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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed on 8/15/2024 has been considered.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 8/12/2024 are accepted.
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, 4-6, 13 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hopcraft et al. (US-10,542,330 hereinafter, Hopcraft) in view of McLaughlin et al. (US-9,602,224 hereinafter, McLaughlin).
Regarding claim 1, Hopcraft teaches a method for designing a wireless network (Abstract), comprising:
selecting a plurality of sets of site locations as candidates for base-station installation; (Fig. 1 [110], Col. 6 lines 1-8, Fig. 3 [302] and Col. 8 lines 47-53)
determining which of the selected plurality of sets of site locations can be connected via a backhaul connection to a service provider’s network; (Col. 6 lines 11-13 and 20-24)
for each of the selected plurality of sets of site locations which are determined can be connected via a backhaul connection to the service provider’s network:
generating a combined network coverage map indicating the coverage area of an antenna of a base-station at the selected set of site locations that are able to be serviced by the base stations; (Col. 9 lines 38-56 and Fig. 3 [308])
generating a metric based on the combined network coverage map and a simulation of the coverage meeting the expansion goals; (Col. 9 lines 57-66 and Fig. 3 [310])
ranking the selected plurality of sets of site locations based on their respective metric; (Col. 9 line 66 through Col. 10 line 2 and Col. 14 lines 12-18) and
generating a decision to install base-stations at one of the selected plurality of sets of site locations based on the ranking. (Col. 14 lines 12-29, Col. 15 lines 31-39 and Col. 1 lines 38-40)
Hopcraft differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting generating a combined viewshed vector indicating customer locations included in a viewshed of an antenna of a base station.
In an analogous art, McLaughlin teaches a method for designing a wireless network (Abstract) that includes selecting a plurality of sets of site locations as candidates for base-station installation; (Fig. 12 [1230] and Col. 8 lines 21-49)
generating a combined viewshed vector indicating customer locations included in a viewshed of an antenna of a base-station at the selected set of site locations that are able to be served by the base-stations; (Fig. 12 [1240] and Col. 8 line 50 through Col. 9 line 4)
generating a metric based on the combined viewshed vector for the selected set of site locations; (Col. 9 lines 16-33 “Referring to the example depicted in FIG. 14, an additional filter was applied to ensure that a site used in the analysis had a coverage of at least 2000 homes”)
ranking the selected plurality of sets of site locations based on their respective metric; (Col. 9 lines 29-33 “Referring to the example depicted in FIG. 14, an additional filter was applied to ensure that a site used in the analysis had a coverage of at least 2000 homes. This reduced the total number of sites from 88 to 81.”, see additionally Col. 9 line 42 through Col. 10 line 10 which provides the most pertinent transmitter site locations to service a specific number of houses at various thresholds of base station installations) and
generating a decision to install base-stations at one of the selected plurality of sets of site locations based on the rankings. (Col. 11 lines 48-61)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Hopcraft after modifying it to incorporate the ability generate a combined viewshed vector indicating customer locations included in a viewshed of an antenna of a base-station at the selected set of site locations that are able to be served by the base-stations of McLaughlin since determining a viewshed provides the ability for a company to know whether line-of-sight communications is possible between potential or existing base stations and a potential or existing customer’s home. (McLaughlin Col. 1 lines 25-27 and 50-67)
Regarding claim 2, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches wherein selecting the plurality of sets of site locations as candidates for base-station installation comprises selecting each set of site locations as candidates where owners of the site locations have signed up to install a base-station. (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 21-49 and Hopcraft Col. 8 lines 47-63 “In this embodiment, the simulation engine 102 may access a list of known available wireless network sites.”)
Regarding claim 4, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches generating an incremental coverage metric for each selected set of site locations; (McLaughlin Col. 9 line 42 through Col. 10 line 2 i.e. homes covered) and
wherein generating the decision to install base-stations at one of the selected plurality of sets of site locations further is based on the incremental coverage metric for each selected set of site locations. (McLaughlin Col. 11 lines 28-61 “ For example, the results of method 1700 may be compared to the results of method 1200 for the same service area. Depending on the additional coverage provided by locations of transmitter sites that do not have a transmitter as determined by method 1700, a business decision may be made to build-out one of the locations of a transmitter site. Factors to be considered include but are not limited to, the additional revenue from the incremental coverage by building-out a transmitter site location versus estimates of the incremental revenue for a service.”)
