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 .
This communication is in response to the application filed on 08/01/2024.
Claims 1-16 are pending and rejected.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in JP2022-015901 on 02/03/2022. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the JP2022-015901 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55. Therefore, the benefit of the priority date is not granted and the filling date of the priority is considered as the effective date for the claimed invention.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 8/1/2024 was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are:
“a packet identification unit that identities a chunk…”, a communication performance acquisition unit that acquires a communication performance…”, a transmission control unit, that assigns, for each of the chunks…” in claim 1.
“a buffer control unit that controls the storage…” in claim 10.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
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.
Claims 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jarnikov (US 20110270913 A1) in view of Sung(US 20190190834 A1) .
Regarding claim 1, Jarnikov teaches a communication device that transmits packets received from a first device to a second device using one of a plurality of communication lines, the device comprising:
a receiver that receives the packets from the first device ([0041], fig. 1, a receiver module 1 communicates with an external server for requesting and receiving content data 101);
a packet identification unit that identifies a chunk to which each of the packets belongs, the chunk being a unit of data treated as a single piece of data at a higher layer ([0004] Each copy typically consists of two-to five-seconds segments called chunks (single piece of content data) that are physically separated (e.g. a file is created for each chunk in a copy) or logically separated (e.g. all chunks of a copy are stored in a single file with an addressing structure that allows to access any chunk individually);
a buffer to store the packets ([0041] The received data is stored in a buffer);
a communication performance acquisition unit that acquires a communication performance of each of the plurality of the communication lines ([0041] The receiver module is furthermore configured to estimate the available bandwidth, typically based on the size of the downloaded content data and the duration of its transmission);
to make the arrival time of the plurality of packets as the whole chunk to the second device the earliest ([0041] The receiver module 1 is furthermore configured to estimate the available bandwidth, typically based on the size of the downloaded content data and the duration of its transmission; [0042] Typically, every chunk belongs to a particular quality level. Hereby the controller changes the quality level of the receiver in such way that a chunk can be successfully received within a given time period (whole chunk to the second device the earliest)); and
a transmitter that reads the packets from the buffer and transmits the read packets to the second device using one of a plurality of the communication lines based on the assignment by the transmission control unit ([0041] Data read from the buffer 3 and provided to the decoder 4; [0004] predict transmission time for the next chunk from different quality levels and choose the quality level that minimizes the risk of late chunk delivery while keeping the quality level as high as possible).
Jarnikov does not explicitly teach
a transmission control unit, that assigns, for each of the chunks, each of the plurality of the packets to respective one of the plurality of the communication lines based on the communication performance.
Sung teaches
a transmission control unit, that assigns, for each of the chunks, each of the plurality of the packets to respective one of the plurality of the communication lines based on the communication performance ([0074] processing unit 201 determines performance of the first group of connections, and selects one of the connections in the first group for transmitting data packets based on the performance).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention made to include in the Jarnikov disclosure, packets are transmitted to destination based on performance of the connections, as taught by Sung. One would be motivated to do so to transmit data packets, so that the overall performance of the aggregate end-to-end connection is satisfactory, and is not affected negatively by transmitting data packets through established end-to-end connections that have poor performance.
Regarding claim 2, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the packet identification unit identifies the chunks based on the reception interval of the packets received by the receiver ([0004] Each copy typically consists of two-to five-seconds segments called chunks that are physically separated (e.g. a file is created for each chunk in a copy) or logically separated).
Regarding claim 3, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 2, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the chunks are frames generated by compression of video ([0005] On the contrary, the bit budget may vary per frame in order to enhance the rate-distortion performance of the encoded video).
Regarding claim 4, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Sung further teaches the packet identification unit identifies the chunks based on the identifier contained in the IP header of the packet ([0127] a unique session identification is a session identifier stored in the header of an IP packet).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention made to include in the Jarnikov disclosure, packet includes IP address header, as taught by Sung. One would be motivated to do so to transmit data packets, so that the overall performance of the aggregate end-to-end connection is satisfactory, and is not affected negatively by transmitting data packets through established end-to-end connections that have poor performance.
Regarding claim 5, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Sung further teaches the packet identification unit identifies the chunk based on the identification information contained in the TCP/UDP payload of the packet ([0127] the session identifier is stored in the payload of an IP packet).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention made to include in the Jarnikov disclosure, identification information contained in the payload of the packet, as taught by Sung. One would be motivated to do so to transmit data packets, so that the overall performance of the aggregate end-to-end connection is satisfactory, and is not affected negatively by transmitting data packets through established end-to-end connections that have poor performance.
