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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the application filed on 12/08/2023 has a total of 15 claims pending in the application; there are 2 independent claims and 13 dependent claims, all of which are ready for examination by the examiner.
Title
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed. The examiner suggests the title “CAN bus communication device and data communication method”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1 and 10, the claims recite “with respect to the data stored in the reception buffer, the communication device recognizes, and processes accordingly, data transmitted from the node of the communication device itself.” The claim doesn’t recite the claimed communication device comprising a node, the scope of the claim is unclear as to what the node of the communication itself is referring to and which data specifically has been transmitted from it with respect to the stored data.
Regarding claim 9 applicant recites “…a switching function for switching effective or ineffective of the data discard circuit.” This limitation appears to have some grammatical issues. It is unclear what is effective or ineffective, whether it is the data or some missing noun. Appropriate correction is required.
Dependent claims 2-9 and 11-15 are dependents thus incorporate the same limitation and should be rejected under the same rationale.
In addition, Claim 10 is unclear. The claim is directed towards the method, however only discusses the configuration of the communication device. There are no limitations or process steps that are explicitly tied to the claimed method. It is unclear whether the method is directed towards the functions configured the communication device to perform or whether the method contains no steps at all.
Dependent Claims 12-15 have the same ambiguity of claim 10 and contain additional configuration steps of the communication device, but fail to explain which, if any, steps are performed as part of the claimed method.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Elend et al. Publication No. (US 2017/0093659 A1) in view of HONG et al. Publication No. (US 20200120117 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Elend teaches a communication device (CAN node 102 FIG.2) comprising at least one transmission (transmit data (TXD) input interface FIG.2) and at least one reception (receive data (RXD) input interface FIG.2), the communication device configured to transmit data provided with identification information from the transmission to a communication bus (data communicated from the microcontroller to the CAN transceiver is identified as transmit data (TXD) and data communicated from the CAN transceiver to the microcontroller is referred to as receive data (RXD), TXD is carried on a TXD path and RXD is carried on an RXD path, data is communicated to and from the CAN bus via the CANH and CANL bus lines 124 and 126 [0057-58] FIG.2), receive data flowing through the communication bus (data transmitted through CAN bus 104. e.g., CAN messages on the RXD path and CAN messages on the TXD path [0064] FIG.5), and store the data in the reception (a CAN node can be configured to store the identifier of a CAN message that is being sent by the CAN node itself and further configured to compare the identifiers of incoming CAN messages to the stored identifier to determine if any incoming CAN messages have a matching identifier [0062-64] FIG.5),
wherein with respect to the data stored in the reception, the communication device recognizes, and processes accordingly, data transmitted from the node of the communication device itself (in response to detecting a match between a received identifier and a stored identifier, the CAN node can be configured to immediately send an error signal such as an error flag onto the CAN bus to prevent the malicious CAN message from being successfully and completely received by any CAN nodes on the CAN bus, e.g., to invalidate, destroy, and/or kill the CAN message [0062-64] FIG.5).
Elend does not explicitly teach the TXD interface is a transmission buffer and the RXD interface is a reception buffer.
HONG teaches the TXD interface is a transmission buffer and the RXD interface is a reception buffer (HONG: A CAN bus 50 is divided into a transmission line Tx and a reception line Rx, and each ECU 10 transmits a message through the transmission line Tx and receives a message through the reception line (Rx) [0059] and a CAN controller includes a transmission buffer 31 for temporarily storing data to transmit data messages and a reception buffer 36 for temporarily storing the reception messages [0156-160] FIG.2A).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Elend by the teaching of HONG to have the TXD and the RXD interfaces as buffers in order to store transmission and reception data in the order received by the microcontroller 40, and then transmits the transmission data through the CAN transceiver 20 in the order received (HONG: [0070-74] FIG.2A).
Regarding claim 2, Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of the reception buffers is present, and wherein each of the plurality of the reception buffers is allocated to respective identification information (a CAN node (e.g., in the RDX interface memory] only needs to store the identifier of the CAN messages that are sent from that particular CAN node. That is, a CAN node only needs to store one entry, e.g., the identifier of the last CAN message that was sent from the CAN node, a CAN node can be configured to store multiple different identifiers that have been sent from the respective CAN node [0063] FIG.3A).
