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 .
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 1-7, 9, 11, 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz) and in further view of Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik)
Regarding Claim 1, Lee teaches the a virtualized distributed antenna system (vDAS)
(Lee [Col. 1, line 39] According to embodiments of the present invention, the virtualization of a wireless network is provided utilizing software configurable radio-based distributed antenna system (DAS))
the vDAS comprising: a set of one or more physical server computers on which scalable vDAS software is executed, each of which is configured to execute respective virtualization software that creates a respective virtualized environment in which the scalable vDAS software is executed to carry out a respective one or more roles for the vDAS;
(Lee [Col. 4, line 59] In particular, the virtualization technology described herein may enable massive, scalable broadband data throughput while providing efficiency, flexibility, and control that is unparalleled in the wireless infrastructure industry.)
a scaled configuration for the vDAS to serve the one or more donor base stations that is scaled so that the available resources available to implement the vDAS are sufficient to implement the vDAS in accordance with the scaled configuration;
(Lee [Col. 5, line 33] Referring to FIG. 1B, a virtualized wireless network 150 may include a base station “farm” in which base stations are provisioned in a novel way, enabling underlying BTS hardware to be commoditized and used in a freely interoperable and scalable configurations.
[Col. 5, line 55] Embodiments of the present invention may provide for virtualization of base station farms to harness massive, scalable capacity resources.)
But Lee fails to teach, to serve a set of one or more donor base stations
a plurality of access points (APs), each of the APs associated with a respective set of coverage antennas and each of the APs communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers;
and one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS,
configure the vDAS to serve the one or more donor base stations in accordance with the scaled configuration by executing the scalable vDAS software on each of the physical server computers in accordance with the scaled configuration.
However, in a similar endeavor, Kummetz teaches to serve a set of one or more donor base stations
(Kummetz [0005] In one aspect, a base station router disposed in a distributed antenna system is provided. The base station router includes a backplane and a controller.
[0029] A base station router can include donor interface cards, a backplane, and zone interface cards.)
configure the vDAS to serve the one or more donor base stations in accordance with the scaled configuration by executing the scalable vDAS software on each of the physical server computers in accordance with the scaled configuration.
(Kummetz [0057] The instructions can include a configuration engine 210. When executed by the processor 202, the configuration engine 210 can cause the controller 108 to redistribute capacity in the DAS 100.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled a scalable configuration to make deployment cheaper, more flexible and easier to expand.
Furthermore, the combination of Lee and Kummetz fail to teach a plurality of access points (APs), each of the APs associated with a respective set of coverage antennas and each of the APs communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers;
and one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS,
However, in a similar endeavor, Rosenschild teaches a plurality of access points (APs), each of the APs associated with a respective set of coverage antennas and each of the APs communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers;
(Rosenschild [0010, line 6] a plurality of access points (AP) 140 (which may also be referred to herein as remote antenna units (RAU) 140) that transmit and receive mobile radio signals.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee and Kummetz by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to use physical access points placed near antennas to send and receive radio signals.
Moreover, the combination of Lee, Kummetz and Rosenschild fail to teach one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS,
In a similar endeavor, Stefanik teaches one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
(Stefanik [Col. 3, line 44] Embodiments provide a re-configurable DAS that dynamically adjusts wireless coverage to the coverage zones as needed.
[Col. 4, line 49] Each POI (generally designated as 412) is an integrated base transceiver station interface that combines several functions including, for example, at least base transceiver station conditioning, signal splitting and combing, monitoring, testing, remote monitoring, and automatic power leveling functions. In implementing the functions, each POI 412 may include, but is not limited to, a signal leveler, a signal amplifier, a signal attenuator, a signal splitter, a signal combiner, a receive-and-transmit signal combiner, a multiplexer, a test-tone generator, a radio frequency (RF) power detector, an RF signal tagging mechanism, and the like.)
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
(Stefanik [Col. 7, line 53] If it is determined that a threshold usage in a coverage zone is exceeded at block 554, it is then determined if there are available resources (BTS) covering other coverage zones that can be redirected to the coverage zone where communication usage has exceeded the threshold.)
