DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Applicants' communication filed on September 15, 2025, which amends claims 21 and 31, and presents arguments, is hereby acknowledged. Claims 21-40 are currently pending and have been examined.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 09/15/2025 has been entered.
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 Arguments
Regarding limitations the Claim 21 of the instant case, Applicant claims “the suggested combination of the cited prior art references fail to disclose or suggest the novel limitations of determining candidate locations for open-air repeaters to be associated with a selected carrier for a multiple-dwelling unit building (MDU) and provide fixed access for potential recipients for millimeter wave communication access that reside in dwelling units within the MDU. Also, determining a recommendation for the placement of the open-air repeaters to wirelessly communicate with the potential recipients based in part on efficiently increasing coverage of wireless communication access by enabling millimeter wave communication access for the dwelling units within the MDU that are currently served by wireless base stations that are fifth generation (5G) Next Generation NodeB (gNB). Additionally, each open-air repeater is placed to provide efficient millimeter wave wireless communication access between the potential recipients and the wireless base stations that are a gNB and associated with the selected carrier.”
As mapped in the previous office actions, Liu teaches placements of wireless access points in a wireless network; Schwab teaches placements of open-air repeaters for multi-unit dwellings, especially in consideration of 5G NR to provide wireless services to residents of targeted dwellings; Leiba, e.g., Figs. 12-13 and Ashworth, e.g., Figs. 2-15 provides various system configurations to relay wireless signals from outdoor environment to indoor/dwelling residents’ devices.
It is known that major carriers may operate their own access networks or access through others’ network in some rural or remote areas.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 21-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210368355 A1 (Liu), in view of US 20180123692 A1 (Leiba) and in further view of US 20200259552 A1 (Ashworth), US 20210328664 A1 (Schwab) and Falconer, D.D. and DeCruyenaere, J.P., 2003. Coverage enhancement methods for LMDS. IEEE Communications Magazine, 41(7), pp.86-92 (Falconer).
Regarding Claim 21 and 31:
A method, comprising: determining one or more candidate locations for one or more open-air repeaters to be associated with a selected carrier and provide access to wireless communication for one or more potential recipients that reside in a multiple-dwelling unit building (MDU), wherein the one or more candidate locations include one or more structures that are arranged external to the MDU and are suitable for placement of the one or more open-air repeaters; determining a recommendation for the placement of the one more open-air repeaters to wirelessly communicate with the one or more potential recipients, wherein the recommendation is based in part on efficiently increasing coverage of wireless communication access for one or more portions of the dwelling units within the MDU; and configuring each placed open-air repeater to provide efficient wireless communication access between the one or more potential recipients and one or more wireless base stations that are associated with the selected carrier (Liu: Figs. 1-2 and 5-6, the installation site selection and layout determination of wireless communication devices in a wireless network by modelling the terrain that “approximates or represents properties of the terrain, e.g., the physical environment. The terrain may be an urban environment in which multiple buildings are arranged. The modelled terrain may be 2D, 2.5D, 3D, or even 4D (considering different time at the same 3D location)”, i.e. ingesting geographic info including a set of candidate locations, e.g. Figs. 2, 5, coverage/cost/outrage criteria, and etc., where the LOS and NLOS are also considered for proper coverage).
Liu does not illustrate explicitly on method of determine LOS between nodes and adjust installation to comply to LOS in mmwave communication. However, Leiba teaches (Leiba: Figs. 10-11, a MMWave network planning method to identify LOS and obstacle paths, and places network nodes accordingly).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Liu with method of determine LOS between nodes and adjust installation to comply to LOS as further taught by Leiba. The advantage of doing so is to enable planning network nodes that incorporates LOS measurement to ensure the quality of mmwave communication.
Liu does not illustrate explicitly on using repeaters in network planning and placement. However, Ashworth teaches (Ashworth: Figs. 13-15, a repeater placement in wall to improve communication over obstacles).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Liu with method of using repeaters in network planning and placement as further taught by Ashworth. The advantage of doing so is to enable wireless communication through structure element to improve wireless communication coverage (Ashworth: Abstract).
Liu does not illustrate explicitly on determining of the placement and configuration of the one or more open-air repeaters. However, Schwab and Falconer teaches (Schwab: Figs. 3-5, repeater networks that provides incremental coverage depending on geographic info, e.g. number of dwellings and dwelling coverage for each RAP, where Falconer p90 also provides examples of 0.4 repeaters/km2 raises the coverage to about 78%, and 2.2/km2 raises it to over 95%; Fig. 7, multiple poles as candidate locations).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Liu with determining of the placement and configuration of the one or more open-air repeaters as further taught by Schwab and Falconer. The advantage of doing so is to provide a mechanism for distributed antenna systems or over-the-air repeaters to improve mmWave communication (Schwab: Background).
Regarding Claims 22 and 32, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, further comprising: configuring at least one open-air repeater for placement on a window of the MDU, wherein the window placement is arranged for the at least one open-air repeater to wireless communicate via line of sight with the one or more wireless base stations and rebroadcast the wireless communication within at least one dwelling unit of the MDU (Ashworth: e.g., Figs. 2A-B).
Regarding Claims 23 and 33, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, wherein the determination of the one or more candidate locations further comprises: employing geographic information associated with the one or more candidate locations for one or more structures to identify at least one candidate location that includes a post, pole, tower, building corner, building wall, roof, or another building that is available for placement of an open-air repeater for the selected carrier (Leiba: Figs. 10-11, a MMWave network planning method to identify LOS and obstacle paths, and places network nodes accordingly; Ashworth: Figs. 13-15, a repeater placement in wall to improve communication over obstacles).
Regarding Claims 24 and 34, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, wherein the determination of the one or more candidate locations further comprises: employing information that includes a position and an orientation for one or more windows on an external surface of the MDU to identify at least one candidate location that includes a window that is available for placement of an open-air repeater for the selected carrier (Ashworth: e.g., Figs. 2A-B) .
Regarding Claims 25 and 35, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, wherein the determination of the one or more candidate locations, further comprises: employing one or more wireless signal propagation models to identify a strength of wireless signals required to provide wireless communication access for the one or more potential recipients (Leiba: [0114], throughput and/or packet loss assessment. It is noted that path loss, signal strength, packet loss or error rate and etc. are known wireless propagation model to determine signal quality of the path).
Regarding Claims 26 and 36, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, wherein the potential location determination further comprises evaluating a presence of a non-obstructed line of sight between each potential location and the one or more potential recipients that reside in the MDU (Liu: [0065] - [0066], considering both LOS and reflection paths (i.e. NLOS)).
Regarding Claims 27 and 37, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, wherein the one or more wireless base stations include one or more fifth generation (5G) Next Generation NodeB (gNB) base stations (Leiba: Figs. 10-11).
Regarding Claims 28 and 38, Liu as modified further teaches:
28. (New) The method of Claim 21, wherein the wireless communication access further comprises access to millimeter wave (mmWave) wireless communication (Liu: Figs. 1-2 and 5-6).
Regarding Claims 29 and 39, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, wherein the one or more potential recipients include a fixed wireless access (FWA) recipient (Ashworth: Figs. 13-15)
Regarding Claims 30 and 40, Liu as modified further teaches:
The method of Claim 21, wherein the one or more potential recipients further comprise at least one mobile device recipient (Ashworth: Figs. 3A-C)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHITONG CHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1936. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30am - 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yuwen Pan can be reached on 571-272-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ZHITONG CHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649