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
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claim 22 objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 22 is derived from Claim 21 which is cancelled. Probably it should be claim 20. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-2, 9, 13, 16, and 24-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Altintas et al. (Patent No: US 2014/0213241 A1), hereinafter, Altintas in view of Shigeyuki et al. (Patent No: JP 4184373 B2), hereinafter, Shigeyuki.
Regarding Claim 1, Altintas teaches,
A transmission device for performing information communication with one or more reception devices, the transmission device comprising: -Fig. 1; Paragraph [0036] ([0036] recites, “FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing the functional configuration of the wireless communication device according to the present embodiment…” As shown in the Fig. 1, it transmits and receive information from one or more other vehicle (communicating device))
a communication history information storage unit configured to store communication history information in which a communication parameter for performing the information communication is historical database 5, a context, a communication parameter, and a communication performance are stored in association with each other. Specifically, the communication performance when communication is performed by using a given communication parameter in a given context is stored…”)
a calculation unit configured to calculate the communication parameter when communication with the reception device is performed on the basis of the stored communication history information; -Fig. 1(7), Paragraph [0017-0018, 0057] ([0057] recites, “..the communication parameter candidate determination section 7 determines the candidates for the communication parameter so as to include the best selection by excluding the communication parameter that is not preferable in the current context rather than determining the optimum communication parameter in the current context…” [0017] recites, “..it is possible to collect and accumulate the historical information to determine the appropriate communication parameter with excellent accuracy”)
and an output unit configured to output the calculated communication parameter. -Fig. 1 (9, 10); Paragraph [0074-0075] ([0074] recites, “The communication control section 9 acquires the performance required for the communication from the application program 8 (S404), and determines the combination of the communication parameters corresponding to the application requirement from among the candidates selected in Step S403 (S405). The communication control section 9 executes the wireless communication by using the determined communication parameters (S406).” As shown in Fig. 1, communication control unit 9, determines and configures optimum parameters and executes wireless communication (output) in wireless communication section (10).)
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
information communication is associated with a deterioration rate that is a value based on radio waves transmitted using the communication parameter when information is transmitted to the reception device and radio waves received from the reception device;
However, in an analogous invention, Shigeyuki teaches,
information communication is associated with a deterioration rate that is a value based on radio waves transmitted using the communication parameter when information is transmitted to the reception device and radio waves received from the reception device; -Page 3, Paragraph 8; Page 9, Paragraph 3-6 (Page 3, Paragraph 8 recites, “…A transmission capacity storage unit that stores the transmission capacity obtained in step 1 and an encoding rate determination unit that determines an encoding rate based on a history of past transmission capacities stored in the transmission capacity storage unit.” Page 9, Paragraph 3, 4 recites, “That is, by looking at the past transmission capacity history, it is possible to predict the trend of the future communication status, in particular, how much the communication status will deteriorate in the future. Conventionally, as described above, the transmission device receives information on the communication state measured on the reception device side from the reception device, and changes the coding rate based on this information. In this case, when the communication status is deteriorated, it is possible that reception of the information on the communication status sent from the receiving device itself may fail, thereby delaying the timing of changing the coding speed…. In addition, control that assumes a situation where the communication status has deteriorated by performing encoding rate setting control based on a predicted transmission capacity that is smaller than the current transmission capacity value or based on a history of past transmission capacity…. Based on the communication status measured by the road status measurement unit, the packet error rate of packets transmitted during a predetermined period is obtained ”As described above, deterioration rate is directly proportional to packet error rate and parameters e.g., coding speed is chosen based on previous (history) communication status deterioration information (capacity information, packet error rate etc.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “information communication is associated with a deterioration rate that is a value based on radio waves transmitted using the communication parameter when information is transmitted to the reception device and radio waves received from the reception device;” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 2, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Altintas further teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the calculation unit is trained on the basis of the deterioration rate obtained from an information communication result using the communication parameter output by the output unit using a machine learning algorithm. -Fig. 10 (S504); Paragraph [0097] ([0097] recites, “Next, a classifier that determines which communication parameter is optimum in a case where any situation is given is created by machine learning with data obtained by the above process used as training data (S504). That is, the combination of the communication parameters is used as one class, and a multi-class classifier that classifies the situation into six classes is created on the basis of the communication parameter that allows the best communication performance.”)
