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 .
Detailed Action
Preliminary Amendment
Per the amendment on 11/13/2024, claims 1-35 have been canceled and claims 36-55 have been introduced and are examined below.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
Figure 1 discloses a device 100 comprising a plurality of “modules”, 102-106. Figure 3 discloses two clocks, a primary clock 300 and a secondary clock 100.
Page 16 of the originally filed Specification recites: “The device 100 may be referred to as a secondary clock 100” and “The primary clock may be embodied by a device 300”.
The Examiner contends that a “device” cannot be a “clock” as a clock represents an electrical waveform to coordinate the actions of a digital circuit. At best, the device can be a clock generator for generating the clock signals.
- Appropriate correction is required.
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 36-41, 48-51, and 53-55 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Aweya U.S. PGPUB No. 2019/0207695.
Per Claim 36, Aweya discloses:
a method of synchronizing a secondary clock (slave clock 5) with a primary clock (master clock 4), the method comprising:
receiving, from the primary clock (Paragraph 92; master clock 4), a synchronization signal indicative of a reference time (timestamps) at each of a plurality of synchronization events (Paragraphs 91-96, Figure 4; the Sync messages represent synchronization events.);
and estimating an offset and a skew of the secondary clock based on the reference time and a local time retrieved from the secondary clock for each of the synchronization events (Paragraphs 113, 114, 123, and 124),
wherein the offset and the skew of the secondary clock are estimated using a Kalman filter (KF) comprising an offset variance and a skew variance (Paragraphs 96 and 113 - 121),
the offset variance being indicative of a power of noise of the offset and the skew variance being indicative of a power of noise of the skew, wherein the offset variance is set according to an internal noise power measured for the secondary clock and wherein the skew variance is set according to an external influence on the secondary clock measured for an environment of the secondary clock (Paragraph 30, “wherein w.sub.n is the process noise vector made up of the process noise in the offset, skew and drift and Δt is the time between iterations”; Paragraph 123; environmental factors/effects such as temperature);
and updating the secondary clock based on the estimated offset and skew (Paragraphs 104-112; Update phase and update estimate covariance).
Per Claim 37, Aweya discloses the method of claim 36, wherein the offset represents a difference between the local time retrieved from the secondary clock and the reference time at the respective synchronization event (Paragraphs 76 and 91).
Per Claim 38, Aweya discloses the method of claim 36, wherein the skew represents a normalized difference between a frequency of the secondary clock and a nominal frequency of the secondary clock at the respective synchronization event (Paragraphs 76, 83, and 85).
Per Claim 39, Aweya discloses the method of claim 38, wherein a change in the environment causes the skew of the secondary clock and the skew of the frequency of the local oscillator (Paragraph 38, 54, 73, and 123).
Per Claim 40, Aweya discloses the method of claim 36, wherein the secondary clock comprises a local oscillator, wherein the frequency of the secondary clock is the frequency of the local oscillator and/or the nominal frequency of the secondary clock is the nominal frequency of the local oscillator (Paragraph 91; free running local oscillator is used at the client/slave.).
Per Claim 41, Aweya discloses the method of claim 36, wherein the synchronization events occur periodically (Paragraph 119; sampling interval).
Per Claim 48, Aweya discloses the method of claim 36, wherein the external influence is a change in the environment of the secondary clock (Paragraph 123; environmental factors/effects such as temperature).
Per Claim 49, Aweya the method of claim 36, wherein the secondary clock is thermally coupled to a heat sink (Paragraph 43; Client slave device 43 represents a computing device that comprises a heat sink.), and wherein the external influence comprises at least one of: a failure of a heat pump coupling the heat sink and the local oscillator; a failure of a ventilator at the heat sink; an exposure of the heat sink to sun light depending on solar altitude; an increase in the temperature of the local oscillator; and a decrease in the temperature of the local oscillator (Paragraph 123; environmental factors/effects such as temperature).