Regarding claim 6, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the transmission control unit assigns, for each of the chunks, each of the plurality of the packets to one of the plurality of the communication lines based on at least one of the available bandwidth of each communication line and the delay time of each communication line ([0014] estimating an available bandwidth of the packet switched network), wherein the available bandwidth is based on a transmission duration of the digital content; [0068] data packets may be delayed due to multiple traffic flows contending for the same path).
Regarding claim 7, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the transmission control unit assigns, for each of the chunks, each of the plurality of the packets to respective one of the plurality of the communication lines based on at least one of the amount of un-transmitted data in the chunk being transmitted, and the amount of in-flight data, the in-flight data being data that is being transmitted or scheduled to be transmitted on each communication line and has not reached the second device, in addition to the communication performance ([0043] Although it is possible that a next chunk is not available, for simplicity in this example the external server always has the next chunk available, so the buffer fullness on the client side is the only limiting factor. If the buffer is full, the receiver is put on hold until the buffer 3 has sufficient space to accommodate the next chunk; [0045] The client buffer 3 is kept as full as possible to be able to accommodate a possible oversized chunk or a drop in the network throughput. Requesting chunks (depicted by 203) at a low quality decreases transmission time leaving more reserve time available to transmit following chunks).
Regarding claim 8, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 6, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the transmission control unit assigns, for each of the chunks, each of the plurality of the packets to respective one of the plurality of the communication lines based on at least one of the amount of un-transmitted data in the chunk being transmitted, and the amount of in-flight data, the in-flight data being data that is being transmitted or scheduled to be transmitted on each communication line and has not reached the second device, in addition to the communication performance ([0043] Although it is possible that a next chunk is not available, for simplicity in this example the external server always has the next chunk available, so the buffer fullness on the client side is the only limiting factor. If the buffer is full, the receiver is put on hold until the buffer 3 has sufficient space to accommodate the next chunk; [0045] The client buffer 3 is kept as full as possible to be able to accommodate a possible oversized chunk or a drop in the network throughput. Requesting chunks (depicted by 203) at a low quality decreases transmission time leaving more reserve time available to transmit following chunks).
Regarding claim 9, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the transmitting unit, when transmitting a subsequent packet using the communication line to which no preceding packet is assigned, reads the subsequent packet from the from a position offset from a beginning of the buffer, the preceding packet is a packet of a preceding chunk, which is a chunk that should complete reaching the second device first, and the subsequent packet is a packet of a subsequent chunk, which is a chunk that should complete reaching the second device after the preceding chunk ([0065] In this example the duration of a chunk is 2 seconds, video sequences are split in chunks and trace files are created for recording sizes of all chunks. The trace files contain size measurements for chunks from different quality levels).
Regarding claim 10, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, Jarnikov further teaches a buffer control unit that controls the storage of the packets in the buffer and the discarding of the packets from the buffer by the chunks ([0015] signaling from the controller to the receiver a quality level of a next chunk of data).
Regarding claim 11, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the packet identification unit identifies a communication flow to which the packet belongs based on the source and/or destination of the packet, the transmission control unit assigns each of the plurality of packets to respective one of the plurality of communication lines for each communication flow and for each chunk, to make the arrival time of the plurality of packets by the chunk to the second device the earliest ([0009] In practice the channel throughput may not be constant bit rate and may vary over time, due to competing traffic, changing to a different routing path, or switching between different content sources; [0042] Typically, every chunk belongs to a particular quality level. Hereby the controller changes the quality level of the receiver in such way that a chunk can be successfully received within a given time period).
Regarding claim 12, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the transmitter transmits chunk identification information that identifies the chunk to which the packet belongs ([0004] Each copy typically consists of two-to five-seconds segments called chunks that are physically separated or logically separated. A protocol allows a client to request a data chunk from one of several quality levels at run-time to react to varying network conditions).
Regarding claim 13, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, wherein Jarnikov further teaches the transmitter transmits chunk size information indicating the size of the chunk to which the packet belongs ([0063] The statistics are gathered off-line by measuring sizes of chunks of a particular duration from the various video inputs and dividing the measured values by the bandwidth that the calculated strategy will be used for).
Regarding claim 14, Jarnikov and Sung teach the communication device according to claim 1, Jarnikov further teaches wherein the communication device is mounted to a mobile object ([0003] respond to an operation of attaching the electronic device onto a vehicle magnetic suction bracket by a user).
