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.
Claims 1-16 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.
Claims 1, 9 and 13 recite “…calculate a route cost between a first other wireless apparatus and an own wireless apparatus in accordance with the number of hops and a movement cost, the number of hops being the number of relays of wireless signals by a second other wireless apparatus that can intervene as a wireless repeater between a first other wireless apparatus operating as a gateway terminal and an own wireless apparatus operating as a wireless terminal…”. There are two “a first other apparatus”. It is not clear and indefinite if these are same or different apparatuses. Likewise there are two “an own wireless apparatus”. It is not clear and indefinite if these are same or different apparatuses.
Claims 1, 9 and 13 recite” the movement cost reflecting a cumulative value of movement states of the own wireless apparatus”. The term “movement states” lacks a clear definition and does not provide objective boundaries as to what parameters constitute a movement state. Also, the phrase “cumulative value” is indefinite because it does not specify how the movement states are accumulated or over what period of time.
Dependent claims 2-8, 10-12 and 14-16 are also rejected for the same reasoning.
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(s) 1, 2, 4-10, 12-14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nozaki et al. (US 2011/0235504, hereinafter “Nozaki”) in view of Kamiya et al. (JP2022092974A, hereinafter “Kamiya”, with citations from the machine translated doc. attached) and further in view of “Kondo” (US 2011/0063980).
For claims 1, 9 and 13, Nozaki discloses A wireless apparatus (wireless nodes 10; see Nozaki par. 0047 and Fig. 2 and 6) comprising:
a processing unit (The relay processor 105; see Nozaki par. 0052 and Fig. 2) configured to calculate a route cost between a first other wireless apparatus and an own wireless apparatus in accordance with the number of hops and a movement cost (Once a wireless node 10 has selected a sink node 20 and a parent node, the control information includes information identifying the selected sink node 20 and parent node, and the path cost of the path between the wireless node 10 and the gateway 30 via these nodes. If the wireless node 10 is within one-hop range of the selected sink node 20, then normally the selected sink node 20 is the parent node. Otherwise, the parent node is the first relay node via which the wireless node 10 will transmit a packet to the selected sink node 20, or to the gateway 3 0 via the selected sink node 20; see Nozaki par. 0066, 0069), the number of hops being the number of relays of wireless signals by a second other wireless apparatus that can intervene as a wireless repeater (sink nodes 20) between a first other wireless apparatus operating as a gateway terminal (gateway 30) and an own wireless apparatus operating as a wireless terminal (Next, to establish the wireless routing paths in the network, the gateway 30 sends Hello packets to the sink nodes 20 on the wireline network. These Hello packets include sequence numbers. The gateway 30 sends Hello packets with identical sequence numbers to both sink nodes 20-S1, 20-S2. The path cost in these packets is set to an initial value of' 1'. In each sink node 20, the Hello packet is received by the wireline transceiver 210, converted by the wireless transceiver 203 to wireless signal form, and transmitted to the neighboring wireless nodes 10. The initial path cost of' 1' is the link cost of the link between the gateway 30 and each sink node 20; see Nozaki par. 0071-0072); and
Examiner’s note: the feature “can intervene as a wireless repeater…..” above is considered to be a recitation of the intended use of the claimed invention. A recitation of the intended use of the claimed invention must result in a structural difference between the claimed invention and the prior art in order to patentably distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art. If the prior art structure is capable of performing the intended use, then it meets the claim.