Regarding Claim 9, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Altintas further teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the calculation unit calculates the communication parameter on the basis of a plurality of communication history information items obtained from results of communicating with a plurality of reception devices. -Paragraph [0017-0018] ([0017-0018] recites, “Thus, the communication parameter actually used by the wireless communication device and the communication performance in the communication are stored in association with each other, accumulated in the server device, and distributed to other wireless communication devices, whereby it is possible to collect and accumulate the historical information to determine the appropriate communication parameter with excellent accuracy. In the present invention, it is also preferable to determine the communication parameter in consideration of not only the surrounding situation of the host device but also the surrounding situation of a wireless communication device of a communication partner……the learning database preferably further stores a surrounding situation of the second wireless communication device in association with the communication performance in the communication, and the communication parameter determination means preferably refers to the learning database to determine the communication parameter that is appropriate in the surrounding situations of the host device and the communication partner.” As explained above communication parameters are determined (calculated) based on the historical information of multiple devices stored in the database.)
Regarding Claim 13, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly teach,
The transmission device according to Claim 1, wherein a signal transmitted to the reception device on the basis of the output communication parameter is encoded in an encoding scheme having an error detection function, and wherein the deterioration rate is based on an error rate when a signal received from the reception device has been decoded.
However, in an analogous invention, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to Claim 1, wherein a signal transmitted to the reception device on the basis of the output communication parameter is encoded in an encoding scheme having an error detection function, and wherein the deterioration rate is based on an error rate when a signal received from the reception device has been decoded. -Page 9, Paragraph 3-6; (It recites, “by looking at the past transmission capacity history, it is possible to predict the trend of the future communication status, in particular, how much the communication status will deteriorate in the future. Conventionally, as described above, the transmission device receives information on the communication state measured on the reception device side from the reception device, and changes the coding rate based on this information. In this case, when the communication status is deteriorated, it is possible that reception of the information on the communication status sent from the receiving device itself may fail, thereby delaying the timing of changing the coding speed……… Based on the communication status measured by the road status measurement unit, the packet error rate of packets transmitted during a predetermined period is obtained, and when the packet error rate exceeds the threshold, the error tolerance is increased.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “signal transmitted to the reception device on the basis of the output communication parameter is encoded in an encoding scheme having an error detection function, and wherein the deterioration rate is based on an error rate when a signal received from the reception device has been decoded” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 16, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Altintas further teaches,
The transmission device according to Claim 1, wherein the communication parameter includes a plurality of components, and wherein the calculation unit calculates the communication parameter by selecting one of combinations of the plurality of components included in the communication parameter. -Fig. 1; Paragraph [0049, 0063-0064] ([0063-0064] recites, “The communication control section 9 determines the appropriate communication parameter from among the candidates for the communication parameter sent from the communication parameter candidate determination section 7 according to the requirement of the application program 8……the communication control section 9 measures the communication performance obtained as the result of performing the communication by using the determined communication parameter.” [0049] recites, “the communication performance, any index can be adopted as long as the index indicates the performance of the communication. As examples of the communication performance, there can be adopted throughput, round trip time (RTT), signal to noise ratio (SNR), bit error rate (BER), and packet error rate (PER).” From the above discussion it is easily understandable that the candidate determination section together with control section (7, 9) which can be termed as calculation unit calculates the communication parameters by selecting from a plurality of components (SNR, RTT, BER, PER etc.) depending on the context.)
