DETAILED ACTION
Claims 108 are pending and have been examined.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: The claims preamble ends with a semi-colon instead of a colon. Appropriate correction is required.
Claims 1-8 are objected to because of the following informalities: The claims use an inconsistent method of indicating enumerated entities or steps with respect to each other. Some numbers are surrounded by parentheses, while others are not. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities: the phrase “wherein in step 230 the signal is transmitted to a legitimate receiver (120) on the wireless channel 150 A and at the legitimate receiver firstly the average power of the received signal is measured and then pilots are obtained using the pilot location identification mechanism to perform the channel estimation” is grammatically incorrect. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the pilot location identification error" in the second limitation. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are:
The claim does not indicate which entity or entities are performing the limitations. Is it the user’s device or some other device? (for instance, that increases the gap; performs the allocations, etc.) Since the independent claim is unclear, the dependent claims are also unclear because they depend on unclear Claim 1, and do not further limit such that the essential question of which entity(ies) is/are performing the limitations.
It is unclear whether the adaptation of transmitter power and receiver power is being performed at the user’s device itself, or at some other device(s) sending signals to the user’s device via their transmitter; and receiving signals from the user’s device at their receiver.
Claim 1 allocates “an adaptive pilot based on channel state information” which Examiner interprets the term “pilot” to be an experiment used to determine the user’s location based on the last limitation. Yet in the last limitation, the pilot location is identified. There appears to be inconsistent use of the term “pilot.” The first limitation appears to be an experiment or test, but the last limitation appears to use the term “pilot” to determine the user’s position. The claim is missing information needed to resolve this discrepancy. Is the “pilot” an experiment or the user’s location? Furthermore, Claim 1 recites 3 limitations, but it is unclear how these 3 limitations achieve the purpose stated in the preamble. (i.e. protecting integrated sensing and communication against security threats)
Claims 1-8 recite numbers, sometimes in parentheses, and sometimes not. For instance, “210” appears in parentheses in Claim 1’s first limitation to indicate the allocation of an adaptive pilot; but “210” also appears in Claim 3 without parentheses to indicate the “adaptive pilot allocation mechanism.” Same number – different meanings. Furthermore, if the numbers are associated with the drawings, they are of little use since the drawings merely show boxes without any indication of what they represent, either by text or choice of symbols known in the art.
Claims 2, 4, 6 and 7 use the term “legitimate”, but the claims do not define legitimacy. Therefore, the receiver and transmitter are rendered indefinite. It is also unclear how a receiver transmits, and a transmitter receives in Claim 2.
Claim 4 recites the limitation "the pilot location identification mechanism" in the first limitation. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 5, 6 and 8 are replete with indefiniteness. Several initialized symbols are used in a mathematical algorithm, but what the symbols represent is not defined, thereby making the claim’s algorithm unintelligible. Additional symbols PSG, PTS and TH are used but not defined. There are also several of instances of a lack of antecedent basis, for example “the threshold value.” Claim 7 is also unclear based on its dependency on Claim 6.
Claims 1-8 are replete with indefiniteness making claim interpretation very difficult and impossible to map with certainty to the limitations. Therefore, Examiner will interpret the claims with what appears to be consistent with the specification such that a user will be determined to be trusted based on nearby trusted users’ signal strength metrics vs. those of the user being tested for trustworthiness.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 9,504,004 B1 (Auvenshine et al.), in view of US 2022/0408220 A1 (Edge et al.).
EXAMINER NOTE: Claims 1-8 are replete with indefiniteness making claim interpretation very difficult and impossible to map with certainty to the limitations. Therefore, Examiner will interpret the claims with what appears to be consistent with the specification such that a user will be determined to be trusted based on nearby trusted users’ signal strength metrics vs. those of the user being tested for trustworthiness. Prior-art search will be refined once Applicant amends the claims to cure the claim objections and 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejections as indicated above.