Per Claim 50, Aweya discloses the method of claim 36, wherein the KF does not comprise a multi-state machine for detecting the external influence (Paragraphs 96 and 113 – 121; Aweya does not mention a state machine with respect to the Kalman Filter.).
Per Claim 51, Aweya discloses the method of claim 36, wherein the skew variance comprises a dimensionless coefficient (Paragraphs 86, 89, 96; The skew is assumed to be constant, and the “dimensionless coefficient” is interpreted as a constant value.).
Per Claim 53, Aweya discloses
a device (Client slave 3) for synchronizing a secondary clock (slave clock 5) with a primary clock (master clock 4), the device comprising:
a radio interface (Paragraph 12; master 1 and slave 3 communicate through radio interface 2, therefore slave 3 comprises a radio interface.);
and processing circuitry configured to (Paragraph 129; computer system may comprise a CPU):
receive, from the primary clock (Paragraph 92; master clock 4), a synchronization signal indicative of a reference time (timestamps) at each of a plurality of synchronization events (Paragraphs 91-96, Figure 4; the Sync messages represent synchronization events.);
and estimate an offset and a skew of the secondary clock based on the reference time and a local time retrieved from the secondary clock for each of the synchronization events (Paragraphs 113, 114, 123, and 124),
wherein the offset and the skew of the secondary clock are estimated using a Kalman filter (KF) comprising an offset variance and a skew variance (Paragraphs 96 and 113 - 121),
the offset variance being indicative of a power of noise of the offset and the skew variance being indicative of a power of noise of the skew, wherein the offset variance is set according to an internal noise power measured for the secondary clock and wherein the skew variance is set according to an external influence on the secondary clock measured for an environment of the secondary clock (Paragraph 30, “wherein w.sub.n is the process noise vector made up of the process noise in the offset, skew and drift and Δt is the time between iterations”; Paragraph 123; environmental factors/effects such as temperature);
and update the secondary clock based on the estimated offset and skew (Paragraphs 104-112; Update phase and update estimate covariance).
Per Claim 54, Aweya discloses the device of claim 53, wherein the device is a user equipment (UE) (client slave 3) configured to communicate with a base station (IEEE 1588v2 GrandMaster (Time Server) 1) or with a radio device functioning as a gateway.
Per Claim 55, Aweya discloses the device of claim 53, wherein the device is a network node in a communication network (Figure 1; Client slave 5 is a network node of a packet network 2).
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 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claim 42 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aweya U.S. PGPUB No. 2019/0207695 in view of Chaloupka et al. U.S. PGPUB No. 2018/0145781 (cited in the IDS filed 11/13/2024).
Per Claim 42, Aweya states that the message exchanges between the master and slave occur over a period of time “so small that the total offset and skew can be assumed to be constant over that period”, however, does not specify that a time or time difference between the synchronization events is less than 1 second.
However, Chaloupka, of a common assignee and field of invention, similarly teaches synchronization between a master (clock) and a slave (clock), and further teaches that the time period between message exchanges can be on the order of milliseconds (Paragraph 6).
- It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the time period between message exchanges, as taught by Aweya, to be less than 1 second, as taught by Chaloupka, because they both teach IEEE 1588 PTP message exchanges between a master and slave device (Chaloupka; Paragraphs 2-4 and Aweya; Paragraphs 8-10).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 43-47 and 52 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With respect to claims 43-45 and 52, no combination of Aweya and the prior art specifically teaches the additional details of the claims offset or skew variance limitations when considered in combination with the subject matter of independent claim 36.
With respect to claim 46, no combination of Aweya and the prior art specifically teach the details of the external influence causing or being represented by a linear change of the frequency of the secondary clock as a function of time, when considered in combination with the subject matter of independent claim 36.
- Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN T MISIURA whose telephone number is (571)272-0889 - (Direct Fax: 571-273-0889). The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 8-4:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Jung can be reached on (571) 272-3779. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Brian T Misiura/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2175
Prosecution Insights