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 (IDS) submitted on 8/1/24 is considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-12, 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Harvey et al (Patent No: 8,611,813).
As to claim 1, Harvey teaches a method of operating a wireless communication device (Harvey, Col 10 Line 13- Col 11 Line 42, Fig 5, a method of operating a mobile device), the method comprising:
establishing a data link between the wireless communication device and an access node in a second range of the electromagnetic spectrum (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18 Fig 2 Col 2 L4-10, a link between the mobile device and network repeater exists),
upon establishing the data link: monitoring an occurrence of at least one trigger event associated with the data link (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, determine if the signal quality of the first link is too low (trigger event)), and
based on said monitoring of the occurrence of the at least one trigger event: conditionally activating a beacon of the wireless communication device to emit a beacon signal, the beacon signal residing in a first range of the electromagnetic spectrum that is different than the second range of the electromagnetic spectrum, to thereby request support of the data link by a coverage enhancing device in a surrounding of the wireless communication device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, a second communication link (Bluetooth, different from first) Col 10 L29-50, switching(turning ON) the other bands (Bluetooth) in response to low quality/signal and pilot signals are used when activating/assigning/reassigning channels).
As to claim 2, Harvey teaches wherein the at least one trigger event comprises a degradation of a link quality of the data link below a predetermined threshold (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, the desired signals are too far below a threshold).
As to claim 3, Harvey teaches further comprising: sounding the data link based on reference signals communicated between the access node and the wireless communication device in the second range of the electromagnetic spectrum, to thereby determine the link quality (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-25, measuring the link with signals between the device and network to determine the quality).
As to claim 4, Harvey teaches further comprising: obtaining, from a remote node, an indication indicative of the degradation of the link quality (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-30, the indication comes from a repeater that is a remote node for the cell site).
As to claim 5, Harvey teaches wherein the at least one trigger event comprises obtaining, from a remote node, a control command to activate the beacon (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-30, the indication comes from a repeater that is a remote node for the cell site).
As to claim 6, Harvey teaches wherein the at least one trigger event comprises uplink data scheduled for transmission to the access node on the data link (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-30, Fig 2, the data is in the uplink direction transmission to the repeater and cell site).
As to claim 7, Harvey teaches wherein the at least one trigger event comprises a mobility level of the wireless communication device (Harvey, Col 11 L 35-40, the switch trigger occurs when the device is moving).
As to claim 8, Harvey teaches further comprising: executing, at a processor of the wireless communication device, an application to execute said monitoring of the occurrence of the at least one trigger event and said activating of the beacon to emit the beacon signal, wherein the occurrence of the at least one trigger event is determined based on a notification provided to the application by a lower layer of a transmission protocol stack for establishing the data link (Harvey, Col 12 L66- Col 13 L25, a processor with application to execute the steps of monitoring).
As to claim 9, Harvey teaches a method of operating a control node (Harvey, Col 10 Line 13- Col 11 Line 42, Fig 5, a method of operating a repeater of a cell site device), the method comprising:
obtaining indicators indicative of at least one state of multiple data links between multiple wireless communication devices and at least one access node, the data links being in a second range of the electromagnetic spectrum (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, a first and second communication link (Bluetooth, different from first)), the multiple wireless communication devices being located in a surrounding of a coverage enhancing device (Harvey, Fig 2, the devices surrounding a repeater and cell site), selecting at least one of the multiple data links based on the indicators indicative of the at least one state of the multiple data links, and providing, to at least one wireless communication device of the multiple wireless communication devices that is associated with the selected at least one of the multiple data links, a control command to activate a beacon to emit a beacon signal in a first range of the electromagnetic spectrum that is different than the second range, to thereby request support of the selected at least one of the multiple data links by the coverage enhancing device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, a second communication link (Bluetooth, different from first) Col 10 L29-50, switching(turning ON) the other bands (Bluetooth) in response to low quality/signal and pilot signals are used when activating/assigning/reassigning channels).
As to claim 10, Harvey teaches wherein the at least one state comprises a link quality of the multiple data links (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, the desired signals are too far below a threshold)..
As to claim 11, Harvey teaches wherein the at least one state comprises a mobility level of the multiple wireless communication devices (Harvey, Col 11 L 35-40, the switch trigger occurs when the device is moving)..
As to claim 12, Harvey teaches wherein the at least one state comprises at least one of uplink data or downlink data scheduled for transmission on the multiple data links (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-30, Fig 2, the data is in the uplink and/or downlink direction transmission to the repeater and cell site)..
As to claim 15, Harvey teaches wherein the indicators are at least partially obtained from the at least one access node (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-30, the indication comes from a repeater that is a remote node for the cell site).
As to claim 16, Harvey teaches wherein the indicators are further indicative of one or more identities of the multiple wireless communication devices (Harvey, Col 2 L43-50, identification of the device) .
As to claim 17, Harvey teaches wherein the indicators are at least partially obtained from the multiple wireless communication devices or the coverage enhancing device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, low signal quality indicators from the device and repeater).
As to claim 18, Harvey teaches wherein the beacon signal comprises a visual beacon signal of an active visual marker of the wireless communication device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, Col 10 L29-50, pilot beacon signals are used when activating/assigning/reassigning channels to identify the link ).
As to claim 19, Harvey teaches wherein the beacon signal comprises a radio-frequency beacon signal of an active radio-frequency marker of the wireless communication device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, Col 10 L29-50, pilot beacon signals signals are used when activating/assigning/reassigning channels to identify the link ).
As to claim 20, Harvey teaches a method of operating a coverage enhancing device for supporting one or more data links between at least one access node and one or more wireless communication devices in a surrounding of the coverage enhancing device (Harvey, Col 10 Line 13- Col 11 Line 42, Fig 5, a method of operating a mobile device), wherein the method comprises:
discovering a first wireless communication device of the one or more wireless communication devices in the surrounding of the coverage enhancing device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18 Fig 2 Col 2 L4-10, a link between the mobile device and network repeater exists) by detecting a beacon signal emitted by a beacon of the first wireless communication device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, Col 10 L29-50, pilot beacon signals are used when activating/assigning/reassigning channels to identify the link )., the beacon signal residing in a first range of the electromagnetic spectrum, based on the beacon signal (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, a first and second communication link (Bluetooth, different from first) with pilots), determining a relative location of the first wireless communication device with respect to the coverage enhancing device, and responsive to said discovering of the first wireless communication device and based on the relative location (Harvey, Col 11 L 35-40, the switch trigger occurs when the device is detected to be moving (relative location)), activating a spatial filter to thereby support the data link between the at least one access node and the first wireless communication device in a second range of the electromagnetic spectrum that is different than the first range of the electromagnetic spectrum, the spatial filter comprising a beam directed towards the first wireless communication device (Harvey, Colum 10 Lines 16-18, Col 2 Lines 4-16, a second communication link (Bluetooth, different from first) Col 10 L29-50, switching(turning ON) the other bands (Bluetooth/different spatial filter) in response to low quality/signal and pilot signals are used when activating/assigning/reassigning channels).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 13 and 14 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Patel et al (Pub No: 2012/0039265) [0015].
Alex et al (Pub No: 2022/0303819) [0097]
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AFSHAWN M TOWFIGHI whose telephone number is (571)270-7296. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00 AM -5:00 PM.
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/AFSHAWN M TOWFIGHI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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