Regarding claim 3, Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 2, wherein the reception buffers can be allocated to a plurality of pieces of identification information using a wildcard (the identifier memory is populated with at least one mask that corresponds to a group of identifiers, the identifier memory includes a mask register that allows each bit of the mask register to be set to a “1,” a “0,” or a “don't care.” The mask register can include enough bits to cover an entire identifier or only a portion of an identifier [0063] FIG.3B).
Regarding claim 4, Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 3, wherein a plurality of the wildcards can be set for respective identification information classified according to a predetermined rule (the mask registers can be programmable. In operation, an identifier from an incoming CAN message is compared with the mask and if the identifier matches the mask, a match signal is output , e.g., according to a predetermined rule [0063-64] FIG.4A).
Regarding claim 5, the modified Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 1, comprising a first table storing at least one record associated with identification information of received data received from the communication bus and a transmitting node capable of identifying whether the received data has been transmitted from the node of the communication device or has been transmitted from the node of another communication device, wherein the communication device identifies, using the first table, whether the data has been transmitted from the node of the communication device (HONG: the reception filter 35 records reception times inserted in reception messages in a reception time table for each message ID. Reception times of at least three reception messages consecutively received may all be recorded, and differences between the recorded reception times of the reception messages may be compared with a reference period to determine whether the messages are normal messages. At this time, three consecutive reception times are reception times of reception messages having the same message ID [0093] [0110] FIG.6A).
Regarding claim 6, the modified Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 1, comprising a second table storing at least one record associated with identification information of transmitted data transmitted from the transmission buffer and identification information of received data received from the communication bus, wherein the communication device identifies, using the second table, whether the data has been transmitted from the node of the communication device (HONG: a detection score learner 354 that applies a learning algorithm to a result of a period calculation, an ID filter table 358 for recording IDs allowed to be received, and a reception time table 359 for recording reception times. In detail, the ID filter table 358 is configured with a storage space for recording reception ID filters allowed to be received, and the reception time table 359 is configured with a storage space for recording message IDs, reference periods, and reception times. The ID filter table 358 and the reception time table 359 may include 2-dimensional registers, memories, caches, etc. [0110-112] FIG.8A).
Regarding claim 7, the modified Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 6, wherein the second table stores, in addition to the identification information of the transmitted data and the identification information of the received data, a record associated with a transmitting node capable of identifying whether the received data has been transmitted from the node of the communication device or has been transmitted from the node of another communication device (HONG: the CAN controller 30 extracts message IDs from the reception messages and determines whether there is matching reception ID filters in the ID filter table 358 by searching for the ID filter table 358, the message IDs are extracted from the CAN header 210 of the reception messages 200. Next, reception ID filters matching the extracted message IDs are searched for. when there is no matching reception ID filter in the ID filter table 358, the corresponding reception message is blocked, since the ID filter table 358 is a white list [e.g. device has sent data before] of message IDs that are allowed to be received, when a message ID does not exist in the whitelist, the corresponding reception message is not an allowed message. Therefore, the corresponding reception message is blocked [0138-142] FIG.8A).
Regarding claim 8, Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 1, further comprising a data discard circuit that is disposed between the transmission buffer and the reception buffer, and the communication bus (a compare module 160 located in a data path between the CAN transceiver and the CAN protocol controller [0064] FIG.5), and discards data to be transmitted from the communication bus to the reception buffer while data is being transmitted from the transmission buffer to the communication bus (the compare module is located before the CAN protocol controller such that the comparison can take place before the CAN message is completely received at the CAN protocol controller and before any corresponding message is provided to the host. If the comparison indicates that the identifier from the CAN message matches the stored entry (e.g., the identifier or the mask) and assuming the CAN node is not transmitting the CAN message itself, a match signal is output from the compare module [0064] FIG.5).
Regarding claim 9, Elend teaches the communication device according to claim 8, further comprising a switching function for switching effective or ineffective of the data discard circuit (the match signal triggers the CAN device to invalidate, destroy, and/or kill the incoming CAN message before the corresponding message is provided to the host to prevent the CAN message from implementing any malicious activity within the CAN node itself and/or within other CAN nodes in the CAN network [0064] FIG.5).
Regarding claims 10-15, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-9, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from a “method” side and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Conclusion
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111 (c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDELNABI O MUSA whose telephone number is (571)270-1901, and email address is abdelnabi.musa@uspto.gov ‘preferred’. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:00 am - 5:00 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kevin Bates, can be reached on 571-2723980. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system? Contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ABDELNABI O MUSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472