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 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.
Claim 15 is 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.
It is unclear whether the “one or more wireless optical access point” in claim 15, lines 1-2 is the same as or different from the “wireless optical access point” in claim 1, line 1.
It is unclear whether the “one or more wireless optical end points” in claim 15, lines 2-3 is the same as or different from the “wireless optical end point” in claim 1, line 9.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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, 3, 8 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0037566).
Regarding claims 1 and 15, Willebrand discloses an optical wireless communication system in FIG. 3 comprising one or more wireless optical wireless access points and one or more wireless optical end points, a wireless optical access point comprising:
a wireless optical transceiver 56, a Radio Frequency, RF, transceiver 58 for transmitting and receiving RF signals (in RF path 28), and
an apparatus (corresponding to master and slave stations 22 and 24 in FIG. 1) for controlling wireless optical communication, the apparatus being configured to provide control signaling of a radio frequency, RF, based protocol using the RF transceiver 58 (paragraph 32, lines 1-4: “The master and slave stations 22 and 24 share control and status information by communicating a control token packet 36, an exemplary data structure of which is shown in FIG. 2, back and forth between the stations …The particular header fields 38 depend on the particular communication protocol being used.”), for a peer-to-peer connection (corresponding to a point-to-point connection) establishment for setting up a bi-directional wireless optical connection (corresponding to optical path 26) between the wireless optical access point (corresponding to the master station 22) and a wireless optical endpoint (corresponding to the slave station 24) and to use the wireless optical connection for optical data transfer (paragraph 27, lines 1-7: “A hybrid wireless optical and radio frequency (RF) communication link (the hybrid link) 20 is shown in FIG. 1. The hybrid link 20 combines free-space optical communication technology … with high speed RF technology … to achieve a wireless terrestrial hybrid laser/microwave communication link for the communication of data between two communication end-points of the hybrid link 20 at stations 22 and 24. The integration of these two wireless communication technologies (optical and RF) in the hybrid link 20 increases the statistical availability or reliability of … point-to-point wireless communication.”),
wherein the apparatus is configured to:
exchange, using the RF transceiver 58, the control signaling (corresponding to control information) between the wireless optical access point and the wireless optical endpoint via a peer-to-peer RF connection between the wireless optical access point and the wireless optical endpoint (paragraph 14, lines 9-10: “Control and status information is transferred between the optical transceivers over the RF path”; Paragraph 58, lines 1-2: “For a control packet 36 (FIG. 2) that originates in the master station 22, the master RF transceiver 58 sends the control packet 36 to the slave RF transceiver 66,”), and
wake up the wireless optical transceiver (corresponding to switching between standby mode to active mode) and establish the wireless optical connection (corresponding to reestablishing the optical path) when the peer-to-peer RF connection has been set up (paragraph 14, lines 11-13: “Even while the RF link is transmitting the data, it is preferable to continue attempted transmission of optical signals between the communication points to determine when to reestablish the optical path for the transmission of data with the optical signals can be reliably communicated.”; Paragraph 29, lines 9-10: “The RF path 28 exchanges control and status information between the master and slave stations 22 and 24 in both the active and standby modes and additionally transmits the data in the standby mode.”).