As to Claim 1, Auvenshine et al. disclose a method for protecting integrated sensing and communication against potential security threats wherein said method comprises the steps of; [sic]
allocation of an adaptive pilot based on channel state information (CSI) of a user whose communication is to be secured (210) (Auvenshine et al. disclose the test {pilot} of using nearby known trusted entities to verify the location of a third entity that should be located nearby the known trusted entities by using relative signal strength {CSI} testing – Claim 1), and
identification of the pilot location (Auvenshine et al. disclose the test {pilot} of using nearby known trusted entities to verify the location of a third entity that should be located nearby the known trusted entities by using relative signal strength {CSI} testing – Claim 1. When the trusted entities do not emit a warning signal, this means that the third entity is located where expected/predicted).
allocation of adaptive power to reduce the pilot location identification error by increasing the gap between the signal power at the transmitter and the receiver of the aforementioned user (Edge et al. disclose increasing transmitter signal strength to devices in a group used to verify a group member’s location – Abstract and Claim 1), and
from the average power of received signal (Edge et al. disclose increasing transmitter signal strength to devices in a group used to verify a group member’s location – Abstract and Claim 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine allocation of adaptive power to reduce the pilot location identification error by increasing the gap between the signal power at the transmitter and the receiver of the aforementioned user, and from the average power of received signal, taught by Edge et al., with allocation of an adaptive pilot based on channel state information (CSI) of a user whose communication is to be secured, taught by Auvenshine et al., in order to verify the location of the device being tested (Edge et al. – Abstract).
As to Claim 2, the combination of Auvenshine et al. and Edge et al. discloses the method of claim 1,
wherein in step 210 a legitimate receiver (120) transmits the pilots' subcarriers to a legitimate transmitter (110) for the estimation of channel state information (CSI) (Edge et al. disclose increasing transmitter signal strength to devices in a group used to verify a group member’s location – Abstract and Claim 1).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 1.
As to Claim 3, the combination of Auvenshine et al. and Edge et al. the method of claim 1,
wherein, in step 220 legitimate transmitter (110) allocates pilot and data subcarriers in the transmission signal according to the adaptive pilot allocation mechanism 210 and performs the adaptive power allocation (Edge et al. disclose increasing transmitter signal strength to devices in a group used to verify a group member’s location – Abstract and Claim 1).
The motivation and obviousness arguments are the same as in Claim 1.
As to Claims 4-8, the absence of a prior-art rejection does not indicate allowable subject matter, but rather that until the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) claim rejections and claim objections are cured, the claims’ lack of clarity precludes reasonable examination with respect to prior art.
Interview Practice
USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR)
The USPTO AIR is a new optional online interview scheduling tool that allows Applicants to request an interview with an Examiner for their pending patent application.
The USPTO AIR form is available on our website at: http://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/interview-practice.
By submitting this type of interview request, the pending patent application will be in compliance with the written authorization requirement for Internet communication in accordance with MPEP §502.03. This authorization will be in effect until the Applicant provides a written withdrawal of authorization to the Examiner of record.
If you have questions or need assistance with the USPTO AIR form or with interview practice at the USPTO, please contact an Interview Specialist at http://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/interview-practice/interview-specialist or send an email to ExaminerInterviewPractice@USPTO.GOV.
Examiner Notes:
A) Prior to conducting any interview (whether using AIR or not), Applicant(s) must submit an agenda including the proposed date and time, all arguments in writing, and proposed claim amendments (if applicable). Any proposed amendments or arguments not presented in the agenda will only be heard by the Examiner, but because the Examiner will not have heard them in advance and been given an equitable opportunity to consider them, no decision will be rendered, nor agreement made. ALL AGENDAS MUST BE RECEIVED BY THE EXAMINER AT LEAST 24 HOURS PRIOR TO THE START OF THE INTERVIEW, OR THE PREVIOUS BUSINESS DAY, WHICHEVER IS LONGER, or the interview may have to be rescheduled.
B) After-final interviews may be granted, but the agenda must be in compliance with MPEP 713.09 which limits the interview only to discussions of proposed amendments, or clarification for appeal. After-final interviews are not to be conducted for the purpose of rehashing previously made arguments. After seeing the agenda, Examiner will decide whether to grant or deny the interview.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See for PRO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RICHARD G KEEHN whose telephone number is (571)270-5007. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00am - 5:00pm Eastern.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, John A Follansbee can be reached at 571-272-3964. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RICHARD G KEEHN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444