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 Objections
The numbering of claims is not in accordance with 37 CFR 1.126 which requires the original numbering of the claims to be preserved throughout the prosecution. When claims are canceled, the remaining claims must not be renumbered. When new claims are presented, they must be numbered consecutively beginning with the number next following the highest numbered claims previously presented (whether entered or not).
Claim 6 is missing and considered cancelled.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 10 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mysore (U.S. PG-PUB NO. 2025/0113314) in view of Xu (CN 110351669 A).
-Regarding claim 1, Mysore discloses a BLE broadcast communication method applied to a master device configured to perform a broadcast communication with one or more slave devices in a plurality of consecutive isochronous intervals based on an isochronous channel, (see abstract and FIG. 1), the method comprising: configuring a reverse communication enable instruction in a BIS packet to be broadcast, the reverse communication enable instruction being used to indicate whether a reverse communication is permitted in the current isochronous interval (a first device transmits periodic packets to enable one or more peer devices to synchronize timing with the first device, FIG. 6, paragraph 40); broadcasting the BIS packet in the data broadcast time slot (periodic advertising with response (PAwR) protocol in BLE, paragraph 18, FIG. 2); and receiving based on the isochronous channel of the current isochronous interval to obtain the reverse control packet transmitted by one of the slave devices when the reverse communication enable instruction indicates that the reverse communication is permitted in the current isochronous interval under the condition that each slave device is not required to be allocated with an exclusive time slot for the reverse communication (the reverse broadcast events where the peripheral devices 360/380 take their turns assuming the role of the isochronous broadcaster and the central device 340 becomes the synchronized receiver is collectively referred to as BIG2. After synchronizing their timing based on the periodic broadcast event of BIG1, the peripheral devices 360/380 may maintain a clock drift of less than 50 ppm during BIG2 to prevent excessive time misalignment between the peripheral devices 360/380 and the central device 340, paragraph 26).
Mysore is silent to teaching that a shared reverse control time slot being a time slot that is occupiable by any one of the slave devices when transmitting a reverse control packet. However, the claimed limitation is well known in the art as evidenced by Xu.
In the same field of endeavor, Xu teaches a shared reverse control time slot being a time slot that is occupiable by any one of the slave devices when transmitting a reverse control packet (control time slot in sequence and feedback information, FIG. 3 and corresponding text).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Mysore with the teaching of Xu in order to reduce emission power and the retransmission time.
-Regarding claim 10, Mysore discloses a BLE broadcast communication method applied to a slave device configured to perform a broadcast communication with a master device in a plurality of consecutive isochronous intervals based on an isochronous channel (see abstract and FIG. 1), the method comprising: receiving a BIS packet broadcast by the master device in the data broadcast time slot and obtaining a reverse communication enable instruction carried in the BIS packet, the reverse communication enable instruction being used to indicate whether a reverse communication is permitted in the current isochronous interval (a first device transmits periodic packets to enable one or more peer devices to synchronize timing with the first device, FIG. 6, paragraph 40); and transmitting a reverse control packet based on the isochronous channel in the shared reverse control time slot when the reverse communication enable instruction indicates that the reverse communication is permitted in the current isochronous interval and the slave device determines that the reverse communication is required under the condition that this slave device is not required to be allocated with an exclusive time slot for the reverse communication (the reverse broadcast events where the peripheral devices 360/380 take their turns assuming the role of the isochronous broadcaster and the central device 340 becomes the synchronized receiver is collectively referred to as BIG2. After synchronizing their timing based on the periodic broadcast event of BIG1, the peripheral devices 360/380 may maintain a clock drift of less than 50 ppm during BIG2 to prevent excessive time misalignment between the peripheral devices 360/380 and the central device 340, paragraph 26).
Mysore is silent to teaching that the isochronous interval provided with a data broadcast time slot and a shared reverse control time slot. However, the claimed limitation is well known in the art as evidenced by Xu.
In the same field of endeavor, Xu teaches the isochronous interval provided with a shared reverse control time slot being a time slot that is occupiable by any one of the slave devices when transmitting a reverse control packet (control time slot in sequence and feedback information, FIG. 3 and corresponding text).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Mysore with the teaching of Xu in order to reduce emission power and the retransmission time.
-Regarding claim 19, Mysore discloses a BLE broadcast communication device (Bluetooth central device 140, FIG. 1) used as a master device configured to perform a broadcast communication with one or more slave devices in a plurality of consecutive isochronous intervals based on an isochronous channel (several human interface devices (HIDs) 160, 170, 180, FIG. 1), the isochronous interval provided with a data broadcast time slot (see abstract and FIG. 1), the master device is further configured to: configure a reverse communication enable instruction in a BIS packet to be broadcast, the reverse communication enable instruction being used to indicate whether a reverse communication is permitted in the current isochronous interval (a first device transmits periodic packets to enable one or more peer devices to synchronize timing with the first device, FIG. 6, paragraph 40); broadcast the BIS packet in the data broadcast time slot (using a broadcast isochronous group (BIG) to reduce peripheral-to-central latency, FIG. 3, paragraph 23); and receive based on the isochronous channel of the current isochronous interval to obtain the reverse control packet transmitted by one of the slave devices when the reverse communication enable instruction indicates that the reverse communication is permitted in the current isochronous interval under the condition that each slave device is not required to be allocated with an exclusive time slot for the reverse communication (the reverse broadcast events where the peripheral devices 360/380 take their turns assuming the role of the isochronous broadcaster and the central device 340 becomes the synchronized receiver is collectively referred to as BIG2. After synchronizing their timing based on the periodic broadcast event of BIG1, the peripheral devices 360/380 may maintain a clock drift of less than 50 ppm during BIG2 to prevent excessive time misalignment between the peripheral devices 360/380 and the central device 340, paragraph 26).
Mysore is silent to teaching that a shared reverse control time slot being a time slot that is occupiable by any one of the slave devices when transmitting a reverse control packet. However, the claimed limitation is well known in the art as evidenced by Xu.
In the same field of endeavor, Xu teaches a shared reverse control time slot being a time slot that is occupiable by any one of the slave devices when transmitting a reverse control packet (control time slot in sequence and feedback information, FIG. 3 and corresponding text).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Mysore with the teaching of Xu in order to reduce emission power and the retransmission time.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5, 7-9, 11-18 and 20 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Claims 2, 11 and 20 discloses inter alia, configuring a reverse communication enable instruction in a BIS packet to be broadcast comprises: configuring a control sub-event transmission flag in the BIS packet to be broadcast, the control sub-event transmission flag being used to indicate whether the master device transmits a control packet in the current isochronous interval; and claim 18 discloses inter alia before the receiving a BIS packet broadcast by the master device in the data broadcast time slot, the method further comprises: searching for an extended advertising protocol packet ADV_EXT_IND PDU broadcast by the master device on a primary advertising channel and obtaining information about an auxiliary advertising protocol packet AUXADVIND PDU broadcast by the master device on a secondary advertising channel; receiving the auxiliary advertising protocol packet AUXADV_IND PDU broadcast by the master device on the secondary advertisement channel, and obtaining information about a synchronization auxiliary protocol packet AUXSYNC_IND PDU broadcast by the master device on a periodic advertising channel; and receiving the synchronization auxiliary protocol packet AUX_SYNC_IND PDU broadcast by the master device on the periodic advertising channel, and obtaining BIG information, wherein the BIS packet broadcast by the master device is received according to the BIG information in the data broadcast time slot, which are not taught by cited references.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PING Y HSIEH whose telephone number is (571)270-3011. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9am-4pm.
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/PING Y HSIEH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2664