Regarding Claim 24, Altintas, Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 1, further comprising a wireless communication unit configured to perform the information communication with the reception device on the basis of the communication parameter output by the output unit, wherein the communication parameter includes a first transmission interval, and wherein the wireless communication unit transmits a signal to the reception device on the basis of the first transmission interval.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 1, further comprising a wireless communication unit configured to perform the information communication with the reception device on the basis of the communication parameter output by the output unit, wherein the communication parameter includes a first transmission interval, and wherein the wireless communication unit transmits a signal to the reception device on the basis of the first transmission interval. -Page 2, Paragraph 5-7 (It recites, “A transmission capacity calculation unit for determining a transmission capacity of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period based on the communication status measured by the communication path status measurement unit;……In the configuration and method described above, the packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period is obtained based on the communication status measured by the communication path status measurement unit.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “wireless communication unit configured to perform the information communication with the reception device on the basis of the communication parameter output by the output unit, wherein the communication parameter includes a first transmission interval, and wherein the wireless communication unit transmits a signal to the reception device on the basis of the first transmission interval” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 25, Altintas, Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 24.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 24, wherein the wireless communication unit completes an information transmission process for the reception device during a transmission time period that is a time period from a start of signal generation to an end of transmission, and wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the transmission time period is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 24, wherein the wireless communication unit completes an information transmission process for the reception device during a transmission time period that is a time period from a start of signal generation to an end of transmission, -Page 2, Paragraph 7 (It recites, “In the configuration and method described above, the packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period is obtained based on the communication status measured by the communication path status measurement unit.” The predetermined time is the transmission time period)
and wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the transmission time period is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit. -Page 3, Paragraph 1, 2; (recites, “when a predetermined period has elapsed without changing the error resilience, control is performed to reduce the error resilience regardless of the communication status. the communication apparatus of the present invention further includes an error tolerance adding unit that adds error tolerance to a transmitted packet, and an error tolerance management unit that controls error tolerance added by the error tolerance adding unit. The error resilience management unit obtains a packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period based on the communication status measured by the channel status measurement unit, and the packet error rate is equal to or greater than a threshold value. In such a case, the error resilience is changed to be stronger, and if a predetermined period of time has passed without the error resilience being changed, the error resilience is controlled to be reduced regardless of the communication situation measured by the communication situation measuring unit” It is easily understandable to an ordinary person with the skill in the art that changing error resilience is equivalent to changing the transmission time period, i.e., reducing the time period when communication situation is favorable and stable and increasing when it is not)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “wireless communication unit completes an information transmission process for the reception device during a transmission time period that is a time period from a start of signal generation to an end of transmission, and wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the transmission time period is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 26, Altintas, Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 25.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 25, wherein the wireless communication unit performs a transmission process that is iterated during a period from the time of system activation to an assumed operating lifespan, and wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that a total time period required for the information transmission process is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 25, wherein the wireless communication unit performs a transmission process that is iterated during a period from the time of system activation to an assumed operating lifespan, -Page 28, Paragraph 7; Page 26, Paragraph 8 (It recites, “….the communication status measurement unit collects and stores the PHY rate information used in a certain period as the communication unit and the PER during the certain period, and then performs the same measurement. When it is determined that the communication environment is worse, it is preferable to update the stored combination of the PHY rate and PER, and thereafter repeat the same procedure….. a table of maximum transmission capacity for each PHY rate when all the communication bands are used is created, and the table is updated every time the communication band is measured, and used for error resilience control….” As explained above the process of updating stored information is repeated (iterated) over every transmission and throughout the operating lifespan)
and wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that a total time period required for the information transmission process is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit. -Page 3, Paragraph 1, 2; (recites, “when a predetermined period has elapsed without changing the error resilience, control is performed to reduce the error resilience regardless of the communication status. the communication apparatus of the present invention further includes an error tolerance adding unit that adds error tolerance to a transmitted packet, and an error tolerance management unit that controls error tolerance added by the error tolerance adding unit. The error resilience management unit obtains a packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period based on the communication status measured by the channel status measurement unit, and the packet error rate is equal to or greater than a threshold value. In such a case, the error resilience is changed to be stronger, and if a predetermined period of time has passed without the error resilience being changed, the error resilience is controlled to be reduced regardless of the communication situation measured by the communication situation measuring unit” It is easily understandable to an ordinary person with the skill in the art that changing error resilience is equivalent to changing the transmission time period, i.e., reducing the time period when communication situation is favorable and stable and increasing when it is not)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “the wireless communication unit performs a transmission process that is iterated during a period from the time of system activation to an assumed operating lifespan, and wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that a total time period required for the information transmission process is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 27, Altintas, Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 24.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 24, wherein the communication parameter includes a second transmission interval and a transmission count, and wherein the wireless communication unit transmits second data different from first data on the basis of the second transmission interval after the first data obtained by encoding the same data is transmitted until a specific transmission count is reached on the basis of the first transmission interval.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 24, wherein the communication parameter includes a second transmission interval and a transmission count, and wherein the wireless communication unit transmits second data different from first data on the basis of the second transmission interval after the first data obtained by encoding the same data is transmitted until a specific transmission count is reached on the basis of the first transmission interval. -Page 3, Paragraph 1, 2; Page 28, Paragraph 3-6 (recites, “when a predetermined period has elapsed without changing the error resilience, control is performed to reduce the error resilience regardless of the communication status. the communication apparatus of the present invention further includes an error tolerance adding unit that adds error tolerance to a transmitted packet, and an error tolerance management unit that controls error tolerance added by the error tolerance adding unit. The error resilience management unit obtains a packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period based on the communication status measured by the channel status measurement unit, and the packet error rate is equal to or greater than a threshold value. In such a case, the error resilience is changed to be stronger, and if a predetermined period of time has passed without the error resilience being changed, the error resilience is controlled to be reduced regardless of the communication situation measured by the communication situation measuring unit” (As explained above, depending on the packet error rate and to meet error resilience, adjustment is made and second transmission with second transmission interval and second transmission count happens with the adjusted parameters) “an encoding rate changing unit that changes an encoding rate of the stream data; an encoding rate managing unit that manages an encoding rate of the encoding rate changing unit; and data stored in the transmission buffer An error resilience adding unit that adds error resilience to the error resilience managing unit that manages the error resilience adding unit, and the coding rate managing unit performs coding based on the measurement result of the communication state in the communication state measuring unit…….the encoding rate management unit sets a maximum value of the accumulated information (queue size) of the transmission buffer, and the queue size is set after a certain period after the encoding rate is set. It is preferable to select an encoding rate that does not exceed the maximum value. In this way, in the communication device, packets can be stored in the transmission buffer up to a certain queue size, so that a high coding rate can be maintained when the communication environment temporarily deteriorates.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “communication parameter includes a second transmission interval and a transmission count, and wherein the wireless communication unit transmits second data different from first data on the basis of the second transmission interval after the first data obtained by encoding the same data is transmitted until a specific transmission count is reached on the basis of the first transmission interval” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 28, Altintas, Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 27.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 27, wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the transmission count is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 27, wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the transmission count is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit. -Page 3, Paragraph 1, 2; Page 12, Paragraph 9(recites, “when a predetermined period has elapsed without changing the error resilience, control is performed to reduce the error resilience regardless of the communication status. the communication apparatus of the present invention further includes an error tolerance adding unit that adds error tolerance to a transmitted packet, and an error tolerance management unit that controls error tolerance added by the error tolerance adding unit. The error resilience management unit obtains a packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period based on the communication status measured by the channel status measurement unit, and the packet error rate is equal to or greater than a threshold value. In such a case, the error resilience is changed to be stronger, and if a predetermined period of time has passed without the error resilience being changed, the error resilience is controlled to be reduced regardless of the communication situation measured by the communication situation measuring unit” “….the error tolerance is changed by changing the encoding method and / or the encoding parameter of the error correction code, so that the error tolerance can be accurately controlled.” Transmission count depends on error resilience and therefore on encoding parameters)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the transmission count is decreased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 29, Altintas, Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 27.