Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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
2. Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
a) In the line 2 of claim 1, the acronyms “MIMO” and “RF” what are stand for;
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
A) Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Braun (US 2022/0345193 A1) in view of Pollman (US 2019/0268045 A1).
As per claim 1, Braun teaches a distributed antenna system (Figs.1 and 2, distributed antenna system) comprising: a MIMO RF front end configured to receive signals from each of a plurality of donor antennas, each of the plurality of donor antennas providing donor antenna signals (Figs.2 and 4, ¶0020 and ¶0042, the SISO/MIMO configurable repeater 120 which is front end and receiving RF signals from donor antennas 262 and 266, during MIMO operation, the antennas 261 and 263 effectively function together as the repeater donor MIMO antennas, and the antennas 262 and 264 effectively function together as the repeater coverage MIMO antennas);
a plurality of signal processing subsystems, each signal processing subsystem being connected with one of the plurality of donor antennas via an input and configured to process signals received from the associated donor antenna via the MIMO RF front end (Fig.4, ¶0039-40, bidirectional RX paths 220 and 240 (i.e. signal processing subsystems) connected with donor antennas and the RX-AS 228 is switched to couple antenna 261 to the bidirectional RX path 220 for processing DL MIMO channel 1 signal and RX-AS 248 is switched to couple antenna 264 to the bidirectional RX path 240 for processing UL MIMO channel 2 signal); one or more donor antenna signal distribution modules associated and connected with each of the plurality of signal processing subsystems (¶0029 and ¶0037, when the repeater 120 is configured for 2x2 MIMO operation, each of the TX paths 210 and 230 (i.e. signal distribution modules) which connected to RX paths 220 and 240 (i.e. signal processing subsystems) functions as the transmit path for one of the MIMO channels, and each of the RX paths 220 and 240 functions as the receive path for one of the MIMO channels).
However, Braun does not explicitly teach a plurality of remote units, each of the plurality of remote units being configured to receive signals from at least one donor antenna signal distribution module; wherein the distributed antenna system is configured to employ a signal distribution strategy executed by the one or more signal distribution modules that routes individual donor antenna signals to individual remote units of the plurality of remote units.
In the same field of endeavor, Pollman teaches a plurality of remote units, each of the plurality of remote units being configured to receive signals from at least one donor antenna signal distribution module (¶0113-114 and ¶0117, the DAS 160 includes one or more master units 162 (i.e. donor antenna signal distribution module) and one or more remote antenna units 10 that are communicatively coupled to master unit 162 that can be coupled to donor antenna in order to wirelessly communicate with the remotely located base station 166 and being configured to receive signals); wherein the distributed antenna system is configured to employ a signal distribution strategy executed by the one or more signal distribution modules that routes individual donor antenna signals to individual remote units of the plurality of remote units (¶0117, each master unit 162 uses the downlink RF signals to generate a downlink transport signal that is distributed to one or more of the remote units 164. Each such remote antenna unit 10 receives the downlink transport signal and reconstructs a version of the downlink RF signals based on the downlink transport signal and causes the reconstructed downlink RF signals to be radiated from at least one antenna array 170 (e.g., at least one array of the T and F antennas 52 and 56 of FIGS. 3-4 and 14-16) coupled to or included in that remote antenna unit 10).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Braun’s invention in order to distribute signals within a structure (e.g., an office building, warehouse, mall) to provide wireless-communication coverage so that people can use their wireless devices while within the structure.
As per claim 2 as applied to claim 1 above, Braun does not explicitly teach, wherein the remote units are distributed within a building.
In the same field of endeavor, Pollman teaches wherein the remote units are distributed within a building (¶0131, the site 182 may be, for example, a building or campus or other grouping of buildings (used, for example, by one or more businesses, governments, other enterprise entities) or some other public venue (such as a hotel, resort, amusement park, hospital, shopping center, airport, university campus, arena, or an outdoor area such as a ski area, stadium or a densely-populated downtown area).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Braun’s invention in order to distribute signals within a structure (e.g., an office building, warehouse, mall) to provide wireless-communication coverage so that people can use their wireless devices while within the structure.
As per claim 3 as applied to claim 1 above, Braun does not explicitly teach, wherein each of the plurality of remote units employs a single-input, single-output (SISO) RF front end.
In the same field of endeavor, Pollman teaches wherein each of the plurality of remote units employs a single-input, single-output (SISO) RF front end (¶0138, SISO RF front end).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Braun’s invention in order to distribute signals within a structure (e.g., an office building, warehouse, mall) to provide wireless-communication coverage so that people can use their wireless devices while within the structure.
As per claim 4 as applied to claim 3 above, Pollman further teaches wherein the plurality of remote units are grouped and connected with individual signal processing subsystems for a grouped SISO RF front end (¶0138, the controller 184 and the radio points 186 can be implemented to use an air interface that supports one or more of the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO), single-input-single-output (SISO), single-input-multiple-output (SIMO), multiple-input-single-output (MISO), and/or beam forming schemes).
As per claim 5 as applied to claim 4 above, Pollman further teaches wherein the donor antenna signals are converted into an RF signal at the same frequency as at the plurality of donor antennas (¶0122 and ¶0125, each master unit 162 can produce digital IQ samples from an analog wireless signal received at radio frequency (RF) by down-converting the received signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) or to baseband, digitizing the down-converted signal to produce real digital samples, and digitally down-converting the real digital samples to produce digital in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) samples. In the downstream, each master unit 162 terminates one or more downstream streams of digital IQ samples provided to it from one or more BBUs and, if necessary, converts (by re-sampling, synchronizing, combining, separating, gain adjusting, etc.) them into downstream streams of digital IQ samples compatible with the remote units 10 used in the DAS 160).
As per claim 6 as applied to claim 5 above, Pollman further teaches, wherein a replica of the donor antenna signals that arrived at each of the plurality of donor antennas associated with each grouping of the remote units are transmitted either into cable distribution segments or into transmission antennas (¶0037, the interface circuit 20 can include one or more Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) powered devices (PDs) can be configured to receive power from power-source equipment (not shown in FIG. 1), and can be configured to communicate with the master unit, via a suitable PoE cable. In operation, the interface circuit 22 can communicate data from the master unit to one or more of the antenna modules 14 for transmission, and can communicate data received from one or more of the antenna modules to the master unit).
Conclusion
4. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FARIDEH MADANI whose telephone number is (571)272-1249. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday; 9 AM to 5 PM EST.
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/FARIDEH MADANI/Examiner, Art Unit 2643
/JINSONG HU/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2643