Regarding claim 15, Jarnikov teaches a communication method executed by a communication device that transmit packets received from a first device to a second device using one of a plurality of communication lines, the method comprising:
receiving the packets from the first device ([0041], fig. 1, a receiver module 1 communicates with an external server for requesting and receiving content data 101);
storing the packets in a buffer ([0041] The received data is stored in a buffer);
acquiring the communication performance of each of a plurality of the communication lines ([0041] The receiver module is furthermore configured to estimate the available bandwidth, typically based on the size of the downloaded content data and the duration of its transmission);
to make the arrival time of the plurality of packets as the whole chunk to the second device the earliest ([0041] The receiver module 1 is furthermore configured to estimate the available bandwidth, typically based on the size of the downloaded content data and the duration of its transmission; [0042] Typically, every chunk belongs to a particular quality level. Hereby the controller changes the quality level of the receiver in such way that a chunk can be successfully received within a given time period (whole chunk to the second device the earliest)); and
reading the packets from the buffer and transmitting the read packets to the second device using one of a plurality of the communication lines based on the assignment ([0041] Data read from the buffer 3 and provided to the decoder 4; [0004] predict transmission time for the next chunk from different quality levels and choose the quality level that minimizes the risk of late chunk delivery while keeping the quality level as high as possible).
Jarnikov does not explicitly teach
assigning, for each of the chunks, each of a plurality of the packets to respective one of a plurality of the communication lines based on the communication performance.
Sung teaches
assigning, for each of the chunks, each of a plurality of the packets to respective one of a plurality of the communication lines based on the communication performance ([0074] processing unit 201 determines performance of the first group of connections, and selects one of the connections in the first group for transmitting data packets based on the performance).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention made to include in the Jarnikov disclosure, packets are transmitted to destination based on performance of the connections, as taught by Sung. One would be motivated to do so to transmit data packets, so that the overall performance of the aggregate end-to-end connection is satisfactory, and is not affected negatively by transmitting data packets through established end-to-end connections that have poor performance.
Regarding claim 16, Jarnikov teaches a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium storing a communication program executable by a communication device that transmits packets received from a first device to a second device using one of a plurality of communication lines, the communication program causing the communication device to:
receive the packets from the first device ([0041], fig. 1, a receiver module 1 communicates with an external server for requesting and receiving content data 101);
identify the chunk to which each of the packets belongs, the chunk being a unit of data treated as a single piece of data at a higher layer ([0004] Each copy typically consists of two-to five-seconds segments called chunks that are physically separated (e.g. a file is created for each chunk in a copy) or logically separated (e.g. all chunks of a copy are stored in a single file with an addressing structure that allows to access any chunk individually);
store the packets in a buffer ([0041] The received data is stored in a buffer);
acquire the communication performance of each of a plurality of the communication lines ([0041] The receiver module is furthermore configured to estimate the available bandwidth, typically based on the size of the downloaded content data and the duration of its transmission);
to make the arrival time of the plurality of packets as the whole chunk to the second device the earliest ([0041] The receiver module 1 is furthermore configured to estimate the available bandwidth, typically based on the size of the downloaded content data and the duration of its transmission; [0042] Typically, every chunk belongs to a particular quality level. Hereby the controller changes the quality level of the receiver in such way that a chunk can be successfully received within a given time period (whole chunk to the second device the earliest)); and
read the packets from the buffer and transmitting the read packets to the second device using one of a plurality of the communication lines based on the assignment ([0041] Data read from the buffer 3 and provided to the decoder 4; [0004] predict transmission time for the next chunk from different quality levels and choose the quality level that minimizes the risk of late chunk delivery while keeping the quality level as high as possible).
Jarnikov does not explicitly teach
assign, for each of the chunks, each of a plurality of the packets to respective one of a plurality of the communication lines based on the communication performance.
Sung teaches
assign, for each of the chunks, each of a plurality of the packets to respective one of a plurality of the communication lines based on the communication performance ([0074] processing unit 201 determines performance of the first group of connections, and selects one of the connections in the first group for transmitting data packets based on the performance).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention made to include in the Jarnikov disclosure, packets are transmitted to destination based on performance of the connections, as taught by Sung. One would be motivated to do so to transmit data packets, so that the overall performance of the aggregate end-to-end connection is satisfactory, and is not affected negatively by transmitting data packets through established end-to-end connections that have poor performance.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Dong (US 20230353284 A1) and (US 11108687 B1).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANH NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-0657. The examiner can normally be reached M-F.
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/ANH NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458