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 27, wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the second transmission interval is increased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 27, wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the second transmission interval is increased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit. -Page 3, Paragraph 1, 2; (recites, “when a predetermined period has elapsed without changing the error resilience, control is performed to reduce the error resilience regardless of the communication status. the communication apparatus of the present invention further includes an error tolerance adding unit that adds error tolerance to a transmitted packet, and an error tolerance management unit that controls error tolerance added by the error tolerance adding unit. The error resilience management unit obtains a packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period based on the communication status measured by the channel status measurement unit, and the packet error rate is equal to or greater than a threshold value. In such a case, the error resilience is changed to be stronger, and if a predetermined period of time has passed without the error resilience being changed, the error resilience is controlled to be reduced regardless of the communication situation measured by the communication situation measuring unit” This Claim 29 is not new feature rather than a configuration. As explained error resilience is controlled (changed) by changing transmission parameters depending on the transmission condition. This configuration can be envisioned easily and falls within the scope of the prior-art)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the second transmission interval is increased when the reception device has continuously and stably received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 30, Altintas, Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 27.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 27, wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the second transmission interval is increased when the reception device has not continuously received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 27, wherein the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the second transmission interval is increased when the reception device has not continuously received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit. -Page 3, Paragraph 1, 2; (recites, “when a predetermined period has elapsed without changing the error resilience, control is performed to reduce the error resilience regardless of the communication status. the communication apparatus of the present invention further includes an error tolerance adding unit that adds error tolerance to a transmitted packet, and an error tolerance management unit that controls error tolerance added by the error tolerance adding unit. The error resilience management unit obtains a packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period based on the communication status measured by the channel status measurement unit, and the packet error rate is equal to or greater than a threshold value. In such a case, the error resilience is changed to be stronger, and if a predetermined period of time has passed without the error resilience being changed, the error resilience is controlled to be reduced regardless of the communication situation measured by the communication situation measuring unit” When the reception device does not receive the transmitted information continuously, within the first transmission interval it does not receive enough packets to calculate packet error rate with high confidence. It is easily understandable to an ordinary person with the skill in the art that the second transmission interval has to be increased in order to obtain sufficient packets and calculate packet error rate with high confidence.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “the calculation unit adjusts the communication parameter so that the second transmission interval is increased when the reception device has not continuously received information transmitted by the wireless communication unit.” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Altintas in view of Shigeyuki and further in view of Katsutoshi et al. (Patent No: JP WO2006/103888 A1) hereinafter, Katsutoshi.
Regarding Claim 5, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the calculation unit calculates the communication parameter on the basis of power consumption caused by transmitting radio waves using the communication parameter included in the communication history information and the deterioration rate corresponding thereto, and wherein the calculation unit calculates the communication parameter for reducing the power consumption.
However, in an analogous invention Katsutoshi teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the calculation unit calculates the communication parameter on the basis of power consumption caused by transmitting radio waves using the communication parameter included in the communication history information and the deterioration rate corresponding thereto, and wherein the calculation unit calculates the communication parameter for reducing the power consumption. -Page 8, Paragraph 6-8; (Page 8, pagraph 6-8 recites, “The transmission device 1 and the reception device 2 are based on antennas 11 and 21 capable of controlling directivity, information storage units 16 and 26 that store communication history including communication conditions during communication, and the stored communication history. Since the control units 17 and 27 control the antennas 11 and 21 so as to be able to communicate with the communication partner described in the communication history, the antennas 11 and 21 are highly directional based on the communication history. The communication with the communication partner can be resumed by controlling to weak communication power, and as a result, low power consumption and shortening of the communication establishment time after resuming communication can be realized…. Since communication can be started with high directivity and weak transmission power from the beginning of communication resumption based on communication condition parameters in the communication history, it is possible to reduce power consumption at the time of communication resumption”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “calculates the communication parameter on the basis of power consumption caused by transmitting radio waves using the communication parameter included in the communication history information and the deterioration rate corresponding thereto, and wherein the calculation unit calculates the communication parameter for reducing the power consumption;” of Katsutoshi. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to low power consumption in the communication system (Page 2, paragraph 1).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Altintas in view of Shigeyuki and further in view of Hasegawa et al. (“Performance Evaluation of Machine Learning Based Channel Selection Algorithm Implemented on IoT Sensor Devices in Coexisting IoT Networks”, 2020 IEEE 17th Annual Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC)), hereinafter, Hasegawa.
