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 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.
Claim(s) 1,8,15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Amarilio et al (US10114787 B2) hereinafter as Amarilio in view of SUGIMOTO et al (US 20190001904 A1) hereinafter as SUGIMOTO.
Regarding claim(s) 1,8, Amarilio discloses a communication system in which a main device and a plurality of sub- devices connected to the main device via a communication network communicate with each other in parallel (BUS) (See Fig(s). 1, main device 12 with plurality of sub devices 14 in parallel communications with main via the bus 16), the communication system comprising:
the plurality of sub-devices each including a switch configured to open or close a connection of a parallel (BUS) communication line to the main device, and a terminal resistor configured to enable wiring to the parallel (BUS) communication line (See Fig(s). 1, 8A, See ¶ 5,42, main device 12 with plurality of sub devices 14 in parallel communications with main via the bus 16, the main is connected to slaves via switches 84 for power control to turn on/off…for terminal resistor to enable parallel bus communications See Fig(s). 9, See ¶ 48, where the end slave device 62(N) may act as end resistor in this case a audio system such as soundwire);
and the main device connected to the plurality of sub-devices through the parallel (BUS) communication line, and configured to set communication IDs of the plurality of sub-devices (See Fig(s). 4d, See ¶ 33, a device identification selection circuit 55 is provided as an alternative to a device identification generation circuit. The device identification selection circuit 55 includes an ADC 54 similar to the device identification generation circuits 48-48(3) described above. The electrical characteristic generated by the external source 50(4) on the conference pin 42 can be detected by the device identification selection circuit 55. ).
Amarilio fails to disclose based on the communication IDs, diagnose a communication failure in the communication network.
SUGIMOTO discloses based on the communication IDs, diagnose a communication failure in the communication network (See ¶ 7, discloses a technique for facilitating determination of a node ID of a slave device as well as addition and failure detection of a slave device. More specifically, a master device and slave devices are common-bus-connected using a serial signal line and are thus connected to each other by a daisy chain. A response message to be communicated from a slave device contains flag information indicating a state of an upstream device and a connection state of a downstream device as well as a node ID setting state of other devices.). Failure detection within a communication line helps to detect faults and isolate them ensuring system reliability and reducing downtime.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of SUGIMOTO within Amarilio, to help to detect faults and isolate them ensuring system reliability and reducing downtime.
Regarding claim(s) 15, Amarilio discloses a computer program stored on a recording medium to execute the method as claimed in 8 by using a computing device (See ¶ 54).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 2-7,9-14 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Raj Jain whose telephone number is (571) 272-3145. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th ~8 ~6.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Derrick Ferris can be reached on 571-272-3123. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center for authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to Patent Center, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated- interview-request-air-form.
/RAJ JAIN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411