DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
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.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. In particular, this Application claims foreign priority to a Japanese application filed on 2 Mar 2023. Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements, submitted on 28 Feb 2024 and 15 Jan 2026, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because in paragraph 42, “IG signal” needs its acronym “IG” spelled out as it appears to be the first time the acronym is used. Appropriate correction is required.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7 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.
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 1-12 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.
A. The claim limitation “detection unit,” “deletion unit,” and “determination unit” invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f). However, the written description fails to disclose the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the entire claimed function and to clearly link the structure, material, or acts to the function. The disclosure states that “The processor 211 constructs multiple function units by executing multiple instructions included in the program.” Spec., ¶23. However, nowhere in the disclosure is are the “function units” constructed by the processor recited as the claimed “detection unit,” “deletion unit,” or “determination unit.” Instead, the Specification equates each “unit” with a step in figure 4. See e.g. (“Step S60 corresponds to a detection unit” in Spec., ¶48 or “step S70 corresponds to a deletion unit” in Spec., ¶49). A single step in a method is insufficient structure for a means-plus-function limitation. Therefore, the claim is indefinite and is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
Applicant may:
(a) Amend the claim so that the claim limitation will no longer be interpreted as a limitation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph;
(b) Amend the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites what structure, material, or acts perform the entire claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(c) Amend the written description of the specification such that it clearly links the structure, material, or acts disclosed therein to the function recited in the claim, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)).
If applicant is of the opinion that the written description of the specification already implicitly or inherently discloses the corresponding structure, material, or acts and clearly links them to the function so that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize what structure, material, or acts perform the claimed function, applicant should clarify the record by either:
(a) Amending the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function and clearly links or associates the structure, material, or acts to the claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(b) Stating on the record what the corresponding structure, material, or acts, which are implicitly or inherently set forth in the written description of the specification, perform the claimed function. For more information, see 37 CFR 1.75(d) and MPEP §§ 608.01(o) and 2181.
B. Claim 2 recites, in part, “the determination unit determines, when the communication channel, which is adjacent to the communication channel used for the wireless communication.” It is unclear which channel in claim 1, “the communication channel” refers back to. Additionally, “the communication channel used for the wireless communication” fails to find antecedent basis in claim 1. Instead, claim 1 recites, in part, “the plurality of communication channels used for the wireless communication.” Claim 3 is rejected due to its dependence upon an indefinite claim.
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.
Claims 1-4, 8, 10, 11, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lou (US 20170280458) in view of Yang (US 20090041088).
Regarding claims 1 and 13, Lou teaches a wireless communication system and method that performs wireless communication between a master device and a slave device via one communication channel, which is sequentially selected from a plurality of communication channels (Lou, ¶9 – master and slave devices in a piconet hop between a plurality of channels in a defined sequence), the wireless communication system comprising:
a detection unit that detects characteristic data indicating communication quality in the performed wireless communication, for each of the communication channels (Lou, ¶¶10, 40 – master device determines which channels have good and bad channel quality);
a deletion unit that deletes communication channel, in which deterioration in communication quality is determined based on the characteristic data detected by the detection unit, from the plurality of communication channels used for the wireless communication (Lou, ¶27 – master device removes a channel in which the RF conditions have changed and the channel is no longer considered a good channel); and
a determination unit that determines . . . restorability of the deleted communication channel to the plurality of communication channels used for the wireless communication. Lou, ¶30 (a removed channel may be re-added to the channel map when it is considered good again).