Regarding Claim 8, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Although implicit, Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 1,wherein the calculation unit is trained using a tug of war (TOW) algorithm.
However, in an analogous invention Hasegawa teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 1,wherein the calculation unit is trained using a tug of war (TOW) algorithm. -Abstract ( It recites, “Ma et al. have proposed a channel selection algorithm based machine learning for IoT devices. They modeled channel selection as Multi-Armed Bandit problem and have designed a algorithm based on Tug-of-War dynamics to solve this problem.” It is easily understandable to an ordinary person with the skill in the art that Tug-of-War algorithm can be used for training in the calculation unit.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “calculation unit is trained using a tug of war (TOW) algorithm” of Hasegawa. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to increase the fairness [Abstract].
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Altintas in view of Shigeyuki and further in view of Good et al. (Patent No: US 2007/0239285 A1) hereinafter, Good.
Regarding Claim 14, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Altintas further teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the communication history information storage unit stores a plurality of communication history information items, -Fig. 1 (5); Paragraph [0044, 0049] ([0044] recites, “In the historical database 5, a context, a communication parameter, and a communication performance are stored in association with each other. Specifically, the communication performance when communication is performed by using a given communication parameter in a given context is stored…”[0049] recites, “As examples of the communication performance, there can be adopted throughput, round trip time (RTT), signal to noise ratio (SNR), bit error rate (BER), and packet error rate (PER).” As explained, communication parameters and communication performance (which can be any metric like packet error rate, SNR, BER etc.))
Altintas does not explicitly teach,
and wherein the calculation unit performs a calculation process by more strongly weighting newer information among the plurality of communication history information items.
However, Good teaches,
and wherein the calculation unit performs a calculation process by more strongly weighting newer information among the plurality of communication history information items. -Fig. 1, 2; Paragraph [0009] ([0009] recites, “To provide stability for the controller, control actions are typically not generated based on just the most recently observed process state variable. Hence, the previous measurements are typically passed through an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) filter that outputs an average value for the process state that factors in the current and previous values. The EWMA filter is a weighted average in that the average is more heavily affected by the more recent state values.” As shown in Fig. 2, more recent or the newer values are given higher weights than the older values.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “calculation unit performs a calculation process by more strongly weighting newer information among the plurality of communication history information items.” of Good. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to increase stability [0009].
Claims 17-18, 20, and 22-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Altintas in view of Shigeyuki and further in view of Gaurav Kumar (Patent No: US 2017/0245204 A1) hereinafter, Kumar.
Regarding Claim 17, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination teach the limitations of Claim 1.
Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the information communication is a communication method in which a plurality of communication channels are defined in a predetermined frequency band, and wherein the communication parameter includes a channel mask for identifying one or more channels that are included in the communication channels and are not used for the information communication to be performed with the reception device.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the information communication is a communication method in which a plurality of communication channels are defined in a predetermined frequency band-Page 6, Paragraph 1; (It recites, “HCCA is communication control that allows each communication station to access a communication channel under the direction of HC (Hybrid Coordinator). When stream data is transmitted, it is preferable that a bandwidth is secured by communication control by HCCA. In this way, when the band is managed by the HC, it is ensured that a certain communication band is allocated to the transmitting station in a predetermined period, so that stable transmission is possible.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “plurality of communication channels are defined in a predetermined frequency band” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Although implicit, Altintas and Shigeyuki combination do not explicitly mention,
and wherein the communication parameter includes a channel mask for identifying one or more channels that are included in the communication channels and are not used for the information communication to be performed with the reception device.