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS
(Stefanik [Col. 7, line 62] If, however, it is determined at block 556 that there are available resources that can be redirected to the coverage zone where communication usage has exceeded the threshold, these available resources (BTS) are redirected to provide additional communication services to the coverage zone where usage has exceeded the threshold at block 558. The process then continues at block 553 monitoring communication usage in the coverage zones.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Rosenschild and by incorporating Stefanik to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration component automatically checks the kind of donor base stations are present and what computing/network resources are available.
Regarding Claim 2, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Kummetz further teaches wherein the one or more self-configuration entities are configured to determine the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations by doing one or more of the following: communicate with one or more of the donor base stations;
(Kummetz [0015] FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a base station router configured to communicate with other base station routers according to one aspect.)
and communicate with a management entity associated with the donor base stations.
(Kummetz [0053] The base station router 14 can also include a controller 108. The controller 108 can re-configure the configurable digital signal processing circuitry of the backplane 104 to change the routing of signals from the base stations 12a-n to the coverage zone 16a-f.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Stefanik and by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration component automatically checks the kind of donor base stations are present and what computing/network resources are available.
Regarding Claim 3, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Kummetz further teaches
wherein the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations comprise one or more of the following:
donor interface types supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
(Kummetz [0029] A base station router can include donor interface cards, a backplane, and zone interface cards. A donor interface card can interface with a base station for bi-directional communication of sector signals and can provide the signals of a sector to the backplane.)
radio unit entity configurations supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
(Kummetz [0039, line 7] For example, the base station router 14 may convert digital signals in different standardized formats, such as Common Public Radio Interface ("CPRI") or Open Radio Equipment Interface ("ORI"), to a common digital format to process the signals.)
air interface bandwidths supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
duplexing schemes supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
end-to-end latency requirements for each of the one or more donor base stations;
antenna ports supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
and numerologies supported by each of the one or more donor base stations.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Stefanik and by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration component automatically checks the donor interface type supported by the donor base stations. This drives configuration selection.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Stefanik further teaches wherein the one or more self-configuration entities comprise:
respective self-configuration client software configured to execute on each of the one or more physical servers;
(Stefanik [Col. 9, line 17] Example 2, includes the re-configurable distributed antenna system of Example 1, wherein the at least one controller is further configured to use signal communication path properties in determining the distributed antenna system configurations.
[Col. 6, line 37] The functions attributed to controller 502 herein may be embodied as software, firmware, hardware or any combination thereof.)
and self-configuration master software configured to communicate with the respective self-configuration client software executing on each of the one or more physical servers;
and wherein the respective self-configuration client software is configured to determine at least some of the available resources available to implement the vDAS and communicate, to the self-configuration master software, information about said at least some of the available resources available to implement the vDAS.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and by incorporating Stefanik to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration software to automate sizing and setup.
Regarding Claim 5, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Stefanik further teaches wherein the available resources that are available to implement the vDAS comprise at least one of: resources provided by the set of one or more physical server computers, bandwidth and other characteristics of communication connectivity used for communications between nodes of the vDAS, and bandwidth and other characteristics of communication connectivity used for communications between the set of donor base stations and the vDAS.
(Stefanik [Col. 6, line 60] The switch router controller 502 controls the operation of routing switches 510-1 through 510-n to selectively direct resources (BTS) to coverage zones.
[Col. 6, line 66] The DAS configurations are determined based off of signal communication path properties for each signal communication path used in a routing scenario. These properties may include properties relating to gain or attenuator settings, output power profile definitions for the remote units, analog or digital filtering, delay adaptions and the like. In one embodiment, these properties are also stored in the memory.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and by incorporating Stefanik to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration software to automate sizing and setup.
