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
Claim 1 and 19-20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, 19 and 20 each include a misplaced period. As claims must be single sentences, starting with a capital letter and ending only with one final period (except for abbreviations), with elements separated by semicolons/indentations, not periods. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-9, 11, 13, 15-17, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Fan et al (US 2017/0048715 A1).
Regarding claim 1, 19 and 20, Fan teaches a computer system/method/computer-readable storage medium (Fig. 1, the controller 109), comprising:
an interface circuit configured to communicates with access points (Fig. 1, the access points 101a, 101b, 101c; [0036], [0040], controller exchanges control and measurement information with APs over a communication interface), wherein the computer system is configured to:
receive, associated with the access points, information about the access points and specifying one or more communication-performance metrics associated with the shared band of frequencies ([0038], “the controller 109 receiving information from the different access points and using this to identify any interference-prone pairs of access points (step S201). The access points may use an Inter-AP Protocol (IAPP) to exchange neighbourhood information between themselves and the controller”).
compute, for the access points, co-channel interference (CCI) metrics based at least in part on the information about the access points and the one or more communication-performance metrics, wherein a CCI metric in the CCI metrics for a given access point in the access points is based at least in part on pairs of access points in the access points ([0038], “the controller 109 receiving information from the different access points and using this to identify any interference-prone pairs of access points”, it’s noted that [0038] of Fan teaches the functional equivalent of the “compute” step by identifying interference pairs and evaluating the relationship between specific pairs to determine if they are “interference prone”, the system is performing a logical calculation where the result is the identification of a conflict).
select channels and channel widths of the access points based at least in part on the CCI metrics (Fig. 2, steps S202 to S206), a graph representation of the access points (Fig. 3, step S301, [0051], “the controller uses the knowledge of the interference-prone access points to construct the interference graph”) and a CCI criterion ([0049], determine interference-prone or not), wherein nodes in the graph representation correspond to the access points and edges in the graph representation correspond to communication between the pairs of access points ([0048], “the controller uses its knowledge of the pairs of interference-prone access points to construct an interference or conflict graph G(V, E), where each access point lies at a respective vertex V of the graph and pairs of access points that are identified as being interference-prone are connected by an edge E drawn between their respective vertices”); and
provide, addressed to the access points, second information specifying the channels and the channel widths of the access points ([0035], “The controller 109 is responsible for the management of the access points and performing tasks such as channel allocation, bandwidth signalling, load monitoring, etc”; also see [0048]).
Regarding claim 2, Fan further teaches that the CCI metric is based at least in part on current channel overlap of a given pair of access points in the pairs of access points ([0011], “identifying, amongst the access points, one or more interference-prone pairs of access points, wherein each interference-prone pair comprises a first access point and a second access point that are currently using the same or overlapping communication channels to communicate with their respective client user devices”).
Regarding claim 3, Fan further teaches that the CCI metric is based at least in part on signal strength metric of the given pair of access points in the pairs of access points; and wherein the signal strength metric may correspond to an average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the given pair of access points over a time interval ([0038], “the signal-to-noise ratios and received signal strength that they and their respective user devices are experiencing”).
Regarding claim 4, Fan further teaches that the CCI metric is based at least in part on signal strength metric of the given pair of access points in the pairs of access points ([0038], “the signal-to-noise ratios and received signal strength that they and their respective user devices are experiencing”); and wherein the CCI metric is based at least in part on an interference type metric corresponding to whether the given access point is a peer in the access points or is a rogue access point in the access points ([0038], “the controller 109 receiving information from the different access points and using this to identify any interference-prone pairs of access points”).
Regarding claim 5, Fan further teaches that the graph representation of the access points corresponds to a network topology of the access points (see Fig. 4).
Regarding claim 6, Fan further teaches that the channels and the channel widths of the access points are iteratively selected; and wherein the iterative selection comprises repeating the computing and the selecting operations multiple times until the CCI criterion is achieved ([0021]-[0028]).
Regarding claim 7, Fan further teaches that the channels and the channel widths of the access points are selected based at least on a ranking of the access points corresponding to numbers of edges associated with the nodes in the graph representation, a centrality of the nodes in the graph representation, or both ([0021]-[0028]).
Regarding claim 8, Fan further teaches that an access point corresponding to a node having a maximum number of edges, a number of edges exceeding a predefined value, a maximum centrality or a centrality greater than a second predefined value has a higher ranking than remaining access points in the access points ([0026], “determining the highest rank M of label that has been assigned to an access point; and where M>N”).
Regarding claim 9, Fan further teaches that the channel widths comprise a common channel width of the access points; and wherein the computer system is configured to select the common channel width by reducing the common channel width until the CCI criterion is achieved ([0039], and Fig. 2, step 202 and 203; [0039], “two access points can be allocated an 80 MHz channel each. Alternatively, four access points can be allocated a 40 MHz channel each, or eight access points can be allocated a 20 MHz channel each, and so on”).
Regarding claim 11, Fan further teaches that the information about the access points and specifying one or more communication-performance metrics received from the given access point comprises: one or more detected access points, signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of the one or more detected access points ([0038])
Regarding claim 13, Fan further teaches that the selecting is based at least in part on one or more of: historical communication performance data, historical dynamic frequency selection (DFS) data or priorities of the access points ([0022], lowest rank equivalent to lowest priority).
Regarding claim 15, Fan further teaches that a single node in the graph representation corresponds to mesh access points in a mesh network (Fig. 4).
Regarding claim 16, Fan further teaches that one or more of the access points are outside of radio-frequency communication range of at least some of a remainder the access points ([0036], “the access point 101a is located distant from the access points 101b, 101c”).
Regarding claim 17, Fan further teaches that the computer system comprises: a controller of the access points, which is configured to manage and configure operation of the access points ([0035], “The controller 109 is responsible for the management of the access points and performing tasks such as channel allocation, bandwidth signalling, load monitoring, etc”).
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 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fan et al (US 2017/0048715 A1), in view of Peddireddy et al, (US 2023/0198641 A1), hereinafter as “Pedd”.
Regarding claim 12, Fan teaches all of the limitations except that the selecting is performed using a pretrained neural network.
Pedd teaches the selecting is performed using a pretrained neural network ([0047], “a variety of machine learning algorithms to determine a suggested channel. For example, regression analysis, random forest, support vector machine, neural network, etc.”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Pedd in the system disclosed by Fan. The motivation for the combination is that a neural network can approximate solutions to these “NP-Hard” optimization problems much faster than a brute-force search. It can “sense” patterns in the interference data that a liner formula might miss.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fan et al (US 2017/0048715 A1), in view of Beaudin et al (US 2021/0373143 A1).
Regarding claim 14, Fan teaches all of the limitations except that a probability of a dynamic frequency selection (DFS) signal occurring for a channel in the channels is greater than a predefined value, the selecting avoids using the channel. Beaudin teaches the above limitation ([0061]).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Beaudin for the purpose of reducing interference to radar system or other service that are allocated with 5 GHz frequency bands (see paragraph 0002 of Beaudin).
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fan et al (US 2017/0048715 A1), in view of Ali et al ( US 2024/0334478 A1).
Regarding claim 18, Fan teaches all of the limitations except that when CCI exceeds a threshold value, the computer system is configured to provide, addressed to one or more of the access points, instructions to adjust transmit power of the one or more of the access points. Ali teaches the above limitation ([0091], Fig. 4).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the teaching of Ali in the system disclosed by Fan for the purpose of reducing interferences between a set of coordinated access points.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 10 is 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
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/SIMING LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411