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 Amendment
Applicant’s arguments with respect to 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.
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) 1-3, 8-9, 11, 15, 20, 24-27, 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paidimarri et al. (Pub. No. 20200266669).
- With respect to claims 1, 15, 24 and 30, Paidimarri teaches a network entity configured for wireless communication, comprising: one or more memories, individually or in combination, having instructions; and one or more processors (see par. 23), individually or in combination, configured to execute the instructions and cause the network entity to: transmit a first signal (e.g. first beam in Fig. 2 block 216 see claim 1 discloses first beam); transmit, after the first signal, a first plurality of signals including a second signal (e.g. claim 1 discloses the second beam, and abstract discloses “The antenna array may be configured to transmit a second beam of a second beam width to the plurality of RFID tags”), wherein each of the plurality of signals is transmitted via one of a plurality of codebook directional beams (e.g. beam discloses in the abstract); and receive, from a first energy harvesting (EH) device of a plurality of EH devices, a first backscatter signal in response the second signal (e.g. backscatter in Fig. 3), wherein the first backscatter signal indicates that a strength of the second signal (e.g. the RSSI of backscatter signal of second beam (see claim 7)) is greater than or equal to a threshold value (e.g. claim 2 discloses the second frequency is greater than the first frequency), and wherein the threshold value is set based at least in part on a strength of the first signal (see par. 24). Paidimarri explicitly fails to teaches the first backscatter signal indicated the greater than or equal to the threshold value, but Paidimarri teaches the RSSI of the second signal (claim 7) and second frequency is greater than the first frequency (claim 2). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective of filling date to consider the RSSI of the second signal in Paidimarri’s invention as indication for the strength of second signal greater than the threshold value.
- With respect to claims 2,3, 25-26, Paidimarri teaches transmit an indication of a beam sweep operation that comprises transmission of the first signal and the first plurality of signals, wherein the indication is transmitted via an omnidirectional beam (e.g. Fig. 2 shows the first beam 216 for multiple tags).
- With respect to claims 8, 20, Paidimarri teaches the first backscatter signal comprises at least one of: a modulated signal based on the second signal, wherein the modulation is one of an amplitude-shift keying (ASK), a frequency-shift keying (FSK), or an on-off-keying (OOK); and a frequency shift relative to the second signal (see par. 23).
- With respect to claim 9, Paidimarri teaches wherein the modulated signal is configured to identify the first EH device (e.g. par. 23 discloses second beam to particular RFID tag 208 in Fig. 2).
- With respect to claim 11, Paidimarri teaches wherein the first plurality of signals is transmitted as a part of a time-domain beam sweep of the plurality of codebook directional beams (e.g. par. 18, 26 discloses TDM).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7, 10, 12-13, 16, 18-19, 21-23, 28-29 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
. Examiner's Note: Examiner has cited particular paragraphs or columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUC H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3172. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Flex.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy K. Kundu can be reached at 571-272-8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PHUC H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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