Regarding Claim 6, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Lee further teaches wherein the available resources that are available to implement the vDAS comprise at least one of:
processor cores provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
clock frequency provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
central processor unit (CPU) make, model, or architecture provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
memory provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
Ethernet bandwidth supported by the set of one or more physical server computers;
(Lee [Col. 2, line 6] The one or more DAUs may include a plurality of DAUs coupled via at least one of Ethernet cable, Optical Fiber, Microwave Line of Sight Link, Wireless Link, or Satellite Link. The one or more DAUs may include a plurality of DAUs coupled to the plurality of DRUs via at least one of Ethernet cable
[Col. 8, line 39] The Ethernet cable is used to locally communicate with the Remote Radio Head Unit. Switch 526 is used to allow easy access to either the FPGA or the CPU.)
an operating system provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCle) configuration provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
threading/hyperthreading configuration and resources provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
input-output (10) acceleration provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
socket configuration provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
CPU pinning or isolation provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
and non-uniform memory access (NUMA) awareness provided by the set of one or more physical server computers.
Regarding Claim 7, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Rosenschild further teaches wherein the scalable vDAS software comprises, for each of the one or more roles for the vDAS, a respective set of mandatory services and a respective set of optional services.
(Rosenschild [0010, line 3 ] As shown in FIG. 1, in one implementation DAS 100 comprises one or more wide-area integration nodes (WIN) 115, a central area node (CAN) 120, one or more transport extension nodes (TEN) 130, and a plurality of access points (AP) 140 (which may also be referred to herein as remote antenna units (RAU) 140) that transmit and receive mobile radio signals. The WIN 115 and CAN 120 operate in conjunction with each other to implement a distributed master unit (MU) 110 function for DAS 100 that establishes communications with one or more base stations 105.
[0013, line 9] It should be understood that the presence of a TEN 130 is optional and that in some embodiments, access points 140 may be coupled directly to the CAN 120 without an intervening TEN 130. Likewise, in some embodiments, the WIN 115 may be omitted as optional.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the virtualized DAS on physical servers running scalable software.
Regarding Claim 9, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Rosenschild further teaches
wherein the one or more roles for the vDAS comprise at least one of: a virtual master unit (vMU) role and a virtual intermediary combining node (vICN).
(Rosenschild [0003] In one embodiment, a distributed antenna system (DAS) comprises: a master unit
[0002, line 3] Each remote antenna unit can be coupled directly to one or more of the master units or indirectly via one or more other remote antenna units and/or via one or more intermediary or expansion units.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the virtualized DAS on physical servers running scalable software.
Regarding Claim 11, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Kummetz further teaches wherein the set of donor base stations comprise one of the following:
a radio frequency (RF) interface donor base station coupled to the vDAS using an analog RF fronthaul interface supported by the RF interface donor base station;
a Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) donor base station coupled to the vDAS using a CPRI fronthaul interface supported by the CPRI donor base station;
(Kummetz [0039, line 7] For example, the base station router 14 may convert digital signals in different standardized formats, such as Common Public Radio Interface ("CPRI"))
And a Ethernet donor base station coupled to the vDAS using an Ethernet fronthaul interface supported by the Ethernet donor base station.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Stefanik and Rosenschild and by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the CPRI donor base station coupled to donor base stations for efficiency.
Regarding Claim 13, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the virtualized distributed antenna system of Claim 1, and Rosenschild further teaches wherein the vDAS is configured to serve the set of donor base stations by wirelessly transmitting downlink radio frequency (RF) signals for the respective donor base station from the respective set of coverage antenna associated with a respective subset of the APs associated with the respective donor base station and wirelessly receiving uplink RF signals for the respective donor base station from the respective set of coverage antenna associated with the respective subset of the APs associated with the respective donor base station.
(Rosenschild [0003] In one embodiment, a distributed antenna system (DAS) comprises: a master unit configured to receive a base station downlink radio frequency signal from at least one base station, and configured to transmit a base station uplink radio frequency signal to the at least one base station; a plurality of remote antenna units that are each communicatively coupled to the master unit, the plurality of remote antenna units each configured to radiate a remote downlink radio frequency signal from at least one antenna into a coverage area and to receive a remote uplink radio frequency signal from the coverage area via the at least one antenna)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have efficient downlink and uplink transmission.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in the combined view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz), Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik) as applied to Claim 1 above and in further view of Perry (US 12754860 B1, hereinafter Perry)
Regarding Claim 8 and as applied to Claim 1, the combination of Lee, Kummetz, Rosenschild and Stefanik fail to teach wherein a set of slices are defined for each of the one or more roles for the vDAS, wherein each slice specifies a respective subset of the set of mandatory services and a respective subset of the set of optional services to execute for that slice.