a communication unit (The wireless transceiver 103; see Nozaki par. 0050 and Fig. 2) configured to transmit first route cost information on the route cost to a third other wireless apparatus that is selecting a connection destination for wireless communication with the first other wireless apparatus (In FIG. 5, wireless node 10-g has exchanged Hello packets with its neighboring wireless nodes 10-e, 10-f, 10-h, 10-i, 10-j, 10-l, 10-m, as indicated by the double-headed arrows, and has calculated the link costs-indicated by the numbers in these arrows; see Nozaki par. 0070 and Fig. 5), wherein
Nozaki does not explicitly disclose a movement cost, the movement cost reflecting a cumulative value of movement states of the own wireless apparatus. Kamiya discloses a movement cost, the movement cost reflecting a cumulative value of movement states of the own wireless apparatus (The total link cost is calculated for each candidate of the route based on the movement cost for reaching the destination generated when disconnecting, and the route is searched from the candidates of the route based on the calculated total link cost. It is a navigation device including a route search unit. (2) In one aspect of the present invention, the route search unit reflects in the total link cost the amount of expected increase in travel time that occurs when wireless communication is disconnected with respect to the travel time required to reach the destination. The navigation device of (1) above. (3) In one aspect of the present invention, the total link cost of the calculation target route candidate is calculated by the following equation, total link cost = "probability that wireless communication is not disconnected in the calculation target route candidate" × "calculation target route". "Movement cost not related to candidate wireless communication quality" + "Radio disconnection probability of calculation target route candidate" x "(Movement cost of alternative route candidate) + (Movement cost related to movement to alternative route candidate)"; see Kamiya par. 0006, 0008, 0014; The route search unit 410 calculates the total link cost for each road (link) of the route candidate, for example, by the following equation (1). Total link cost of the calculation target link = "Probability that wireless communication will not be disconnected at the calculation target link" x "Movement cost not related to the wireless communication quality of the calculation target link" + "Wireless disconnection probability of the calculation target link" x "(Alternative link) (Movement cost) + (Movement cost related to movement to alternative link) "・ ・ ・ (1); see Kamiya par. 0065-0068). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kamiya's arrangement in Nozaki's invention to realize stable wireless communication when remotely monitoring a mobile object by wireless communication, and the wireless communication is not disconnected, therefore the purpose is to search for an appropriate route in case of disconnection or disconnection (see Kamiya par. 0005).
The combination of Nozaki and Kamiya does not explicitly disclose the processing unit is configured to calculate the movement cost at a first time, based on the speed of the own wireless apparatus at the first time and the movement cost at a time before the first time. Kondo discloses the processing unit is configured to calculate the movement cost at a first time, based on the speed of the own wireless apparatus at the first time and the movement cost at a time before the first time (For reference, an example where a path is determined based on the latest path cost list as the conventional technique does will be described. Assuming that the traveling speed of each node is 3 [km/h], path searches need to be executed at a frequency of n= 1/Tc= 16Jtfd/9=54.3 [times/sec] or higher to determine a path that is stable and keeps up with the speed of variation of the state of the network. In this case, "Tc" is the coherent time and "fd" is the Doppler frequency. [0063] In contrast, the communication apparatus 100 accumulates the past wireless costs for each path and determines a priority level for each path, based on the time correlation in wireless cost among the paths. Thereby, the probability of simultaneous degradation of the wireless cost of paths having successive priority levels may be decreased, and tolerance to variations in the state of the network may be improved. Therefore, the communication apparatus 100 executes no path search keeping up with the speed of variation in the state of the network and merely executes path searches, for example, at intervals at which the electric field intensity for reception varies due to the movement of a node; see Kondo par. 0062-0064). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kondo's arrangement in Nozaki's invention to improve the tolerance to variations in the state of a network even if the frequency of path searches is not increased and therefore, the wireless resources are not pressure (see Kondo par. 0066).
Specifically for claim 13, Nozaki discloses A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program which is executable by each of wireless apparatuses forming a wireless network by wirelessly communicating with one another, the computer program controlling the computer to execute functions of: (The wireless node 10 may be configured by installing programs with the functions of the necessary blocks in FIG. 2 in a node that already has the interfaces and processors needed for wireless communication and data processing; see Nozaki par. 0047).
For claims 2, 10 and 14, the combination of Nozaki and Kamiya does not explicitly disclose The wireless apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to update the current movement cost as time elapses, such that the current movement cost becomes large when a movement time is long or becomes small when the movement time is short, based on a speed of the own wireless apparatus at a first time and a product of the movement cost at a certain time before the first time. Kondo discloses The wireless apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to update the current movement cost as time elapses, such that the current movement cost becomes large when a movement time is long or becomes small when the movement time is short, based on a speed of the own wireless apparatus at a first time and a product of the movement cost at a certain time before the first time (For example, assuming that the electric field intensity variation of 3 [db]=l.36 [ml, the carrier frequency fc is fc=2.5 [GHz], and the time period of moving at 3 [km/h] of each node=l.64 [sec], it is assumed that the interval "n" of the path search by the communication apparatus 100 is n=l/Tm=0.6 [times/sec]. Therefore, the frequency of the path searches may be reduced to about 1/90 thereof. As described, according to the communication apparatus 100 of the embodiment, the past wireless costs are accumulated for each path and the priority level of each path is determined based on time correlations in wireless cost, among the paths. Thereby, tolerance to variations in the state of a network may be improved; see Kondo par. 0064-0065). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Kondo's arrangement in Nozaki's invention to improve the tolerance to variations in the state of a network even if the frequency of path searches is not increased and therefore, the wireless resources are not pressure (see Kondo par. 0066).
