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 .
Remarks
1. This office action is in response to communication filled on 04/27/2026. Claims 1-7, 10, 14, 17-23, 26, 30, 33-38 are pending on this application.
2. Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-7, 10, 14, 17-23, 26, 30, 33-38 have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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.
3. Claims 1-3, 14, 17-19, 30 and 33-36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meng (US 2023/0135270) in view of Wan (WO 2007053071) and Lee (KR 20050119590).
4. As per claim 1, Meng teaches an apparatus for wireless communication with at least one device, comprising: at least one processor capable of communicating deterministic traffic (Meng, ¶0002-0005 “… TSN … processor”);
While Meng doesn’t explicitly mention, Szabo configured to: obtain configuration values based on estimated quality of each of a plurality of subchannels between the apparatus and the at least one device (Wan, Fig. 3 item 301 and related text); adjust the configuration values such that variance in quality of the plurality of subchannels is minimized (Wan, page 5 L19-36 “… subchannel … low quality variation …”); and transmit data to the at least one device receiver node via the plurality of subchannels in accordance with the adjusted configuration values (Wan, Fig. 3 item 307 and related text. Furthermore, it is well-known in the art to obtain estimated quality of plurality of subchannels and to adjust configuration such as according to subchannel condition, priority and/or type of service for a successful communication system according to required service – see Lee KR 20050119590 for example Abstract section). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Meng, Wan and Lee as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention for the benefit of adjusting configuration such as according to subchannel condition, priority and/or type of service for a successful communication system according to required service.
5. Claim 17 is similarly analyzed as claim 1 for obviousness reason discussed above.
6. As per claim 2, Meng in view of Wan and Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one device is configured to: estimate quality of each of the plurality of subchannels by determining a signal strength perceived by each of the plurality of subchannels (Wan, page 5 L25-29); and transmit, to the apparatus, the configuration values based on the signal strength perceived by each of the plurality of subchannels (Wan, page 5 L19-36).
7. Claim 18 is similarly analyzed as claim 2 for obviousness reason discussed above.
8. As per claim 3, Meng in view of Wan and Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the at least one device is configured to determine the signal strength perceived by each of the plurality of subchannels based on a pilot signal received from the apparatus via the plurality of subchannels (Lee, “TECH-SOLUTION” section second paragraph).
9. Claim 19 is similarly analyzed as claim 3 for obviousness reason discussed above.
10. As per claim 14, Meng in view of Wan and Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein adjusting the configuration values comprises at least one of adjusting a frequency or a time slot used to transmit the data to the at least one device; or adjusting adjust a modulation and coding scheme from among a plurality of modulation and coding schemes used to transmit the data to the at least one device (Wan, Fig. 3 items 303-306 and related text).
11. Claim 30 is similarly analyzed as claim 14 for obviousness reason discussed above.
12. As per claim 33, Meng in view of Wan and Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the variance is computed based on a linear average of signal strengths perceived by the plurality of subchannels (Lee, “TECH-SOLUTION” section ninth paragraph).
13. Claim 35 is similarly analyzed as claim 33 for obviousness reason discussed above.
14. As per claim 34, Meng in view of Wan and Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one device is configured to transmit, to the apparatus, the configuration values via a report of channel state information (Lee, “TECH-SOLUTION” section second paragraph); and the report of CSI is sent to the apparatus in response to a known training sequence periodically transmitted by the apparatus (Lee, “TECH-SOLUTION” section second paragraph).
15. Claim 36 is similarly analyzed as claim 34 for obviousness reason discussed above.
16. As per claim 36, Meng in view of Wan and Lee teaches the method of claim 17, wherein the at least one device is configured to transmit, to the apparatus, the configuration values via a report of channel state information (CSI); and the report of CSI is sent to the apparatus in response to a known training sequence periodically transmitted by the apparatus (Lee, “TECH-SOLUTION” section second paragraph).
17. Claims 37-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meng (US 2023/0135270) in view of Wan (WO 2007053071), Lee (KR 20050119590) and Muck (EP 1783942).
18. As per claim 37, Meng teaches a device, comprising: at least one processor capable of communicating deterministic traffic (Meng, ¶0002-0005 “… TSN … processor”).
While Meng doesn’t explicitly mention, Wan configured to: estimate quality of each of a plurality of subchannels between the device and an apparatus (Szabo, ¶0066 “channel quality”); transmit, to the apparatus, configuration values based on the estimated quality of each of the plurality of subchannels, wherein the configuration values are adjusted by the apparatus (Wan, Fig. 3 item 301 and related text); and receive data from the apparatus via the plurality of subchannels in accordance with the adjusted configuration values (Wan, Fig. 3 item 307 and related text. Furthermore, it is well-known in the art to obtain estimated quality of plurality of subchannels and to adjust configuration such as according to subchannel condition, priority and/or type of service for a successful communication system according to required service – see Lee KR 20050119590 for example Abstract section).
While Meng in view of Wan and Lee doesn’t explicitly mention, Muck teaches where the configuration values including a plurality of channel path coefficient (Muck, ¶0069)
Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Meng, Wan, Lee and Muck as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention for the benefit of adjusting configuration such as according to subchannel condition, priority and/or type of service for a successful communication system according to required service.
19. Claim 38 is similarly analyzed as claim 37 for obviousness reason discussed above.
Allowable Subject Matter
20. Claims 4-7, 10, 20-23 and 26 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.
Conclusion
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ZEWDU A. KASSA
Examiner
Art Unit 2637
/ZEWDU A KASSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
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