However, in a similar endeavor, Perry teaches wherein a set of slices are defined for each of the one or more roles for the vDAS, wherein each slice specifies a respective subset of the set of mandatory services and a respective subset of the set of optional services to execute for that slice.
(Perry [Col. 43, line 46] In at least one embodiment, graphics processor 2300 includes scalable thread execution resources featuring modular graphics cores 2380A-2380N (sometimes referred to as core slices), each having multiple sub-cores 2350A-550N, 2360A-2360N (sometimes referred to as core sub-slices).
[Col. 48, line 29] In at least one embodiment, each graphics core 2600 can include a fixed function block 2630 coupled with multiple sub-cores 2601A-2601F, also referred to as sub-slices, that include modular blocks of general-purpose and fixed function logic.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Perry to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have scaled configuration can adjust which services, slices are enabled so the vDAS fits the deployment.
Claims 10 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in the combined view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz), Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik) as applied to Claim 1 above and in further view of LUPPER et al. (WO 2019147825 A2, hereinafter Lupper)
Regarding Claim 10, and as applied to Claim 1, the combination of Lee, Kummetz, Rosenschild and Stefanik fail to teach wherein each of the plurality of APs is communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers using a switched Ethernet network.
However, in a similar endeavor, Lupper teaches wherein each of the plurality of APs is communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers using a switched Ethernet network.
(Lupper[0037, line 7] In some embodiments, DAS cloud 120 further comprises a virtual Ethernet switch 324 that switches Ethernet packets between the user plane entities 310 and the DAS Controller Virtual Machine 320 with which they are associated.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Lupper to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to utilize switched Ethernet network between servers and access points.
Regarding Claim 14, and as applied to Claim 1, the combination of Lee, Kummetz, Rosenschild and Stefanik fail to teach wherein the one or more self-configuration entities are configured to determine the scaled configuration for the vDAS using a look-up table that includes information about various configurations of the vDAS suitable for use with various combinations of characteristics of donor base stations and available resources for the vDAS.
However, in a similar endeavor, Lupper teaches wherein the one or more self-configuration entities are configured to determine the scaled configuration for the vDAS using a look-up table that includes information about various configurations of the vDAS suitable for use with various combinations of characteristics of donor base stations and available resources for the vDAS.
(Lupper [0016, line 17] In some embodiments, the data plane 130 is also separate from the DAS controller 124 within DAS cloud 112, to allow for moving database tables to dedicated machines (either real or virtual machines) and thus further improve performance and scalability.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Lupper to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have matching deployment to resources.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in the combined view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz), Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik) as applied to Claim 11 above and in further view of Li et al. (US 12756635 B2, hereinafter Li)
Regarding Claim 12 and as applied to Claim 11, Li teaches wherein the Ethernet fronthaul interface comprises at least one of an evolved CPRI (eCPRI) interface, an IEEE 1914.3 Radio-over-Ethernet (RoE) interface, a functional application programming interface (FAPI) interface, a network FAPI (nFAPI) interface), or an Open RAN (O-RAN) fronthaul interface.
(Li [Col. 16, line 41] FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example 300 of an O-RAN architecture, in accordance with the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 3, the O-RAN architecture may include a CU 310 that communicates with a core network 320 via a backhaul link.
[Col. 17, line 12] user plane communication with the RU(s) 340 are controlled by the corresponding DU 330, which enables the DU(s) 330 and the CU 310 to be implemented in a cloud-based RAN architecture.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Li to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have O-RAN architecture to ensure best-performed and most cost-effective technologies.
