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 .
Response to Amendment
Applicant's amendment filed on 06/23/2026 has been entered. Claim 10 has been amended. No claims have been added or cancelled. Claims 1-20 are still pending in this application, with claims 1 and 13, being independent.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot based on new grounds of rejections.
Applicant's submission of an information disclosure statement under 37 CFR 1.97(c) with the timing fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(p) on 08/06/2026 prompted the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 609.04(b).
However, a certain argument, filed 06/23/2026, have been fully considered but was not persuasive.
Regarding claim 1, Applicant has submitted that the prior art reference Miklos does not anticipate the claimed invention as presented. Specifically, the Applicant has submitted that “…Miklos does not disclose a traffic controller configured to provide a logical connection from an executing software application to one of the automation devices” (Applicant’s Remarks, pages 8-9).
However, the Examiner respectfully disagrees with the Applicant and asserts that the prior art reference Miklos anticipates the claimed invention as presented.
Examiner respectfully reminds the Applicant that the claims were examined using the broadest reasonable interpretation as directed by MPEP 2111. Examiner submits that in the rejection of independent claim 1, the first connection module 332 and the second connection module 334 of network controller 300 of Figure 5 teach the claim limitations “a control network comprising…at least two wireless network interfaces”. The claimed function “…configured to communicate with said automation devices” relating to the “at least two wireless network interfaces” is shown in Par. 0082. Par. 0082 shows the respective connecting operations of the first connection module 332 and the second connection module 334 are based on grouping parameters received, by the network controller, from the automation apparatuses 20 per Par. 0079-0080. In this instance, Miklos discloses at least “a control network having at least two wireless network interfaces configured to communicate with automation devices” as broadly presented in independent claim 1.
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) 1-7, 12-18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miklos et al. (US 2019/0280926; hereinafter Miklos) in view of Cena et al. (Improving Effectiveness of Seamless Redundancy in Real Industrial Wi-Fi Networks – IEEE Transactions on Industrial Information, Vol. 14, no. 5 – May 2018).
Regarding claim 1, Miklos shows a control network (Figure 3 shows a network for supporting multiple industry automation apparatuses which operate in radio coverage of at least one radio access network.) for supporting multiple industrial automation devices which operate in radio coverage of at least one radio access network, the control network comprising:
a processor configured to execute one or more software applications (Figures 3 and 5; Par. 0080-0081; network controller includes program code stored in memory and executed by one or more processors.);
at least two wireless network interfaces, each configured to communicate with said automation devices (Figures 3 and 5; Par. 0082; network controller includes first connection module and second connecting module for communicating with one or more industry automation apparatuses.); and
a traffic controller configured to maintain a physical connection to said one of the automation devices using respective wireless network interfaces and said at least one radio access network (Figures 3 and 5; Par. 0082-0083; The configuration module 336 is configured to dynamically configure the first network entity set and the second network entity set. As an example, the configuration module 336 may dynamically reduce the redundancy by connecting the first radio interface 210 and the second radio interface 220 via the same entity from either the first network entity set or the second network entity set to the other apparatus 20 and in parallel to the first radio interface 210, to the other apparatus 20.).
Miklos shows all the elements including the traffic controller, as discussed above. Miklos does not specifically show the traffic controller configured to provide a logical connection from an executing software application to one of the automation devices by maintaining at least two contemporaneous physical connections to said one of the automation devices using respective wireless network interfaces and said at least one radio access network; and wherein the control network is further configured to repeatedly adapt a physical redundancy of the logical connection.
However, the above-mentioned claim limitations are well-established in the art as evidenced by Cena. Specifically, Cena shows the traffic controller configured to provide a logical connection from an executing software application to one of the automation devices by maintaining at least two contemporaneous physical connections to said one of the automation devices using respective wireless network interfaces and said at least one radio access network (page 2097, 1st column; A measurement task running on the PC generates a cyclic stream of packets and transmits them concurrently on the two channels. The PC acts as both source and destination of packets, which can be set to travel either from Wi-Fi adapters to the Ethernet port or in the opposite direction.); and
wherein the control network is further configured to repeatedly adapt a physical redundancy of the logical connection (Table III; Section VII; tangible improvements were achieved by seamless redundancy in all experimental conditions and for every statistical index. As an example, for the high load day condition, percentile dp99.99 decreased by about one order of magnitude compared to single channels. Slightly lower advantages were achieved when individual channels are highly unbalanced, as in the no load-day condition.).