Regarding claim 5, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches wherein generating the decision to install the base-station at one of the selected plurality of sets of site locations comprises at least one of:
generating a decision to proceed with the base-station’s installation; (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 48-61 and Col. 11 lines 48-52)
generating a decision to postpone the base-station’s installation. (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 48-61 and Col. 11 lines 48-52)
Regarding claim 6, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches wherein generating a decision to install the base-station at one of the selected plurality of sets of site locations includes comparing a metric characterizing the one of the selected plurality of sets of site location with a defined threshold. (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 48-61)
Regarding claim 13, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches wherein generating the combined viewshed vector indicating customer locations included in the viewshed of an antenna of a base-station at the selected set of site locations that are able to be served by the base-stations comprises, for each customer location included in the viewshed:
receiving rooftop area information for the customer location; (McLaughlin Col. 6 lines 35-63)
identifying a shape defined by an intersection of the viewshed and rooftop area information for the customer location; (McLaughlin Col. 14 lines 20-30 “regions on the rooftop that have line of sight with the transmitter” and Col. 9 lines 23-41 note: there is no limitation that requires the intersection shape to be any different from the shape of the rooftop area; i.e. no blockage, completely within view) and
computing an area of the shape; (McLaughlin Col. 14 lines 20-30 “a service quality ranking based on a level of visibility between the rooftop of the residential unit and the transmitter is generated. For example, a scale assigning a poor, good and excellent ranking is used. The poor, good and excellent ratings can be applied based on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, the size of a region that is generated from the cross section analysis” and Col. 14 lines 44-50 “displaying regions on the rooftop that have line of sight with the transmitter includes overlaying the identified regions on the rooftop with aerial images of the rooftop to superimpose the regions rooftop that have line of sight with the transmitter on an image of the rooftop”) and
indicating the at least one customer location as able to be served by the base-station based on the computed area of the shape. (McLaughlin Col. 14 lines 20-30 and Fig. 19 [1940 & 1950])
Regarding claim 14, the limitations of claim 14 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 1. See additionally Hopcraft Col. 15 lines 40-60.
Claims 3, 9, 10, 11, 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin as applied to claims 1 or 2 above, and further in view of Allen (US-7,499,890).
Regarding claim 3, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches the limitations of claim 2 including wherein selecting each set of site location as candidates where the owners of the site locations have signed up to install a base-station comprises:
selecting a base-station position within site location in the set of site locations; (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 21-49)
computing a viewshed vector for each site location in the set indicating all possible customer locations within the viewshed (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 50-59), based on the selected base-station position within the site location; (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 50-54) and
generating a viewshed matrix comprising the respective computed viewshed vectors for each site location in the set of site locations; (McLaughlin Col. 16 lines 56-58 and Col. 8 lines 21-49)
ranking the set of site locations using the viewshed matrix; (McLaughlin Col. 16 lines 49-58 and Col. 9 lines 5-63)
identifying potential site owners based on a ranking of the set of site locations. (McLaughlin Col. 16 lines 56-58 and Col. 8 lines 21-49)
Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting sending marketing information to the identified potential site owners and receiving sign-up information from at least one of the identified potential site owners.