Claims 15-21, 23, 25, 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz) and in further view of Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik)
Regarding Claim 15, Lee teaches method of configuring a virtualized distributed antenna system (vDAS)
(Lee [Col. 1, line 39] According to embodiments of the present invention, the virtualization of a wireless network is provided utilizing software configurable radio-based distributed antenna system (DAS))
the vDAS comprising: a set of one or more physical server computers on which scalable vDAS software is executed, each of which is configured to execute respective virtualization software that creates a respective virtualized environment in which the scalable vDAS software is executed to carry out a respective one or more roles for the vDAS;
(Lee [Col. 4, line 59] In particular, the virtualization technology described herein may enable massive, scalable broadband data throughput while providing efficiency, flexibility, and control that is unparalleled in the wireless infrastructure industry.)
a scaled configuration for the vDAS to serve the one or more donor base stations that is scaled so that the available resources available to implement the vDAS are sufficient to implement the vDAS in accordance with the scaled configuration;
(Lee [Col. 5, line 33] Referring to FIG. 1B, a virtualized wireless network 150 may include a base station “farm” in which base stations are provisioned in a novel way, enabling underlying BTS hardware to be commoditized and used in a freely interoperable and scalable configurations.
[Col. 5, line 55] Embodiments of the present invention may provide for virtualization of base station farms to harness massive, scalable capacity resources.)
But Lee fails to teach, to serve a set of one or more donor base stations
a plurality of access points (APs), each of the APs associated with a respective set of coverage antennas and each of the APs communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers;
and one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS,
configure the vDAS to serve the one or more donor base stations in accordance with the scaled configuration by executing the scalable vDAS software on each of the physical server computers in accordance with the scaled configuration.
However, in a similar endeavor, Kummetz teaches to serve a set of one or more donor base stations
(Kummetz [0005] In one aspect, a base station router disposed in a distributed antenna system is provided. The base station router includes a backplane and a controller.
[0029] A base station router can include donor interface cards, a backplane, and zone interface cards.)
configure the vDAS to serve the one or more donor base stations in accordance with the scaled configuration by executing the scalable vDAS software on each of the physical server computers in accordance with the scaled configuration.
(Kummetz [0057] The instructions can include a configuration engine 210. When executed by the processor 202, the configuration engine 210 can cause the controller 108 to redistribute capacity in the DAS 100.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled a scalable configuration to make deployment cheaper, more flexible and easier to expand.
Furthermore, the combination of Lee and Kummetz fail to teach a plurality of access points (APs), each of the APs associated with a respective set of coverage antennas and each of the APs communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers;
and one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS,
However, in a similar endeavor, Rosenschild teaches a plurality of access points (APs), each of the APs associated with a respective set of coverage antennas and each of the APs communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers;
(Rosenschild [0010, line 6] a plurality of access points (AP) 140 (which may also be referred to herein as remote antenna units (RAU) 140) that transmit and receive mobile radio signals.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee and Kummetz by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to use physical access points placed near antennas to send and receive radio signals.
Moreover, the combination of Lee, Kummetz and Rosenschild fail to teach one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS,
In a similar endeavor, Stefanik teaches one or more self-configuration entities configured to: determine characteristics of the one or more donor base stations;
(Stefanik [Col. 3, line 44] Embodiments provide a re-configurable DAS that dynamically adjusts wireless coverage to the coverage zones as needed.
[Col. 4, line 49] Each POI (generally designated as 412) is an integrated base transceiver station interface that combines several functions including, for example, at least base transceiver station conditioning, signal splitting and combing, monitoring, testing, remote monitoring, and automatic power leveling functions. In implementing the functions, each POI 412 may include, but is not limited to, a signal leveler, a signal amplifier, a signal attenuator, a signal splitter, a signal combiner, a receive-and-transmit signal combiner, a multiplexer, a test-tone generator, a radio frequency (RF) power detector, an RF signal tagging mechanism, and the like.)
determine available resources that are available to implement the vDAS;
(Stefanik [Col. 7, line 53] If it is determined that a threshold usage in a coverage zone is exceeded at block 554, it is then determined if there are available resources (BTS) covering other coverage zones that can be redirected to the coverage zone where communication usage has exceeded the threshold.)
determine, using the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations and the available resources available to implement the vDAS
(Stefanik [Col. 7, line 62] If, however, it is determined at block 556 that there are available resources that can be redirected to the coverage zone where communication usage has exceeded the threshold, these available resources (BTS) are redirected to provide additional communication services to the coverage zone where usage has exceeded the threshold at block 558. The process then continues at block 553 monitoring communication usage in the coverage zones.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Rosenschild and by incorporating Stefanik to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration component automatically checks the kind of donor base stations are present and what computing/network resources are available.