However, in an analogous invention, Kumar teaches,
and wherein the communication parameter includes a channel mask for identifying one or more channels that are included in the communication channels and are not used for the information communication to be performed with the reception device. -Paragraph [0007, 0053] ([0007] recites, “Detecting the interference may include detecting a wireless local area network (WLAN) channel that overlaps one or more of the BLE advertising channels. Detecting the interference may include determining whether a given BLE advertising channel is in a channel mask of BLE channels that overlap with a WLAN channel used by the wireless communication device.” [0053] recites, “The WLAN block 106 may include a WLAN transmitter and/or receiver (not shown). When the WLAN transmitter becomes active, a channel mask 108 is generated. The channel mask 108 lists all the BLE channels that overlap with the WLAN channel being used by the wireless communication device 102. This channel mask 108 may be communicated to the BT/BLE subsystem which avoids hopping to these channels during data transfer.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “the communication parameter includes a channel mask for identifying one or more channels that are included in the communication channels and are not used for the information communication to be performed with the reception device” of Kumar. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to make the discovery process more power efficient [0060].
Regarding Claim 18, Altintas, Shigeyuki and Kumar combination teach the limitations of Claim 17.
Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 17, wherein it is indicated that radio waves transmitted to the reception device do not deteriorate as the deterioration rate decreases, and wherein the calculation unit decides on the communication parameter so that the deterioration rate decreases when communication with a specific other party is performed via the channel mask included in the calculated communication parameter.
However, Shigeyuki teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 17, wherein it is indicated that radio waves transmitted to the reception device do not deteriorate as the deterioration rate decreases, and wherein the calculation unit decides on the communication parameter so that the deterioration rate decreases when communication with a specific other party is performed via the channel mask included in the calculated communication parameter. -Page 10, Paragraph 1-4 (It recites, “the packet error rate of a packet transmitted during a predetermined period is obtained based on the communication status measured by the communication path status measurement unit. (when deterioration rate decreases, PER also decreases) …. if control for increasing error tolerance is performed using an increase in the packet error rate as an indicator that the communication status has deteriorated, it is possible to perform control that accurately grasps the current communication status. Furthermore, when a predetermined period elapses without changing the error resilience, if control is performed to reduce the error resilience regardless of the communication status, it is possible to immediately follow when the communication status recovers…..According to the above configuration, not only the coding rate of the stream data is determined based on the communication status measured by the channel status measurement unit, but also the packet error rate of the packet transmitted during the predetermined period is obtained. As a result, the error tolerance given to the transmitted packet is also changed. Therefore, the communication state is measured without delay in the communication device on the transmission side, and the coding speed and error resilience are changed based on this, so that the coding speed and error resilience that quickly follows the change in the communication state can be changed.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “that radio waves transmitted to the reception device do not deteriorate as the deterioration rate decreases, and wherein the calculation unit decides on the communication parameter so that the deterioration rate decreases when communication with a specific other party is performed via the channel mask included in the calculated communication parameter.” of Shigeyuki . One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improve throughput by controlling error resilience [Page 24, Paragraph 3].
Regarding Claim 20, Altintas, Shigeyuki and Kumar combination teach the limitations of Claim 17.
Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 17, wherein the communication method is advertising defined in a BLE standard, and wherein the communication channel is an advertising channel defined in the BLE standard, wherein the advertising is connectable advertising, and wherein the deterioration rate is a value calculated on the basis of whether or not a connection request has been answered.
