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 .
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of invention I, claims 1-10 and 20, in the reply filed on 6/22/26 is acknowledged.
Claims 11-19 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 6/22/26.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-6, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kishida et al., US 2026/0006519, (“Kishida”), in view of Hanabusa et al., US 2008/0002614, (“Hanabusa”).
Independent Claims
Regarding claim 1, Kishida teaches “A method comprising steps of:
configuring a plurality of Wi-Fi networks with a protocol (Fig. 8, each of the first and second APs is implicitly configured with a protocol, e.g., wifi/wlan protocol);
detecting a transition of a client device from a first Wi-Fi network to a second Wi-Fi network within the plurality of Wi-Fi networks (Fig. 8 and paragraph no. 0068, “After detecting the second access point 10-2, as illustrated in FIG. 8 , the handover unit 235 of the terminal 20 disconnects the link LI1 between the first access point 10-1 and the terminal 20, and connects the wireless signal processing unit 150 of the second access point 10-2 and the wireless signal processing unit 250 of the terminal 20. As a result, the handover to the second access point 10-2 is executed for the link LI1”); and
maintaining an ongoing connection for the client device utilizing the protocol during the transition” (Fig. 8 and paragraph no. 0068, “After detecting the second access point 10-2, as illustrated in FIG. 8, the handover unit 235 of the terminal 20 disconnects the link LI1 between the first access point 10-1 and the terminal 20, and connects the wireless signal processing unit 150 of the second access point 10-2 and the wireless signal processing unit 250 of the terminal 20. As a result, the handover to the second access point 10-2 is executed for the link LI1. During this period, communication between the first access point 10-1 and the terminal 20 can be continued on other links (the link LI2 and the link LI3) of the multi-link”).
Kishida does not teach that the protocol is a “tunneling protocol” as required by claim 1.
Hanabusa teaches that a plurality of access points (e.g., AP1A and AP1B, see Fig. 6) are configured with a tunneling protocol, and the tunneling protocol is used in a handover between the APs by the IP telephone terminal (see Fig. 6, steps S13-S15 and paragraph nos. 0119-0121).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida by incorporating the teachings of Hanabusa to facilitate the handover from a first AP to a second AP via the formation of an IP tunnel in a state capable of performing data communication, as suggested by Hanabusa in paragraph no. 0074. Furthermore, the use of IP tunneling can reduce delays and improve data delivery, as is known in the art.
Regarding independent claim 20, this independent claim is a corresponding computer readable medium claim of the method claim 1 and recites similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 1 applies with equal force to this independent claim and as further amplified below to highlight the minor differences between the claims.
Regarding independent claim 20, see Fig. 2 of Kishida, ROM 12 and/or RAM 13 for a “non-transitory computer-readable storage medium” and CPU 11.
Dependent Claims
Regarding claim 2, Kishida does not teach but Hanabusa teaches “wherein the tunneling protocol includes User Datagram Protocol (UDP)” (paragraph no. 0093).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida and Hanabusa by incorporating the teachings of Hanabusa to use the well known user datagram protocol as part of a tunneling protocol for its known benefits such as connectionless, lightweight transport layer protocol in the Internet Protocol suite designed for fast, low-latency communication.
Regarding claim 3, Kishida does not teach but Hanabusa teaches “wherein the tunneling protocol does not require an acknowledgement” (see Fig. 6).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida and Hanabusa by incorporating the teachings of Hanabusa to reduce latency in the handover process.
Regarding claim 5, Kishida teaches “triggering updates to network routes upon the client device connecting to the second Wi-Fi network” (see Fig. 8).
Regarding claim 6, Kishida does not teach but Hanabusa teaches “configuring one or more access points to have a tunnel pre-provisioned for one or more clients that may connect to the one or more access points” (see Fig. 6, the IP tunneling protocol for each AP is deemed pre-provisioned).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida and Hanabusa by incorporating the teachings of Hanabusa to facilitate the handover process between the two APs.
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kishida and Hanabusa as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Machikoppa et al., US 2021/0392192, (“Machikoppa”).
Kishida does not teach but Machikoppa teaches “utilizing a cloud-based server to manage a topology state of each of the plurality of Wi-Fi networks” (see paragraph no. 0020).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida and Hanabusa by incorporating the teachings of Machikoppa to facilitate the configuring of each WiFi access point via a cloud based server.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kishida and Hanabusa as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Cirello Filho et al., US 11,546,763, (“Cirello”).
Kishida does not teachy but Cirello teaches “configuring the tunneling protocol to be stateless with respect to actual connections” (col. 28, lines 56-67).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida and Hanabusa by incorporating the teachings of Cirello to enable each communication between the terminal and the AP to be independent such that a new secure tunnel may be established for each communication, as suggested by Cirello in col. 28, lines 64-67.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kishida and Hanabusa as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Gorbatov et al., US 2003/0058853, (“Gorbatov”), and Nagrockas et al., US 2021/0392112, (“Nagrockas”).
Kishida does not teach but Gorbatov teaches “using a single frame from a new Extended Service Set’s (ESS’s) Network Address Translation (NAT) to update paths and maintain an established connection” (paragraph no. 0014, “For external communication (e.g., with the Internet 110), the NAT router 120 connecting the extended service set (ESS) to the public network 110 performs network address translation to assign global addresses, such as public IP addresses, to all of the connections going outside of the extended service set (ESS)”; the claimed “single frame” reads on the assignment of global addresses).
Gorbatov does not teach that the assignment of global addresses is via a “cryptographically correct” frame as required by claim 8.
Nagrockas teaches that a particular NAT sequence is changed to the cryptographically enhanced sequence: “Public Key … Dynamic Private IP Address” (see paragraph no. 0009).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida and Hanabusa by incorporating the teachings of Gorbatov and Nagrockas to enhance the security of Network Address Translations.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kishida and Hanabusa as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Wang et al., US 2022/0053315, (“Wang”).
Kishida does not teach but Wang teaches “sending occasional keep-alive packets to ensure NAT mappings remain alive during periods of inactivity” (paragraph no. 0030, “If a connection has been unused … the UE sends periodic dummy NAT “keep-alive” packets to each APN to reset the timers in the WIFI AP router and preserve reachability”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kishida and Hanabusa by incorporating the teachings of Wang to preserve reachability of the WiFi router during periods of inactivity, as suggested by Wang in paragraph no. 0030.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 9 is 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 prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “enabling a network address to change without affecting the established connection provided by the tunneling protocol” within its claimed context as recited in claim 9.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WON TAE C. KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-1812. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/WON TAE C KIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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