Regarding Claim 16, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Kummetz further teaches wherein the one or more self-configuration entities are configured to determine the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations by doing one or more of the following: communicate with one or more of the donor base stations;
(Kummetz [0015] FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a base station router configured to communicate with other base station routers according to one aspect.)
and communicate with a management entity associated with the donor base stations.
(Kummetz [0053] The base station router 14 can also include a controller 108. The controller 108 can re-configure the configurable digital signal processing circuitry of the backplane 104 to change the routing of signals from the base stations 12a-n to the coverage zone 16a-f.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Stefanik and by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration component automatically checks the kind of donor base stations are present and what computing/network resources are available.
Regarding Claim 17, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Kummetz further teaches
wherein the characteristics of the one or more donor base stations comprise one or more of the following:
donor interface types supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
(Kummetz [0029] A base station router can include donor interface cards, a backplane, and zone interface cards. A donor interface card can interface with a base station for bi-directional communication of sector signals and can provide the signals of a sector to the backplane.)
radio unit entity configurations supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
(Kummetz [0039, line 7] For example, the base station router 14 may convert digital signals in different standardized formats, such as Common Public Radio Interface ("CPRI") or Open Radio Equipment Interface ("ORI"), to a common digital format to process the signals.)
air interface bandwidths supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
duplexing schemes supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
end-to-end latency requirements for each of the one or more donor base stations;
antenna ports supported by each of the one or more donor base stations;
and numerologies supported by each of the one or more donor base stations.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Stefanik and by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration component automatically checks the donor interface type supported by the donor base stations. This drives configuration selection.
Regarding Claim 18, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Stefanik further teaches wherein the one or more self-configuration entities comprise:
respective self-configuration client software configured to execute on each of the one or more physical servers;
(Stefanik [Col. 9, line 17] Example 2, includes the re-configurable distributed antenna system of Example 1, wherein the at least one controller is further configured to use signal communication path properties in determining the distributed antenna system configurations.
[Col. 6, line 37] The functions attributed to controller 502 herein may be embodied as software, firmware, hardware or any combination thereof.)
and self-configuration master software configured to communicate with the respective self-configuration client software executing on each of the one or more physical servers;
and wherein the respective self-configuration client software is configured to determine at least some of the available resources available to implement the vDAS and communicate, to the self-configuration master software, information about said at least some of the available resources available to implement the vDAS.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and by incorporating Stefanik to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration software to automate sizing and setup.
Regarding Claim 19, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Stefanik further teaches wherein the available resources that are available to implement the vDAS comprise at least one of: resources provided by the set of one or more physical server computers, bandwidth and other characteristics of communication connectivity used for communications between nodes of the vDAS, and bandwidth and other characteristics of communication connectivity used for communications between the set of donor base stations and the vDAS.
(Stefanik [Col. 6, line 60] The switch router controller 502 controls the operation of routing switches 510-1 through 510-n to selectively direct resources (BTS) to coverage zones.
[Col. 6, line 66] The DAS configurations are determined based off of signal communication path properties for each signal communication path used in a routing scenario. These properties may include properties relating to gain or attenuator settings, output power profile definitions for the remote units, analog or digital filtering, delay adaptions and the like. In one embodiment, these properties are also stored in the memory.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and by incorporating Stefanik to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have self-configuration software to automate sizing and setup.
Regarding Claim 20, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Lee further teaches wherein the available resources that are available to implement the vDAS comprise at least one of:
processor cores provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
clock frequency provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
central processor unit (CPU) make, model, or architecture provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
memory provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
Ethernet bandwidth supported by the set of one or more physical server computers;
(Lee [Col. 2, line 6] The one or more DAUs may include a plurality of DAUs coupled via at least one of Ethernet cable, Optical Fiber, Microwave Line of Sight Link, Wireless Link, or Satellite Link. The one or more DAUs may include a plurality of DAUs coupled to the plurality of DRUs via at least one of Ethernet cable
[Col. 8, line 39] The Ethernet cable is used to locally communicate with the Remote Radio Head Unit. Switch 526 is used to allow easy access to either the FPGA or the CPU.)
an operating system provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCle) configuration provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
threading/hyperthreading configuration and resources provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
input-output (10) acceleration provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
socket configuration provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
CPU pinning or isolation provided by the set of one or more physical server computers;
and non-uniform memory access (NUMA) awareness provided by the set of one or more physical server computers.