Regarding claim 3, Willebrand discloses a wireless optical endpoint in FIG. 3 comprising:
a wireless optical transceiver 56, a Radio Frequency, RF, transceiver 58 for transmitting and receiving RF signals (in RF path 28), and
an apparatus (corresponding to master and slave stations 22 and 24 in FIG. 1) for controlling wireless optical communication, the apparatus being configured to provide control signaling of a radio frequency, RF, based protocol using the RF transceiver 58 (paragraph 32, lines 1-4: “The master and slave stations 22 and 24 share control and status information by communicating a control token packet 36, an exemplary data structure of which is shown in FIG. 2, back and forth between the stations …The particular header fields 38 depend on the particular communication protocol being used.”), for a peer-to-peer connection (corresponding to a point-to-point connection) establishment for setting up a bi-directional wireless optical connection (corresponding to optical path 26) between a wireless optical access point (corresponding to the master station 22) and the wireless optical endpoint (corresponding to the slave station 24) and to use the wireless optical connection for optical data transfer (paragraph 27, lines 1-7: “A hybrid wireless optical and radio frequency (RF) communication link (the hybrid link) 20 is shown in FIG. 1. The hybrid link 20 combines free-space optical communication technology … with high speed RF technology … to achieve a wireless terrestrial hybrid laser/microwave communication link for the communication of data between two communication end-points of the hybrid link 20 at stations 22 and 24. The integration of these two wireless communication technologies (optical and RF) in the hybrid link 20 increases the statistical availability or reliability of … point-to-point wireless communication.”),
wherein the apparatus is configured to:
exchange, using the RF transceiver 58, the control signaling (corresponding to control information) between the wireless optical access point and the wireless optical endpoint via a peer-to-peer RF connection between the wireless optical access point and the wireless optical endpoint (paragraph 14, lines 9-10: “Control and status information is transferred between the optical transceivers over the RF path”; Paragraph 58, lines 1-2: “For a control packet 36 (FIG. 2) that originates in the master station 22, the master RF transceiver 58 sends the control packet 36 to the slave RF transceiver 66,”), and
wake up the wireless optical transceiver (corresponding to switching between standby mode to active mode) and establish the wireless optical connection (corresponding to reestablishing the optical path) when the peer-to-peer RF connection has been set up (paragraph 14, lines 11-13: “Even while the RF link is transmitting the data, it is preferable to continue attempted transmission of optical signals between the communication points to determine when to reestablish the optical path for the transmission of data with the optical signals can be reliably communicated.”; Paragraph 29, lines 9-10: “The RF path 28 exchanges control and status information between the master and slave stations 22 and 24 in both the active and standby modes and additionally transmits the data in the standby mode.”).
Regarding claim 8, Willebrand discloses that the apparatus is configured to control a transmit power used for the peer-to-peer RF connection based on the coverage area (corresponding to optimum optical communication) of the wireless optical transceiver of the wireless optical access point (paragraph 30, lines 1-4: “The master station 22 constantly monitors a received optical power level of a signal received through the optical path 26 from the slave station 24, and vice versa, in both active and standby modes. Based on the received optical power level information, each station 22 and 24 calculates an amount by which the other station 24 or 22 needs to adjust its transmitted optical power level for optimum optical communication in the optical path 26.”).
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.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of the article “WoV: WiFi-based VLC testbed” (hereinafter, Gawłowicz et al.).
Regarding claim 5, Willebrand fails to disclose that the peer-to-peer RF connection uses the same MAC layer as the wireless optical connection.
However, in an analogous art, Gawlowicz discloses that a peer-to-peer RF connection uses the same MAC layer as a wireless optical connection (Abstract, lines 1-6: “We present a complete Visible Light Communications (VLC) transceiver system … the physical and data link layers of radio frequency (RF) WiFi, i.e. 2.4 GHz, are reused for VLC.”; Page 2, Section II. B., lines 2-4: “there is a single medium access control (MAC) sublayer common to all physical (PHY) layers. This feature will allow easier interoperability among the many physical layers.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand by incorporating this feature taught in Gawlowicz for the purpose of reducing the complexity of protocol and implementation and processing overhead.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of Dellmo et al. (US 2002/0094087), and further in view of Montemurro et al. (US 2013/0229944).
Regarding claim 6, Willebrand fails to disclose that the RF transceiver is a Wi-Fi transceiver.
However, in an analogous art, Dellmo discloses that an RF transceiver (paragraph 38, line 2: “The RF transmitter and receiver) is a Wi-Fi transceiver (paragraph 34, lines 2-3: “The secure wireless LAN devices 20 are used to provide the secure RF links between the access points 30.”; Paragraph 37, lines 1-2: “The MAC 60 may implement a predetermined wireless LAN MAC protocol. In one preferred embodiment, the LAN MAC protocol may be based upon the IEEE 802.11 standard.” The IEEE 802.11 standard corresponds to Wi-Fi.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand by incorporating this feature taught in Dellmo for the purpose of providing a low-cost interface with standardized peer-to-peer capabilities.
The combination of Willebrand and Dellmo fails to disclose that the peer-to-peer RF connection is a Wi-Fi Direct connection.