In an analogous art, Allen teaches a method and system for cell site planning and vendor selection (Abstract) that includes sending marketing information to the identified potential site owners (Col. 11 lines 6-9), determining whether an access and utility easement agreement has been signed for the base station site (Col. 13 lines 31-35) and receiving sign-up information from at least one of the identified potential site owners. (Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16 note: mailing/sending flyers/advertisements/surveys to potential customers to generate/gauge interest is a long-standing practice)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin after modifying it to incorporate the ability to advertise land owners of potential base-station site locations and to receive responses from the site owners of Allen since project viability starts with the ability to secure locations for the infrastructure, the ability to provide utilities to the location and advertising/marketing specific land owners in order to make them aware of a project is quite well known to one of ordinary skill in the art of not only telecommunications, but also in general land development, oil wells, fracking/natural gas wells, gas/water lines and power lines. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to determine whether a business decision can be made in order for the network expansion plan to move forward. (McLaughlin Col. 11 lines 48-56)
Regarding claim 9, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin and Allen teaches receiving a sign-up request for each of the selected plurality of sets of site locations; (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16)
Retrieving for each of the selected plurality of sets of locations the indication of the customer locations as able to be served by the base-stations at each of the selected plurality of sets of sit locations contained in the received sign-up request; (McLaughlin Col. 9 lines 16-33) and
responding to the sign-up request with an offer statement, responsive to the generation of the decision to install base-stations at one of the selected plurality of sets of site locations based on the ranking. (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 12 lines 6-17, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16 and McLaughlin Col. 11 lines 48-52)
Regarding claim 10, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin and Allen teaches identifying a new service area; (McLaughlin Col. 7 lines 52 through Col. 8 line 29)
generating candidate site locations based on viewshed ranking; (McLaughlin Fig. 12 [1240] and Col. 8 lines 50-59)
generating potential customer locations based on parcel data; (McLaughlin Col. 5 line 49 through Col. 6 line 5)
retrieving existing site locations; (McLaughlin Col. 10 lines 41-61 and Allen Col. 12 “Identify every competitor tower and colocation opportunity within the search area and within view of the search area.”)
generating a ranked list of site locations suitable for base-station installation based on the generated candidate site locations, generated potential customer locations and retrieved existing site locations; (McLaughlin Fig. 17 [1730-1770])
generating a marketing list of site owners based on the generated ranked list of site locations; (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 13 lines 6-7, Col. 25 lines 15-16 note: sending flyers/advertisements/surveys and collecting responses to potential customers to generate/gauge interest is a long-standing practice and Col. 12 lines 44-69) and
generating a marketing list of potential customers based on the generated ranked list of site locations. (McLaughlin Col. 9 lines 23-41)
Regarding claim 11, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin and Allen teaches collecting customer and site owner sign-up requests; (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16 note: sending flyers/advertisements/surveys to potential customers to generate/gauge interest is a long-standing practice)
wherein selecting the plurality of sets of site locations as candidates for a base-station installation comprises generating candidate site locations based on the collected site owner sign-up requests; (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16)
generating potential customer locations based on parcel data (McLaughlin Col. 5 line 49 through Col. 6 line 5), existing customer data (McLaughlin Col. 10 lines 41-61), and the collected customer sign-up requests; (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9 and Col. 13 lines 6-7 note: sending flyers/advertisements/surveys and collecting responses to potential customers to generate/gauge interest is a long-standing practice and Col. 12 lines 44-69)
retrieving existing site locations; (McLaughlin Col. 10 lines 41-61 and Allen Col. 12 “Identify every competitor tower and colocation opportunity within the search area and within view of the search area”)
generating a ranked list of site locations suitable for base-station installation based on the generated candidate site locations, generated potential customer locations and retrieved existing site locations; (McLaughlin Fig. 17 [1730-1770])
selecting site owner sign-up requests corresponding to site locations within the generated ranked list of site locations; (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 12 lines 6-17, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16) and
responding to the selected sign-up requests. (Allen Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 12 lines 6-17, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16 and McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 21-29, Col. 16 lines 49-58 and Col. 9 lines 5-63)
Regarding claim 15, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches wherein selecting the plurality of sets of site locations as candidates for base-station installation comprises selecting each set of site locations as candidates where owners of the site locations have signed up to install a base-station (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 21-49 and Hopcraft Col. 8 lines 47-63 “In this embodiment, the simulation engine 102 may access a list of known available wireless network sites.”), wherein selecting each set of site location as candidates where the owners of the site locations have signed up to install a base-station comprises:
selecting a base-station position within site location in the set of site locations; (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 21-49)
computing a viewshed vector for each site location in the set indicating all possible customer locations within the viewshed (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 50-59), based on the selected base-station position within the site location; (McLaughlin Col. 8 lines 50-54) and
generating a viewshed matrix comprising the respective computed viewshed vectors for each site location in the set of site locations; (McLaughlin Col. 16 lines 56-58 and Col. 8 lines 21-49)
ranking the set of site locations using the viewshed matrix; (McLaughlin Col. 16 lines 49-58 and Col. 9 lines 5-63)
identifying potential site owners based on a ranking of the set of site locations. (McLaughlin Col. 16 lines 56-58 and Col. 8 lines 21-49)
Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting sending marketing information to the identified potential site owners and receiving sign-up information from at least one of the identified potential site owners.