Regarding Claim 21, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Rosenschild further teaches wherein the scalable vDAS software comprises, for each of the one or more roles for the vDAS, a respective set of mandatory services and a respective set of optional services.
(Rosenschild [0010, line 3 ] As shown in FIG. 1, in one implementation DAS 100 comprises one or more wide-area integration nodes (WIN) 115, a central area node (CAN) 120, one or more transport extension nodes (TEN) 130, and a plurality of access points (AP) 140 (which may also be referred to herein as remote antenna units (RAU) 140) that transmit and receive mobile radio signals. The WIN 115 and CAN 120 operate in conjunction with each other to implement a distributed master unit (MU) 110 function for DAS 100 that establishes communications with one or more base stations 105.
[0013, line 9 ] It should be understood that the presence of a TEN 130 is optional and that in some embodiments, access points 140 may be coupled directly to the CAN 120 without an intervening TEN 130. Likewise, in some embodiments, the WIN 115 may be omitted as optional.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the virtualized DAS on physical servers running scalable software.
Regarding Claim 23, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Rosenschild further teaches
wherein the one or more roles for the vDAS comprise at least one of: a virtual master unit (vMU) role and a virtual intermediary combining node (vICN).
(Rosenschild [0003] In one embodiment, a distributed antenna system (DAS) comprises: a master unit
[0002, line 3] Each remote antenna unit can be coupled directly to one or more of the master units or indirectly via one or more other remote antenna units and/or via one or more intermediary or expansion units.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the virtualized DAS on physical servers running scalable software.
Regarding Claim 25, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Kummetz further teaches wherein the set of donor base stations comprise one of the following:
a radio frequency (RF) interface donor base station coupled to the vDAS using an analog RF fronthaul interface supported by the RF interface donor base station;
a Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) donor base station coupled to the vDAS using a CPRI fronthaul interface supported by the CPRI donor base station;
(Kummetz [0039, line 7] For example, the base station router 14 may convert digital signals in different standardized formats, such as Common Public Radio Interface ("CPRI"))
And a Ethernet donor base station coupled to the vDAS using an Ethernet fronthaul interface supported by the Ethernet donor base station.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Stefanik and Rosenschild and by incorporating Kummetz to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the CPRI donor base station coupled to donor base stations for efficiency.
Regarding Claim 27, the combination Lee, Kummez, Rosenschild and Stefanik teaches the method of Claim 15, and Rosenschild further teaches wherein the vDAS is configured to serve the set of donor base stations by wirelessly transmitting downlink radio frequency (RF) signals for the respective donor base station from the respective set of coverage antenna associated with a respective subset of the APs associated with the respective donor base station and wirelessly receiving uplink RF signals for the respective donor base station from the respective set of coverage antenna associated with the respective subset of the APs associated with the respective donor base station.
(Rosenschild [0003] In one embodiment, a distributed antenna system (DAS) comprises: a master unit configured to receive a base station downlink radio frequency signal from at least one base station, and configured to transmit a base station uplink radio frequency signal to the at least one base station; a plurality of remote antenna units that are each communicatively coupled to the master unit, the plurality of remote antenna units each configured to radiate a remote downlink radio frequency signal from at least one antenna into a coverage area and to receive a remote uplink radio frequency signal from the coverage area via the at least one antenna)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Rosenschild to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have efficient downlink and uplink transmission.
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in the combined view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz), Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik) as applied to Claim 15 above and in further view of Perry (US 12754860 B1, hereinafter Perry)
Regarding Claim 22 and as applied to Claim 15, the combination of Lee, Kummetz, Rosenschild and Stefanik fail to teach wherein a set of slices are defined for each of the one or more roles for the vDAS, wherein each slice specifies a respective subset of the set of mandatory services and a respective subset of the set of optional services to execute for that slice.