Lou does not explicitly teach re-adding a channel “based on the characteristic data of a neighboring communication channel close in frequency to a communication channel that has been deleted by the deletion unit.” However, Yang teaches re-activation of neighboring channels when the bad channel flags of a proximate channel are erased. Yang, ¶30, claims 10-11. In the embodiment of Yang, when a hopped channel k is found to be a good channel, a bad mark is cancelled for at least one “re-activation channel other than the hopped channel k.” Claim 10. In particular, the one or more re-activation channel is between g1 and g2 on the frequency spectrum. Yang, claim 12 and 15, and figure 11B (e.g. channels ((g2+k)/2) or ((k+g1)/2) is/are re-activated). At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to re-add a channel to the channel map, taught by Lou, when it is near another hopped channel with good quality, as taught by Yang, in order to enable the reuse of the previously marked “bad” channels for subsequent data or voice communication. Yang, ¶25.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Lou and Yang also teaches wherein in a case where the wireless communication is performed between the master device and the slave device via the communication channel, the determination unit determines, when the communication channel, which is adjacent to the communication channel used for the wireless communication, has been deleted by the deletion unit, restorability of the deleted communication channel. Yang, ¶27 (two conditions must be satisfied before re-activating a channel near the hopped channel k).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Lou and Yang also teaches wherein the determination unit does not determine, when the deletion unit determines deterioration in communication quality of the communication channel used for the wireless communication based on the characteristic data and deletes the communication channel from the plurality of communication channels used for the wireless communication, restorability of the communication channel adjacent to the communication channel used for the wireless communication. Lou, ¶13 (if the channel quality is not considered to be good, the channel is placed on a list of channels that will not be used); Lou, ¶30 (only good channels can be re-added, therefore it a channel is never considered good, its re-addition is not determined).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Lou and Yang also teaches wherein the determination unit determines restorability of the deleted communication channel according to different determination standards of a case where both-side communication channels adjacent to the deleted communication channel, which is a restorability determination target, are usable for the wireless communication and a case where only one-side communication channel adjacent to the deleted communication channel, which is a restorability determination target, is usable for the wireless communication. Yang, figure 11b and ¶29 (only neighboring channels in between a good hopped channel k and an another good channel [either g1 or g2] are re-activated [i.e. neighboring channels that do not have good channels on both sides of it are not re-activated, which results in a different standard from neighboring channels that do have good channels on both sides]).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Lou and Yang also teaches wherein the determination unit determines that, when the both-side communication channels adjacent to the deleted communication channel, which is a restorability determination target, are usable for the wireless communication, the deleted communication channel is restorable to the plurality of communication channels used for the wireless communication based on a fact that the both-side communication channels are usable for the wireless communication. Yang, ¶¶29-30 (neighboring channel k+g1/2 is re-activated when both channels k and g1, which are located on both sides of channel k+g1/2, are good channels).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Lou and Yang also teaches wherein the wireless communication is packet communication (Yang, ¶4 and Lou, ¶10 – packet-based wireless communication), and the characteristic data is at least one of received signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio/signal interference-to-noise ratio, packet error rate, packet arrival rate, and bit error rate in the packet communication. Lou, ¶25 (RSSI, BER etc.).
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Lou and Yang also teaches wherein at least one of the master device and the slave device is mounted on a moving object. Lou, ¶3 (hearing devices may be mounted on a human).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lou (US 20170280458) in view of Yang (US 20090041088) and further in view of Korneliussen (US 20210385674).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Lou and Yang teaches the wireless communication system according to claim 1, . . .and the communication channel, which is deleted from the plurality of communication channels used for the wireless communication by the deletion unit, is the communication channel included in . . . [a] group. Lou, ¶¶27 (channel used by primary wireless connection may be removed from the channel map when the channel is no longer considered a good channel).
The combination of Lou and Yang does not explicitly teach “wherein the plurality of communication channels has a first channel group including a plurality of communication channels used for a connection establishment process of establishing a communication connection between the master device and the slave device, and a second channel group including a plurality of communication channels used for a communication process of performing data communication between the master device and the slave device.” However, Korneliussen teaches two types of channels: advertising channels and data channels. Korneliussen, ¶92 (channels 122, 124, and 126 are advertising channels, while all other channels are data channels); see also id. at ¶67 and figure 3 (advertising channels 38 and data channels 40 and 42). These channels are utilized between a central device 10 and a peripheral device 12. Id. at ¶60 and figure 1. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to remove a data channel from a channel map, as taught by the combination of Lou and Yang, where the RF channels include both advertising and data channels, as taught by Korneliussen, in order to prevent the need to assign channel ratings (i.e. good or bad) to advertising channels, which reduces the number of channels that need to be measured. Id. at ¶92 (no ratings for advertising channels).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lou (US 20170280458) in view of Yang (US 20090041088) and further in view of Kizu (US 20060188004).
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Lou and Yang teaches the wireless communication system according to claim 11, but does not explicitly teach “wherein the moving object is a vehicle.” However, Kizu teaches its Bluetooth device to be a car navigation device or car audio device. Kizu, ¶43. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to implement the channel map adaptation, taught by the combination of Lou and Yang, using a car Bluetooth device, as taught by Kizu, in order to implement a Bluetooth communication network among devices within a car. Kizu, ¶¶5-6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN S LAMONT whose telephone number is (571)270-7514 and email address is benjamin.lamont@uspto.gov (see MPEP 502.03, which allows for written authorization via the USPTO electronic filing system or mail, but not via email). The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461