In an analogous art, Allen teaches a method and system for cell site planning and vendor selection (Abstract) that includes sending marketing information to the identified potential site owners (Col. 11 lines 6-9), determining whether an access and utility easement agreement has been signed for the base station site (Col. 13 lines 31-35) and receiving sign-up information from at least one of the identified potential site owners. (Col. 11 lines 6-9, Col. 13 lines 6-7 and Col. 25 lines 15-16 note: mailing/sending flyers/advertisements/surveys to potential customers to generate/gauge interest is a long-standing practice)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin after modifying it to incorporate the ability to advertise land owners of potential base-station site locations and to receive responses from the site owners of Allen since project viability starts with the ability to secure locations for the infrastructure, the ability to provide utilities to the location and advertising/marketing specific land owners in order to make them aware of a project is quite well known to one of ordinary skill in the art of not only telecommunications, but also in general land development, oil wells, fracking/natural gas wells, gas/water lines and power lines. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to determine whether a business decision can be made in order for the network expansion plan to move forward. (McLaughlin Col. 11 lines 48-56)
Regarding claim 16, the limitations of claim 16 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 9.
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Fadeev et al. (US-2018/0025452 hereinafter, Fadeev).
Regarding claims 7 and 8, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin teaches the limitations of claim 1 above, but differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting computing a formula for compensation offered to an owner of the one of the selected plurality of sets of site locations for which the decision to install base stations was generated, wherein the formula includes at least one of:
current customer count;
potential customer count;
current revenue; and
potential revenue.
In an analogous art, Fadeev teaches a method and system for computerized optimizing building construction (Abstract) that includes using a formula for compensation offered to a site owner (Page 2 [0011]), wherein the formula includes at least one of:
current customer count;
potential customer count;
current revenue; and
potential revenue. (Page 2 [0011])
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin after modifying it to incorporate the ability to determine an amount to offer for land of Fadeev since it enables ensuring that the project would generate a profit. (Page 2 [0012])
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Puthenpura et al. (US-2012/0147782 hereinafter, Puthenpura).
Regarding claim 12, Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting wherein the backhaul connection is a wireless backhaul connection and wherein determining the selected site locations can be connected via the backhaul connection to the service provider’s network comprises determining an existence of a line of site (LOS) path between each of the selected site locations and the service provider’s network.
In an analogous art, Puthenpura teaches a method and apparatus for optimal interconnection of telecommunication nodes (Abstract) that includes backhaul connections are a wireless backhaul connection (Page 3 [0037]) and wherein indicating the identified site location can be connected via the backhaul connection to the service provider’s network comprises determining an existence of a line of site (LOS) path between the identified site location and the service provider’s network. (Page 3 [0038] i.e. excluding site locations that do not meet line of sight requirements, Table 1 “Links without Line-Of-Sight. The set may be NO_LOS; NO_LOS .OR right. LINK constructed either by users asking the model to eliminate such links entirely or by penalizing a link without a line-of-sight to discourage using such links” and Page 7 [0075-0076])
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Hopcraft in view of McLaughlin after modifying it to incorporate the ability to determine line of sight for the wireless backhaul connection of Puthenpura since microwave-based interconnection of telecommunication network entities provides an attractive alternative due to relatively low capital cost requirement and relative ease of deployment as compared to the alternative of a fiber build-out, which can be extremely labor intensive, costly and time consuming, thereby saving costs for the capital improvement.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US-2011/0319067 to Adams et al. which discloses a method for wireless cell site collocation optimization that includes collecting statistics about cell sites, ranking them and iterating the process until cell sites have been consolidated according to a goal.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW C SAMS whose telephone number is (571)272-8099. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Anderson can be reached at (571)272-4177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Matthew C Sams/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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