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 .
Priority
This application is a 371 of PCT/FR2022/051266 filed on 6/27/2022.
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. FRANCE 2107151 filed on 7/1/2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on 12/29/2023. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement has been considered by the examiner.
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because of following informalities:
The abstract contains an acronym and typographical error. For clarity, it is suggested to amend the Abstract as suggested below. See, MPEP §608.01(b).
(Proposed Abstract) “A transmission method for an Orthogonal Multiple-Access Multiple-Relay Channel (OMAMRC) telecommunication system comprising M sourcesL relays, and a destination, wherein M ≥ 2, L ≥ 0. When a message from a source was unable to be decoded by the destination, the system organizes a simultaneous retransmission, by a set of nodes in the system that decoded the source, of a message transmitted by the set of nodes to the destination.”
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 8, and 9 are objected because of the following informalities:
In claim 1, it is suggested to replace “where N≥M≥2” (in lines 2-3) with “wherein N≥M≥2”, “comprising the following implemented by …” with “comprising the following steps implemented by …” (in line 5), and “reception of” (in line 9 and line 14) with “receiving” for grammatical consistency with other limitations and for clarity.
In claim 8, it is suggested to amend the claim for clarity to read:
“A system comprising N nodes with M sources (S1, ..., SM), N−M relays and a destination (d), wherein N≥M≥2, for implementing the communication method according to claim 1.”.
In claim 9, it is suggested to amend the claim for clarity to read:
“A processing circuit comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory communication method according to claim 1, when the computer program is executed by the processor.”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1-9 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1:
Claim 1 recites a limitation “the transmitted message” in line 8, “the message transmitted by the source Si” in line 11, “the at least one message transmitted by the source Si” in lines 12-13, “the same second redundancy” in line 14, “the message from the source Si transmitted simultaneously” in linen 14-15, and “the same time slot” in line 15. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the limitations in the claim.
Regarding claims 2-9:
Claims 2-9 are also rejected because they are directly or indirectly dependent upon the rejected claim 1, as set forth above.
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 1-4 and 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cerovic et al. (WO 2019/162592 A1, hereinafter Cerovic) in view of Cerovic et al. (“Efficient Cooperative HARQ for Multi-Source Multi-Relay Wireless Networks”, 2018 14th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), October 15-17, 2018, hereinafter Cerovic2).
Note that US patent family (US Publication No. US 2021/0067284 A1) is used for English translation of Cerovic (WO 2019/162592 A1) and mapping to the claim limitations.
Regarding claim 1:
Cerovic teaches a communication method for an N-node telecommunication system with M sources (S1, . . . , SM), N−M relays and a destination (d), where N≥M≥2 (see, Cerovic: Fig. 1 and para. [0023], “One subject of the present invention is a method for transmitting successive messages forming a frame for a telecommunications system with M sources, possibly L relays and a destination, M≥2, L≥0 according to an orthogonal multiple access scheme of the transmission channel between the nodes taken from among the M sources and the L relays with a maximum number of M+Tmax time slots per transmitted frame including M slots allocated, during a first phase, to the successive transmission of the M sources, and Tmax slots for one or more cooperative transmissions allocated, during a second phase, to one or more nodes selected according to a selection strategy.”), comprising a first phase during which the destination receives successive transmissions from the M sources of a message corresponding to a first redundancy (RV0) which is a codeword (see, Cerovic: para. [0008], “In this type of cooperation, the mutually independent sources, in a first phase, broadcast their coded information sequences in the form of messages for the attention of a single recipient and in the presence of relays.”; para. [0029], “The mutually independent sources, during the first phase, broadcast their coded information sequences in the form of messages for the attention of a single recipient. Each source broadcasts its messages with an initial rate.”; para. [0041], “In the first phase, the M sources successively transmit their message during the M time slots using, respectively, modulation and coding schemes that are determined from the initial rates.”) and a second phase comprising the following implemented by the destination (d) (see, Cerovic: para. [0008], “The relays, in a second phase, access the channel orthogonally in time with one another in order to transmit their message to the destination. The selectivity of the relays means that a relay transmits a message only if it decodes at least one source without an error. During the second phase, a source may behave like a relay that has decoded at least one of the messages from the sources without an error, the message from the source under consideration. Thus, during the second phase, all of the nodes of the system are considered to be relay nodes that are able to access the channel orthogonally in time. During the second phase, the destination may choose which node should transmit at a given time. It is also possible for the relay nodes to follow an activation sequence known in advance by the destination and by the relay nodes during the second phase.”).
Cerovic does not explicitly teach wherein broadcasting a message identifying one or more sources for which it has not decoded without error the transmitted message, referred to as undecoded sources, reception of at least one identifier from at least one source si not decoded by the destination transmitted by a set of nodes comprising at least one node that decoded without error the message transmitted by the source si, broadcasting a request for retransmitting the at least one message transmitted by the source si, and reception of the same second redundancy of the message from the source si transmitted simultaneously by at least two nodes in the same time slot.