For claims 4, 12 and 16, Nozaki discloses The wireless apparatus of claim 1, wherein the communication unit is configured to
receive second route cost information on a route cost from each of first to four other wireless apparatuses (The nodes neighboring the sink nodes 20 proceed to calculate their path costs on the basis of the path cost in the Hello packets received from the sink nodes 20. For example, the wireless nodes 10-b, 10-c, and 10-d that neighbor sink node 20-Sl add link costs of '2', '1 ', and '1 ', respectively, to the path cost(' 1 ') in the received Hello packet to obtain path costs of '3', '2', and '2'. From a subsequent Hello packet transmitted from wireless node 10-c, wireless node 10-d learns that the cost of the path from wireless node 10-c to the gateway 30 is '2'. By adding the link cost ('1') of the link between wireless nodes 10-c and 10-d, wireless node 10-d can calculate that the path cost of routing a packet to or from the gateway 30 via wireless node 10-c would be '3'; see Nozaki par. 0074), and
select a connection destination, based on the second route cost information (Since the path cost of routing the packet directly via sink node 20-S1 is '2', wireless node 10-d selects sink node 20-Sl as its parent node and sets control information indicating this selection and a path cost of '2' in the Hello packets it transmits afterward…0074-0076).
For claim 5, Nozaki discloses A communication system comprising: a plurality of wireless apparatuses of claim 1, wherein a wireless network is formed by the plurality of wireless apparatuses wirelessly communicating with one another (Referring to FIG. 1, the first embodiment is a wireless communication system 1 including wireless nodes 10-a to 10-m, a pair of sink nodes 20-S1 and 20-S2, and a gateway (GW) 30; see Nozaki par. 0042 and Fig. 1).
For claim 6, Nozaki discloses A communication system comprising: a plurality of wireless apparatuses of claim 2, wherein a wireless network is formed by the plurality of wireless apparatuses wirelessly communicating with one another (Referring to FIG. 1, the first embodiment is a wireless communication system 1 including wireless nodes 10-a to 10-m, a pair of sink nodes 20-S1 and 20-S2, and a gateway (GW) 30; see Nozaki par. 0042 and Fig. 1).
For claim 7, Nozaki discloses A communication system comprising: a plurality of wireless apparatuses of claim 3, wherein a wireless network is formed by the plurality of wireless apparatuses wirelessly communicating with one another (Referring to FIG. 1, the first embodiment is a wireless communication system 1 including wireless nodes 10-a to 10-m, a pair of sink nodes 20-S1 and 20-S2, and a gateway (GW) 30; see Nozaki par. 0042 and Fig. 1).
For claim 8, Nozaki discloses A communication system comprising: a plurality of wireless apparatuses of claim 4, wherein a wireless network is formed by the plurality of wireless apparatuses wirelessly communicating with one another (Referring to FIG. 1, the first embodiment is a wireless communication system 1 including wireless nodes 10-a to 10-m, a pair of sink nodes 20-S1 and 20-S2, and a gateway (GW) 30; see Nozaki par. 0042 and Fig. 1).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 11 and 15 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 and also if the above pending 112b rejections are overcome.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: claims 3, 11 and 15 would be allowable because the closest prior arts listed above either alone or in combination, fail to anticipate or render obvious, the claimed invention of “after calculating a first movement cost corresponding to a first time, the processing unit is configured to acquire a first speed of the own wireless apparatus corresponding to a second time, and calculate a second movement cost corresponding to the second time, based on the first movement cost and the first speed”, in combination with all other limitations in the claim(s) as defined by applicant.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHAE S LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-8236. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30AM - 5:00PM.
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/CHAE S LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415