In view of the above, having the system of Miklos, then given the well-established teaching of Cena, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Miklos as taught by Cena, in order to provide motivation to improve reliability and determination of Wi-Fi (abstract of Cena).
Regarding claim 2, modified Miklos shows the control network of claim 1, which is configured to determine a level of independence between the contemporaneous physical connections on the basis of measurements, and to adapt the physical redundancy accordingly (Cena: Table 3; Section VII; As an example, for two specific experiments identified in Table III with labels (b) and (c), the measured CCDF of link latencies dt on the redundant link is reported in Fig, l1, along with its theoretical estimate. Since they practically coincide, paths can be considered independent. ln other words, the communication quality offered in practice by seamless redundancy is the same as what can be expected from theory, and can be modeled with excellent approximation using statistics acquired on individual Wi-fi channels.).
Regarding claim 3, modified Miklos shows the control network of claim 2, which is configured to:
monitor, for at least two of the contemporaneous physical connections, a time series (Cena: Table 3; Section VII; logging measurement results of the redundant connections basedc on varying loads during different times of day.) of at least one of the following: quality of service, latency (Table III; the measured CCDF of link latencies dt on the redundant link.), reliability, throughput, jitter, packet loss (Table III; packet loss ratio (PLR).); and
determine the level of independence by comparing the respective time series (Cena: Table 3; Section VII; As an example, for two specific experiments identified in Table III with labels (b) and (c), the measured CCDF of link latencies dt on the redundant link is reported in Fig, 11, along with its theoretical estimate. Since they practically coincide, paths can be considered independent. ln other words, the communication quality offered in practice by seamless redundancy is the same as what can be expected from theory, and can be modeled with excellent approximation using statistics acquired on individual Wi-fi channels.).
Regarding claim 4, modified Miklos shows the control network of claim 3, which is configured to determine the level of independence by computing a cross-correlation, a coherence or a cross-covariance between the time series (Cena: Table 3; Section VII; As an example, for two specific experiments identified in Table III with labels (b) and (c), the measured CCDF of link latencies dt on the redundant link is reported in Fig, 11, along with its theoretical estimate. Since they practically coincide, paths can be considered independent. ln other words, the communication quality offered in practice by seamless redundancy is the same as what can be expected from theory, and can be modeled with excellent approximation using statistics acquired on individual Wi-fi channels.).
Regarding claim 5, modified Miklos shows the control network of claim 2, wherein the processor is responsible for determining the level of independence between the contemporaneous physical connections and to order the traffic controller to adapt the physical redundancy (Cena: Table 3; Section VII; As an example, for two specific experiments identified in Table III with labels (b) and (c), the measured CCDF of link latencies dt on the redundant link is reported in Fig, 11, along with its theoretical estimate. Since they practically coincide, paths can be considered independent. ln other words, the communication quality offered in practice by seamless redundancy is the same as what can be expected from theory, and can be modeled with excellent approximation using statistics acquired on individual Wi-fi channels.).
Regarding claim 6, modified Miklos shows Miklos shows the control network of claim 1, which is adapted for supporting automation devices operating in radio coverage of at least one radio access network, wherein at least two of the contemporaneous physical connections use different cells of the cellular radio access network (Miklos: Figures 3 and 5; Par. 0082-0083, 0093; The configuration module 336 is configured to dynamically configure the first network entity set and the second network entity set. As an example, the configuration module 336 may dynamically reduce the redundancy by connecting the first radio interface 210 and the second radio interface 220 via the same entity from either the first network entity set or the second network entity set to the other apparatus 20 and in parallel to the first radio interface 210, to the other apparatus 20.).