In the same field of endeavor, Cerovic2 teaches wherein broadcasting a message identifying one or more sources for which it has not decoded without error the transmitted message, referred to as undecoded sources (see, Cerovic2: Page 3, “The destination broadcasts M bits that indicate its decoding set Sd,t-1 after round t-1 over the control channel.”), reception of at least one identifier from at least one source si not decoded by the destination transmitted by a set of nodes comprising at least one node that decoded without error the message transmitted by the source si (see, Cerovic2: Page 3, “each cooperating source and each relay which was able to decode at least one source message that is not included in the decoding set of the destination sends a signal on a dedicated unicast control channel.”), broadcasting a request for retransmitting the at least one message transmitted by the source si (see, Cerovic2: Page 3, “Using the adopted node selection strategy, the destination can make the scheduling decision about the node to select for transmission. Its decision is broadcasted using a control channel.”), and reception of the same second redundancy of the message from the source si transmitted simultaneously by at least two nodes in the same time slot (see, Cerovic2: Page 3, “Selected node transmits applying the appropriate type of HARQ protocol.”).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teachings of Cerovic in combination of the teachings of Cerovic2 in order for the destination to make the scheduling decision about the node to select for transmission by using an adopted node selection strategy and to receive the message transmitted by the source from the selected nodes (see, Cerovic2: Page 3).
Regarding claim 2:
As discussed above, Cerovic in view of Cerovic2 teaches all limitations in claim 1.
Cerovic further teaches wherein the first and second redundancy versions are different (see, Cerovic: para. [0018], “A hybrid and automatic repeat request (HARQ) with incremental redundancy (IR) is used during the second phase as an effective a posteriori mechanism for fast link adaptation, in which the source coding rates adapt to the known quality of the channel. During each time slot of the second phase, the destination schedules the transmitting node.”, which means that the redundancy version used during the first phase (i.e., first RV (RV0)) is different from the incremented redundancy version used during the second phase (e.g., RV1, RV2, etc.).
Regarding claim 3:
As discussed above, Cerovic in view of Cerovic2 teaches all limitations in claim 1.
Cerovic2 further teaches wherein selecting the source si from a set of undecoded sources whose identifiers are received from the nodes that decoded without error at least one message transmitted by the undecoded sources to the destination (see, Cerovic2: Page 3, “each cooperating source and each relay which was able to decode at least one source message that is not included in the decoding set of the destination sends a signal on a dedicated unicast control channel. … Using the adopted node selection strategy, the destination can make the scheduling decision about the node to select for transmission.”).
Regarding claim 4:
As discussed above, Cerovic in view of Cerovic2 teaches all limitations in claim 2.
Cerovic2 further teaches wherein the selected source si is the source for which a signal-to-noise ratio associated with a composite transmission channel, consisting of all the transmission channels established between each of the nodes that decoded without error the message transmitted by the source si and the destination, is the highest (see, Cerovic2: page 5, “At the destination, Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) (at symbol or coded bit level) is used after each round in order to decode the message of a given source. By doing so, we obtain the highest achievable SNR, denoted MRC, for a given source at the destination which is equal to the summation of individual SNRs from the previous rounds.”).
Regarding claim 7:
As discussed above, Cerovic in view of Cerovic2 teaches all limitations in claim 1.
Cerovic further teaches wherein the messages intended to be transmitted by the M sources (S1, …. , SM) are coded using an incremental redundancy code and segmented into a plurality of redundancy blocks corresponding to different redundancy versions (see, Cerovic: para. [0095], “The coding uses an incremental redundancy code. The code word that is obtained is divided into redundancy blocks. The incremental redundancy code may be systematic, and the bits of information are then included in the first block. Whether the incremental redundancy code is systematic or not, it is such that the first block is able to be decoded independently of the other blocks.”).
Regarding claim 8:
Cerovic teaches a system comprising N nodes with M sources (S1, …, SM), N−M relays and a destination (d), N≥M≥2, for implementing the communication method according to claim 1 (see, Cerovic: Abstract, “The system has M sources, optionally L relays, and a destination, M≥2, L≥0.”; para. [0052], “Another subject of the invention is a system comprising M sources, possibly L relays, and a destination, M>1, L≥0, for implementing a transmission method according to a preceding subject.”). Therefore, claim 8 is rejected by applying the similar rationale used to reject claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 9:
Cerovic teaches a processing circuit comprising a processor and a memory, the memory storing program code instructions of a computer program for implementing the transmission method according to claim 1(see, Cerovic: para. [0053], “Another subject of the invention is each of the specific software applications on one or more information media, said applications containing program instructions suitable for implementing the transmission method when these applications are executed by processors.”; para. [0055], “The memory may be incorporated into any entity or device capable of storing the program. The memory may be of ROM type, for example a CD-ROM or a microelectronic circuit ROM, or else of magnetic type, for example a USB key or a hard disk.”), when the computer program is executed by the processor. Therefore, claim 9 is rejected by applying the similar rationale used to reject claim 1 above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 6 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112(pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action (in pages 4-5) and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JI-HAE YEA whose telephone number is (571) 270-3310. The examiner can normally be reached on MON-FRI, 7am-3pm, ET.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, SUJOY K KUNDU can be reached on (571) 272-8586. 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 https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair. 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.
/JI-HAE YEA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471