having a single communication path to receiver circuitry (Walley et al. – Fig. 2, element 240A).
As to Claim 3, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1,
wherein the first communication interface is a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) (Walley et al. disclose the UART interfaces - ¶ [0012-0013, 0023, 0027, 0029, 0050]).
As to Claim 4, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1,
wherein the first communication interface includes transceiver circuitry and a physical host-controller interface (HCI) (Walley et al. disclose HCI - ¶¶ [0024, 0026]).
As to Claim 5, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1,
wherein the selection circuitry includes at least one of a multiplexer or a demultiplexer (Walley et al. disclose the host controller packet mux/demux 234 – Fig. 2 and ¶¶ [0024, 0031, 0039, 0045, 0049]).
As to Claim 6, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1,
wherein the selection circuitry further includes splitter circuitry configured to route an input data stream to the first or second communication interfaces (Walley et al. disclose the Host Controller BT Packet Processing 236 – Fig. 2 and ¶¶ [0024, 0032]).
As to Claim 7, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 6, wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to route respective bytes of the input data stream to the first and second communication interfaces in a schedule (Walley et al. disclose the Host Controller BT Packet Processing 236 – Fig. 2 and ¶¶ [0024, 0032, 0037, 0045]).
As to Claim 11, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 6,
wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to cause a flow control header to designate first bytes for transmission by the first communication interface and second bytes for transmission by the second communication interface (Gale - ¶ [0033]).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 1.
As to Claim 12, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 6,
wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to cause collector circuitry to organize bytes corresponding to the input data stream based on a flow control header (Gale - ¶ [0033]).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 1.
As to Claim 13, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 6,
wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to cause collector circuitry to organize an output data stream in a first order different than a second order corresponding to the input data stream (Walley et al. disclose the host controller packet mux/demux 234 – Fig. 2 and ¶¶ [0024, 0031, 0039, 0045, 0049]).
As to Claim 15, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 6,
wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to receive an interface report from collector circuitry after the input data stream is routed (Walley et al. disclose determining proper routing, which requires some form of reporting - Abstract).
As to Claim 16, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 15,
wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to receive the interface report via at least one of in-band or out-of-band communication (Walley et al. disclose determining proper routing, which requires some form of reporting - Abstract).
As to Claim 17, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 15,
wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to cause the selection circuitry to halt routing to one of the first communication interface or the second communication interface based on the interface report (Walley et al. disclose routing based on traffic conditions - ¶ [0027]).
As to Claim 18, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 16,
wherein the interface report includes a congestion flag corresponding to a communication interface associated with the collector circuitry (Walley et al. disclose routing based on traffic conditions - ¶ [0027]).
As to Claim 27, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1,
wherein the device is a controller, the first communication interface and the second communication interface configured to communicate with a corresponding host device (Walley et al. – Fig. 2).
As to Claim 28, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1,
wherein the device is a host device, the first communication interface and the second communication interface configured to communicate with a corresponding controller via one or more host controller interfaces (Walley et al. – Fig. 2).
Claims 8-10, 19-21, 23 and 25-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Walley et al. and Gale, and further in view of non-patent literature supplied by Applicant entitled “To Develop a Host Stack for Maximizing BLE Performance in Multi-Link Scenario” (Kasar et al.).
As to Claim 8, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 6.
The combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the splitter circuitry as cited above, but does not explicitly disclose routing first bytes of the input data stream to the first communication interface; and routing second bytes of the input data stream to the second communication interface. However, Kasar et al., also in the field of Bluetooth communications, discloses
routing first bytes of the input data stream to the first communication interface (Kasar et al. – Section IV-B); and
routing second bytes of the input data stream to the second communication interface (Kasar et al. – Section IV-B).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine routing first bytes of the input data stream to the first communication interface; and routing second bytes of the input data stream to the second communication interface, taught by Kasar et al., with the splitter circuitry taught by the combination of Walley et al. and Gale, in order to facilitate required Bluetooth scanning, advertising and connection (Kasar et al. – Section IV-First Paragraph).
As to Claim 9, the combination of Walley et al., Gale and Kasar et al. discloses the device of claim 8,
wherein the splitter circuitry is configured to route the first bytes and the second bytes in a round-robin schedule (Kasar et al. – Section IV-B).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
As to Claim 10, the combination of Walley et al., Gale and Kasar et al. discloses the device of claim 9,
wherein the first bytes are odd numbered bytes and the second bytes are even numbered bytes (Kasar et al. – Section IV-B).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
As to Claim 19, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1.
The combination of Walley et al. and Gale does not expressly disclose wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route single bytes of an input data stream to the aggregation interface in a round-robin schedule. However, Kasar et al. disclose,
wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route single bytes of an input data stream to the aggregation interface in a round-robin schedule (Kasar et al. – Section IV-B).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
As to Claim 20, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1.
The combination of Walley et al. and Gale does not expressly disclose wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route a fixed quantity of bytes of an input data stream to the aggregation interface in a schedule. However, Kasar et al. disclose
wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route a fixed quantity of bytes of an input data stream to the aggregation interface in a schedule (Kasar et al. – Section IV-B).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
As to Claim 21, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1.
The combination of Walley et al. and Gale does not expressly disclose wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route a quantity of bytes of an input data stream based on header instructions. However, Kasar et al. disclose
wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route a quantity of bytes of an input data stream based on header instructions
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
As to Claim 23, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1.
The combination of Walley et al. and Gale does not expressly disclose wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route single packets of an input data stream to the aggregation interface in a round-robin schedule. However, Kasar et al. disclose
wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route single packets of an input data stream to the aggregation interface in a round-robin schedule (Kasar et al. – Section IV-B).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
As to Claim 25, the combination of Walley et al. and Gale discloses the device of claim 1
The combination of Walley et al. and Gale does not expressly disclose wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route a quantity of packets of an input data stream based on header instructions. However, Kaser et al. disclose
wherein the first communication interface and the second communication interface are configured to route a quantity of packets of an input data stream based on header instructions (Kaser et al. – V-D, Tables II and III).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
As to Claim 26, the combination of Walley et al., Gale and Kasar et al. discloses the device of claim 25, wherein the selection circuitry is configured to parse the header instructions to:
cause first ones of the quantity of packets to be routed to the first communication interface (Kaser et al. – V-D, Tables II and III); and
cause second ones of the quantity of packets to be routed to the second communication interface (Kaser et al. – V-D, Tables II and III).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 8.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 14, 22 and 24 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.
Interview Practice
USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR)
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Examiner Notes:
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Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Form PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RICHARD G KEEHN whose telephone number is (571)270-5007. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00am - 5:00pm Eastern.
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/RICHARD G KEEHN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444