Regarding claim 7, modified Miklos shows the control network of claim 1, which is adapted for supporting automation devices operating in radio coverage of at least two radio access networks, wherein at least two of the contemporaneous physical connections use different radio access networks (Miklos: Par. 0098; it is possible in an industry automation network that the CN entities are contained in the same node as the BS 100, and selecting separate BS entities would then also correspond to selecting separate CN entities. Alternatively, it is possible that the CN entities are directly connected to the BS 100. As yet another alternative, redundancy for the CN entities may be provided by their underlying platforms. Terminal-based and network-based solutions, respectively, for setting up redundant CN entities for the two duplicate paths may be used.).
Regarding claim 12, modified Miklos shows the control network of claim1, which is an automation backbone (Miklos: Par. 0015; the network controller may belong to a radio access network part, a transport network part, or a core network part of the communication network.).
Regarding claim 13, Miklos shows a traffic controller for use in a control network
wherein the traffic controller has at its disposal at least two wireless network interfaces (Figures 3 and 5; Par. 0082; network controller includes first connection module and second connecting module for communicating with one or more industry automation apparatuses.) and is configured to, which executes in the control network, maintain a physical connection to said one of the automation devices using the wireless network interfaces (Figures 3 and 5; Par. 0082-0083; The configuration module 336 is configured to dynamically configure the first network entity set and the second network entity set. As an example, the configuration module 336 may dynamically reduce the redundancy by connecting the first radio interface 210 and the second radio interface 220 via the same entity from either the first network entity set or the second network entity set to the other apparatus 20 and in parallel to the first radio interface 210, to the other apparatus 20.).
Miklos shows all the elements including the traffic controller, as discussed above. Miklos does not specifically show the traffic controller configured to provide a logical connection from an executing software application to one of the automation devices by maintaining at least two contemporaneous physical connections to said one of the automation devices using respective wireless network interfaces.
However, the above-mentioned claim limitations are well-established in the art as evidenced by Cena. Specifically, Cena shows the traffic controller configured to provide a logical connection from an executing software application to one of the automation devices by maintaining at least two contemporaneous physical connections to said one of the automation devices using respective wireless network interfaces (page 2097, 1st column; A measurement task running on the PC generates a cyclic stream of packets and transmits them concurrently on the two channels. The PC acts as both source and destination of packets, which can be set to travel either from Wi-Fi adapters to the Ethernet port or in the opposite direction.
In view of the above, having the system of Miklos, then given the well-established teaching of Cena, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Miklos as taught by Cena, in order to provide motivation to improve reliability and determination of Wi-Fi (abstract of Cena).
Regarding claim 14, Miklos shows a method of establishing a logical connection with physical redundancy between a control network and an industrial automation device operating in radio coverage of at least one radio access network(Figure 3 shows a network controller for supporting multiple industry automation apparatuses which operate in radio coverage of at least one radio access network. Network controller performing in part the disclosed method of Figure 13-14.), the method comprising:
establishing at least two physical connections between the control network and the automation device (Figures 3 and 5; Par. 0082; network controller includes first connection module and second connecting module for communicating with one or more industry automation apparatuses.).
Miklos shows all the elements, as discussed above. Miklos does not specifically show establishing the logical connection using a higher-layer communication protocol; and repeatedly adapting a physical redundancy of the logical connection.
However, the above-mentioned claim limitations are well-established in the art as evidenced by Cena. Specifically, Cena shows establishing the logical connection using a higher-layer communication protocol (page 2097, 1st column; A measurement task running on the PC generates a cyclic stream of packets and transmits them concurrently on the two channels. The PC acts as both source and destination of packets, which can be set to travel either from Wi-Fi adapters to the Ethernet port or in the opposite direction.; and
repeatedly adapting a physical redundancy of the logical connection (Table III; Section VII; tangible improvements were achieved by seamless redundancy in all experimental conditions and for every statistical index. As an example, for the high load day condition, percentile dp99.99 decreased by about one order of magnitude compared to single channels. Slightly lower advantages were achieved when individual channels are highly unbalanced, as in the no load-day condition.).