However, in a similar endeavor, Perry teaches wherein a set of slices are defined for each of the one or more roles for the vDAS, wherein each slice specifies a respective subset of the set of mandatory services and a respective subset of the set of optional services to execute for that slice.
(Perry [Col. 43, line 46] In at least one embodiment, graphics processor 2300 includes scalable thread execution resources featuring modular graphics cores 2380A-2380N (sometimes referred to as core slices), each having multiple sub-cores 2350A-550N, 2360A-2360N (sometimes referred to as core sub-slices).
[Col. 48, line 29] In at least one embodiment, each graphics core 2600 can include a fixed function block 2630 coupled with multiple sub-cores 2601A-2601F, also referred to as sub-slices, that include modular blocks of general-purpose and fixed function logic.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Perry to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have scaled configuration can adjust which services, slices are enabled so the vDAS fits the deployment.
Claims 24 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in the combined view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz), Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik) as applied to Claim 15 above and in further view of LUPPER et al. (WO 2019147825 A2, hereinafter Lupper)
Regarding Claim 24, and as applied to claim 15, the combination of Lee, Kummetz, Rosenschild and Stefanik fail to teach wherein each of the plurality of APs is communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers using a switched Ethernet network.
However, in a similar endeavor, Lupper teaches wherein each of the plurality of APs is communicatively coupled to at least one of the set of physical server computers using a switched Ethernet network.
(Lupper[0037, line 7] In some embodiments, DAS cloud 120 further comprises a virtual Ethernet switch 324 that switches Ethernet packets between the user plane entities 310 and the DAS Controller Virtual Machine 320 with which they are associated.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Lupper to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to utilize switched Ethernet network between servers and access points.
Regarding Claim 28, and as applied to Claim 15 the combination of Lee, Kummetz, Rosenschild and Stefanik fail to teach wherein the one or more self-configuration entities are configured to determine the scaled configuration for the vDAS using a look-up table that includes information about various configurations of the vDAS suitable for use with various combinations of characteristics of donor base stations and available resources for the vDAS.
However, in a similar endeavor, Lupper teaches wherein the one or more self-configuration entities are configured to determine the scaled configuration for the vDAS using a look-up table that includes information about various configurations of the vDAS suitable for use with various combinations of characteristics of donor base stations and available resources for the vDAS.
(Lupper [0016, line 17] In some embodiments, the data plane 130 is also separate from the DAS controller 124 within DAS cloud 112, to allow for moving database tables to dedicated machines (either real or virtual machines) and thus further improve performance and scalability.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Lupper to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have matching deployment to resources.
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 10264626 B2, as being Lee) in the combined view of Kummetz et al. (US 20130017863 A1, hereinafter Kummetz), Rosenschild (US 20210153034 A1, hereinafter Rosenschild) and Stefanik et al. (US 11189934 B2, hereinafter Stefanik) as applied to Claim 25 above and in further view of Li et al. (US 12756635 B2, hereinafter Li)
Regarding Claim 26 and as applied to Claim 25, Li teaches wherein the Ethernet fronthaul interface comprises at least one of an evolved CPRI (eCPRI) interface, an IEEE 1914.3 Radio-over-Ethernet (RoE) interface, a functional application programming interface (FAPI) interface, a network FAPI (nFAPI) interface), or an Open RAN (O-RAN) fronthaul interface.
(Li [Col. 16, line 41] FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example 300 of an O-RAN architecture, in accordance with the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 3, the O-RAN architecture may include a CU 310 that communicates with a core network 320 via a backhaul link.
[Col. 17, line 12] user plane communication with the RU(s) 340 are controlled by the corresponding DU 330, which enables the DU(s) 330 and the CU 310 to be implemented in a cloud-based RAN architecture.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Lee, Rosenschild and Kummetz and Stefanik and by incorporating Li to arrive at the invention.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have O-RAN architecture to ensure best-performed and most cost-effective technologies.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RANA HASSAN MAHMUD whose telephone number is (571)272-8939. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Friday.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kathy Wang-Hurst can be reached at 5712705371. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/RANA H MAHMUD/Examiner, Art Unit 2644
/KATHY W WANG-HURST/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2644