However, Kumar teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 17, wherein the communication method is advertising defined in a BLE standard, -Paragraph [0025] ([0025] recites, “The Bluetooth wireless communication standard is typically employed for exchanging communications between fixed or mobile Bluetooth-enabled devices over short distances. In some configurations, the systems and methods disclosed herein may be applied to prioritize the scanning of BLE advertising channels. LE refers to the “Low Energy” extension of the Bluetooth standard.”)
and wherein the communication channel is an advertising channel defined in the BLE standard, -Paragraph [0010] ([0010] recites, “The method may also include determining that a given BLE advertising channel is not included in either a channel mask or a bad channel assessment list. A highest order in the BLE scan order may be assigned to the given BLE advertising channel.”)
wherein the advertising is connectable advertising, and wherein the deterioration rate is a value calculated on the basis of whether or not a connection request has been answered. -Fig. 5; Paragraph [0060, 0065] ([0065] recites, “…The system 100 overall becomes more efficient by being able to prioritize scanning on a BLE advertising channel 116 that has a higher probability of detecting advertising packets. As soon the advertising packets are detected, a connection request is initiated….”[0065] recites, “conduct a periodic bad channel assessment for the entire BLE band by reading the receive signal strength (RSSI) on each BLE channel. If the wireless communication device 102 detects energy above a bad channel threshold 120, that BLE channel is classified as bad.“ It is easily understandable to an ordinary person with the skill in the art that bad channel assessment is directly proportional to the deterioration rate and connection request will be denied or not answered.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “the communication method is advertising defined in a BLE standard, and wherein the communication channel is an advertising channel defined in the BLE standard, wherein the advertising is connectable advertising, and wherein the deterioration rate is a value calculated on the basis of whether or not a connection request has been answered” of Kumar. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to make the discovery process more power efficient [0060].
Regarding Claim 22, Altintas, Shigeyuki and Kumar combination teach the limitations of Claim 20.
Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 20, wherein the advertising is advertising for receiving a scan request, and wherein the deterioration rate is calculated on the basis of whether or not the scan request has been answered.
However, Kumar teaches,
The transmission device according to claim 20, wherein the advertising is advertising for receiving a scan request, and wherein the deterioration rate is calculated on the basis of whether or not the scan request has been answered. -Paragraph [0091] ([0091] recites, “The wireless communication device 102 may issue 802 a BLE scan request from an upper layer. The scan request may instruct a BLE block 110 to initiate a scan for advertising packets on BLE advertising channels 116.” [0065] recites, “conduct a periodic bad channel assessment for the entire BLE band by reading the receive signal strength (RSSI) on each BLE channel. If the wireless communication device 102 detects energy above a bad channel threshold 120, that BLE channel is classified as bad.“ It is easily understandable to an ordinary person with the skill in the art that bad channel assessment is directly proportional to the deterioration rate and connection request will be denied or not answered.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “the advertising is advertising for receiving a scan request, and wherein the deterioration rate is calculated on the basis of whether or not the scan request has been answered.” of Kumar. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to make the discovery process more power efficient [0060].
Regarding Claim 23, Altintas, Shigeyuki and Kumar combination teach the limitations of Claim 22.
Altintas does not explicitly mention,
The transmission device according to claim 22, wherein the deterioration rate is calculated on the basis of the number of times one or more specific reception devices have received an advertising packet. -Paragraph [0047][ ([0047] recites, “because of the dynamic nature of BLE frequency hopping, a remote BLE device 104 may transmit advertising packets on a BLE channel that formerly had interference. If a BLE advertising channel 116 is excluded from scanning due to past interference, then the wireless communication device 102 may miss an advertisement packet transmission.” [0050] recites,” The wireless communication device 102 may listen on that BLE advertising channel 116 so it can get the advertising packet detected and then go on to the next stage of the connection setup…” This claim is not a new feature, rather just a configuration. As explained by Shigeyuki above, the deterioration rate can be based on any performance metric and is configurable. It is easily conceivable for someone with the skill in the art that number of received advertising packet can be used as deterioration rate.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the “WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD” proposed by Altintas to include the concept of “the deterioration rate is calculated on the basis of the number of times one or more specific reception devices have received an advertising packet.” of Kumar. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to make the discovery process more power efficient [0060].
Conclusion
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/AHMED SAIFUDDIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2475
/KHALED M KASSIM/supervisory patent examiner, Art Unit 2475