However, in an analogous art, Montemurro discloses that a peer-to-peer RF connection is a Wi-Fi Direct connection (paragraph 29, lines 1-4: “wireless device 201 and one or more other wireless devices 195 and 197 in FIG. 1 may be operative to establish Wi-Fi P2P wireless network connections with each other in a Wi-Fi P2P wireless network. Here, one of the communicate devices may be configured to enter into an AP mode of operation, so that other communication devices may associate with them for direct RF communications therebetween.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand and Dellmo by incorporating this feature taught in Montemurro for the purpose of allowing robust discovery and high throughput data exchange.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of Elliott (US 2016/0037337).
Regarding claim 7, Willebrand fails to disclose that the control signaling is used for authentication and generating or exchanging of encryption key materials for use in securing data transfer over the peer-to-peer RF connection and the wireless optical connection.
However, in an analogous art, Elliott discloses that a control signaling is used for authentication and generating or exchanging of encryption key materials for use in securing data transfer over a peer-to-peer RF connection and a wireless optical connection (paragraph 35, lines 1-2: “The device 202 may establish an encrypted communication session with the access point 206 by providing a public use credential to the access point 206 as part of initiating a secure device-to-device communication session.”; Paragraph 37, lines 4-7: “Devices 202, 204 may optionally have credential data or may be configured to obtain information to ensure that the access point 206 with which it is authenticating contains the legitimate private key (e.g., public certificate 216) corresponding to the credentials expected for the access point 206.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand by incorporating this feature taught in Elliott for the purpose of enabling secure device pairing and encrypted communication over the RF and optical connections.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of Dellmo et al. (US 2002/0094087).
Regarding claim 9, Willebrand fails to disclose that the RF transceiver is a Wi-Fi transceiver.
However, in an analogous art, Dellmo discloses that an RF transceiver (paragraph 38, line 2: “The RF transmitter and receiver) is a Wi-Fi transceiver (paragraph 34, lines 2-3: “The secure wireless LAN devices 20 are used to provide the secure RF links between the access points 30.”; Paragraph 37, lines 1-2: “The MAC 60 may implement a predetermined wireless LAN MAC protocol. In one preferred embodiment, the LAN MAC protocol may be based upon the IEEE 802.11 standard.” The IEEE 802.11 standard corresponds to Wi-Fi.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand by incorporating this feature taught in Dellmo for the purpose of providing a low-cost interface with standardized peer-to-peer capabilities.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of Weste et al. (US 6,944,121).
Regarding claim 10, Willebrand fails to disclose that the apparatus is implemented as a single baseband chip or integrated circuit.
However, in an analogous art, Weste discloses that an apparatus is implemented as a single baseband chip or integrated circuit (FIG. 3 is a single chip radio transceiver. FIG. 4B illustrates another embodiment of a dual-conversion superheterodyne RF transceiver 480.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand by incorporating this feature taught in Weste for the purpose of achieving a compact, low-power implementation of the apparatus and reducing cost.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of Golparian (US 2009/0324216).
Regarding claim 11, Willebrand fails to disclose an optical detector for detecting a wireless optical signal, wherein the apparatus is configured to wake up the wireless optical transceiver in response to an output of the optical detector in addition to the peer-to-peer RF connection having been set up.
However, in an analogous art, Golparian discloses an optical detector 210 for detecting a wireless optical signal, wherein an apparatus is configured to wake up a wireless optical transceiver (corresponding to a communication unit) in response to an output of the optical detector in addition to a peer-to-peer RF connection having been set up (paragraph 40, lines 1-6: “The optical activity detector 210 … detects (at 304) optical activity … on an optical link connected to one of the transceivers 202A-202D of the communication unit … if the optical activity continues for at least a T1 duration, then the optical activity detector 210 awakens (at 308) the communication unit”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand by incorporating this feature taught in Golparian for the purpose of conserving energy by keeping the optical transceiver in a low-power state until an optical signal is present.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of Dellmo et al. (US 2002/0094087), and further in view of McCann et al. (US 2016/0173586).
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Willebrand and Dellmo fails to disclose that the peer-to-peer RF connection is a Wi-Fi Direct connection and wherein the apparatus is configured to autonomously set up the wireless optical access point in the role of a peer-to-peer group owner arranged to set up a persistent peer-to-peer group.