In view of the above, having the system of Miklos, then given the well-established teaching of Cena, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Miklos as taught by Cena, in order to provide motivation to improve reliability and determination of Wi-Fi (abstract of Cena).
Regarding claim 15, Miklos shows determining a level of independence between the contemporaneous physical connections on the basis of measurements (Figures 13-14; Par. 0032, 0126-0127, 0132-0134; As an optimization, the handover controller 400 may take into account the cell redundancy groups A, B when configuring the radio interfaces 210, 220 for handover measurements.), wherein said adapting is performed on the basis of the determined level of independence (Par. 0082-0083; The configuration module 336 is configured to dynamically configure the first network entity set and the second network entity set. It should be noted that the first network entity set and the second network entity set may still each include one or more further entities not shared between the first radio interface 210 and the second radio interface 220. In this manner at least a certain degree of redundancy can be maintained.).
Regarding claims 16, 17, 18 and 20, these claims are rejected based on the same reasoning as presented in the rejection of claims 3, 6, 7 and 3, respectively.
Claim(s) 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miklos in view of Cena and Carley (US 2009/0150977; hereinafter Carley).
Regarding claim 10, modified Miklos shows all of the elements except wherein the traffic controller is configured to apply frame replication and elimination for reliability (FRER) and/or IP tunneling in respect of selected ones of the executing software applications.
However, the above-mentioned claim limitations are well-established in the art as evidenced by Carley. Specifically, Carley shows wherein the traffic controller is configured to apply frame replication and elimination for reliability (FRER) and/or IP tunneling in respect of selected ones of the executing software applications (Par. 0040, 0165, 0181; The SRMA can access the network services via a connection to the backbone network (or an operations support network) or via a tunnel through the out-of-band network to the backbone network.).
In view of the above, having the system of Miklos, then given the well-established teaching of Carley, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Miklos as taught by Carley, in order to provide motivation to allow for remote management of devices or elements in a secure manner (Par. 0002 of Carley).
Claim(s) 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miklos in view of Cena and Emerson et al. (US 2022/0353185; hereinafter Emerson).
Regarding claim 11, modified Miklos shows all of the elements except wherein the traffic controller includes a managed network switch, such as a time-sensitive networking, TSN, switch.
However, the above-mentioned claim limitations are well-established in the art as evidenced by Emerson. Specifically, Emerson shows wherein the traffic controller includes a managed network switch, such as a time-sensitive networking, TSN, switch (Figure 1; Par. 0043, 0068; diversion module 103 and/or other components may selectively divert network traffic to out-of-band communication channel 109 based on detected or predicted network congestion and/or disruption. Network congestion and/or disruption, whether detected/predicted by diversion module 103 or by other process automation nodes (e.g., any of DCNs 110.sub.1-3), may be detected or predicted in various ways, such as a percentage of total bandwidth used, a number or percentage of dropped packets, a detected latency meeting or exceeding some temporal threshold, detection of time-sensitive networking errors, etc.).
In view of the above, having the system of Miklos, then given the well-established teaching of Emerson, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Miklos as taught by Emerson, in order to provide motivation to efficiently divert traffic from process automation network, thereby alleviating the bottleneck (Par. 0045 of Emerson).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8-9 and 19 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.
Examiner submits that none of the prior art references cited in this action teaches the claimed subject matter as specifically presented in the above dependent claims. The allowance of this application is based on an examination wherein the claim limitations recited in the dependent claims were not taken alone but in view of the scope of the claim(s) as a whole including any proceeding and/or preceding claim limitation(s) present within the claims and by their respective dependencies on other claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 10003575 B2 NETWORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
US 20180097919 A1 REDUNDANTLY OPERABLE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR AN INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPERATING THE SYSTEM
Applicant's submission of an information disclosure statement under 37 CFR 1.97(c) with the timing fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(p) on 08/06/2026 prompted the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 609.04(b). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/REDENTOR PASIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413
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