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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/25/2024. 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 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.
The factual inquiries 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(s) 1-21, and 27-32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu (US Patent No. 11,496,876) in view of BaDIC et al. (2020/0229206) hereinafter BaDIC.
Xu discloses an installation for a wireless communication system (see figure 1), comprising a radio frequency transceiver (see figure 1 and items 6 and 2), for providing wireless communications to user equipment located within a wireless communication area, the transceiver being coupled to a communications signal processing facility, and comprising a data link to a wider communication network (see column 1 and lines 63-column 4 and lines 26), the installation further comprising a ground-based location comprising: an main controller (see figure 1 and item 8) an edge computing facility, the computing facility comprising a data link to a cloud computing network, and comprising data storage, processing and networking capability, and linked to the communications signal processing facility; and a source of electrical power (see figure 1 and item 7); an elevated location comprising: an aerostat (see figure 1 and item 1)comprising the radio frequency transceiver (see figure 1 and item 2), the aerostat being tethered to the ground-based location by a tether, wherein the tether comprises a data connection between the ground-based location and the radio frequency transceiver(see column 6 and lines 4-67), and a power cable for providing electrical power from the source of electrical power to the radio frequency transceiver(see column 5 and lines 19-55, LoRa module is electrically connected with the power supply system via tethered rope).
Xu does not teach that the main controller is an edge computing facility, the computing facility comprising a data link to a cloud computing network, and comprising data storage, processing and networking capability, and linked to the communications signal processing facility.
BaDIC teaches such feature (see para. 786-797). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to replace the main controller with the edge computing facility in order to support mobile communication during emergency in near location without delay or latency.
Per claim 2, Xu further teaches that the elevated location is from 100 m to 10,000 m (see column 4 and lines 1-5, in order to support the LoRa communication coverage over 5km).
Per claim 3, Xu further teaches that the wireless communication area is greater than 500 km2 (see column 4 and lines 1-5, assume the range of LoRa is 15km based on the circle area formula, the LoRa communication module can cover over 600 km2 .
Per claim 4, Xu further teaches the wireless communication area is divided into a plurality of cellular communication cells (nodes or sub nodes, see figure 4 and corresponding paragraphs).
Per claim 5, combination of Xu and BaDIC doesn’t expressly teach the processing capability of the edge computing facility to be greater than TeraFLOPS (1 trillion calculation s per second). The examiner takes official notice that it is notoriously well known in art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to acquire such high computer process to performance to handle highly complex real-world data such as wireless communication data.
Per claim 6, Xu further teaches that the minimum data transfer latency between the user equipment and the edge computing facility is less than 5 ms (see column 4 and lines 1-5, assuming the distance between the user device and LoRa module is 5km and signal speed is at the speed of light 3x108 m/s).
Per claim 7-10, BaDIC further teaches that the edge computing facility comprises a plurality of edge computers each edge computer has an independent connection to a different cloud computing network (see figure 7 and para. 0282); the cloud computing network comprises a major commercial cloud computing network(see para. 0448).
Per claim 11, Xu further teaches that the communications signal processing facility comprises bespoke wireless signal processing hardware, located at the ground-based location (see figure 1 and column 5 and 6).
Per claim 12, combination of Xu and BaDIC further teaches that the edge computing facility is located physically close to the bespoke wireless signal processing hardware (see figure 1, both WIFI and main controller are in the same box).
Per claim 13, BaDIC further teaches that the edge computing facility is operable to provide at least a portion of the communications signal processing facility (see para. 0789-0797).
Per claim 14, BaDIC further teaches that the edge computing facility is operable to provide all of the communications signal processing facility, preferably by executing O-RAN software (see figure 3 and para. 0263, it suggested that a software defined radio network is utilized for quick deployment).
Per claim 15, BaDIC further teaches that the edge computing facility is operable to provide core access network functions for communicating between users of the installation (see para. 0961, 1104 and 1105).
Per claim 16, BaDIC further teaches that the edge computing facility comprises a data link to the Internet (see para. 865, 1154).
Per claim 17, BaDIC further teaches that the installation comprises a satellite data link (see para. 0899-0901).
Per claim 18, Xu further teaches that the source of electrical power is a standalone energy generator, and preferably comprises a solar and/or a wind energy generator (see figure 1, column 5 lines 20-50, battery).
Per claim 19, Xu further teaches a battery for storage of electrical power (see figure 1, column 5 lines 20-50, battery).
Per claim 20, Xu teaches a tether rope but does not disclose a winch, or other winding mechanism. The examiner takes an official notice that it is notoriously well known in the art to incorporate a winding mechanism for the tether rope. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the winding mechanism to wind the tethered rope.
Per claim 21, BaDIC further teaches that the radio frequency transceiver comprises a phased array antenna (see figure 7 and 8 and corresponding paragraphs).
Per claim 27, Xu further teaches that the ground-based location comprises aerostat monitoring equipment connected to an aerostat control system (see figure 1, the balloon is connected to a tether rope with controllable helium tank).
Per claim 28, Xu further teaches that the aerostat is an elongate aerostat that is vertically oriented (see figure 1 and items 1-5).
Per claim 29, Xu further teaches that the wider communication network comprises a wireless communications system with conventional towers of less than 30 m in height above ground level (see columns 1-3, “WAN”).
Per claim 30, BaDIC further teaches the installations being linked together by data links, providing a networked wireless communication area (see figure 7 and corresponding paragraphs).
Per claim 31, BaDIC further teaches the data links between the ground-based locations comprise a radio frequency data link via the transceivers (see figure 7, 13 and corresponding paragraphs).
Per claim 32, combination of Xiu and BaDIC further teaches that least five ground-based base stations the networked wireless communication area is greater than 10,000 km2 (see figure 7, since one aerostat might cover over 500km2 ).
Claim(s) 22-26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu and BaDIC as applied to claims 1 and 21 above, and further in view of Wannemacher (EP 3512039A1) hereinafter Wanne.
Per claim 22, Combination of Xu and BaDIC discloses a wireless communication with phase array antenna on a deployable balloon as depicted in claim 1 and 21. Such combination doesn’t expressly teach that the phased array antenna is cylindrical with its central axis vertically oriented, with antenna elements distributed around the cylindrical outer surface. Wanne teaches such antenna design (see figure 1a and corresponding paragraphs). It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate such antenna design to maximize the wireless coverage of an area over the ground level.
Per claim 23 Wanne further teaches that the ratio of the length to the diameter of the cylinder is greater than 2.0 (see figure 1a).
Per claim 24, Wanne further teaches that the antenna elements are composed of multiple antenna elements and a composite element, which are phased together in the analogue domain (see para. 0004-0012, the antenna array can steer together with desired angles) .
Per claim 25, Wanne further teach that phased together using fixed amplitude and phase (see para. 0009-0011, given amplitude and phase is according to a 5G standard).
Per claim 26, Wanne further teaches that the composite elements are arranged in a chequerboard layout, enabling the accommodation of long composite elements (see figure 1a).
Conclusion
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YUWEN . PAN
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2649
/YUWEN PAN/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2649
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