However, in an analogous art, McCann discloses that a peer-to-peer RF connection is a Wi-Fi Direct connection (paragraph 17, line 1: “The communication between a wireless device and a P2P network/group may be through Wi-Fi or WLAN protocols.”; Paragraph 43, line 1: “there may be a service-specific indication (e.g. for Wi-Fi Direct Services”) and that an apparatus is configured to autonomously set up a wireless optical access point in the role of a peer-to-peer group owner arranged to set up a persistent peer-to-peer group (paragraph 26, lines 4-6: “the communications may include persistence information (e.g. PGI bit) that either candidate device 202, 204 may use in deciding to establish a group and deciding whether the group will be persistent or not.”; Paragraph 27, line 4: “persistence information may be used for determining which device should be the group owner”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand and Dellmo by incorporating this feature taught in McCain for the purpose of facilitating seamless and efficient peer-to-peer networking by automatically managing group creation and persistence.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of Dellmo et al. (US 2002/0094087), and further in view of Davis et al. (US 2023/0401310).
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Willebrand and Dellmo fails to discloses that the wireless optical endpoint is configured to operate in a peer-to-peer group with the wireless access point, wherein the peer-to-peer RF connection is a Wi-Fi Direct connection, and the apparatus configured to store: network credentials and the assigned peer-to-peer group-owner and group-client role information from connections with the wireless optical access point or pre-shared information of a wireless optical access point, for subsequent re-instantiation of the peer-to-peer group.
However, in an analogous art, Davis discloses that a wireless optical endpoint is configured to operate in a peer-to-peer group with the wireless access point, wherein the peer-to-peer RF connection is a Wi-Fi Direct connection, and the apparatus configured to store: network credentials and the assigned peer-to-peer group-owner and group-client role information from connections with the wireless optical access point or pre-shared information of a wireless optical access point, for subsequent re-instantiation of the peer-to-peer group (paragraph 74, lines 4-8: “the power management device and smartphone store network credentials and their assigned roles as a Group Owner or P2P Client for subsequent re-instantiations of the group. After the discovery phase, if power management device 200 or smartphone 10 recognizes that they have formed a persistent group with each other in the past, either power management device 200 or smartphone 10 can use the Wi-Fi Direct invitation procedure to quickly re-instantiate the group rather than re-negotiating which device will take on the Group Owner role.”; Paragraph 55, lines 1-3: “power management device 200 preferably includes the necessary circuitry and components to communicate by way of bidirectional visible, infrared or ultraviolet optical wireless communications such as, and by way of example, Li-Fi.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand and Dellmo by incorporating this feature taught in Davis for the purpose of eliminating the need for full negotiation and reducing connection setup time during subsequent sessions.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Willebrand et al. (US 2004/0208591) in view of WO2018/176444 (hereinafter, Jiang et al.).
Regarding claim 14, Willebrand fails to disclose that the wireless optical connection is a G.vlc connection.
However, in an analogous art, Jiang discloses that a wireless optical connection is a G.vlc connection (paragraph 299, lines 3-6: “the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is developing a network architecture for the VLC standard (G. vlc) for indoor applications. For example, full-duplex optical wireless communication systems with multiple nodes.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the wireless optical access point in Willebrand by incorporating this feature taught in Jiang for the purpose of providing a framework for high-speed, low-latency visible light communication.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 4 are 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art fails to disclose the recited combination of elements in a wireless optical access point, including wherein the apparatus is configured to receive LiFi characteristics of the wireless optical endpoint over the Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connection to the wireless optical access point and where the wake up of the wireless optical transceiver is subject to the LiFi characteristics of the wireless optical endpoint and the wireless optical access point matching, as in claim 2; a wireless optical endpoint, wherein the apparatus is configured to receive LiFi characteristics of the wireless optical access point over the Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connection and where the wake up of the wireless optical transceiver is subject to the LiFi characteristics of the wireless optical endpoint and the wireless optical access point matching, as in claim 4.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Dawson et al. (US 2020/0281468) discloses that a receiver may comprise an infra-red (IR) receiver, a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi receiver or an optical wireless communications (Li-FI) receiver.
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/SAM BHATTACHARYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646