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 Objections
As to claim 2, the phrase “the processing circuitry decides to each communication frame” is grammatically incorrect. The examiner interprets the phrase as “the processing circuitry decides for each communication frame.”
As to claim 4, the phrase “wherein the processing circuitry notifies of a cause which fails the allocation result to satisfy the constraint condition” is grammatically incorrect. The examiner interprets the phrase as “wherein the processing circuitry notifies of a cause which causes the allocation result to fail to satisfy the constraint condition.” Appropriate correction is required.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Citation No. 2 from the information disclosure statement filed on 4/24/25 (hereafter referred to as “Hellmanns”).
As to claim 1, Hellmanns discloses a communication control apparatus comprising:
processing circuitry:
to determine whether or not a delay is allowed which is estimated to occur when a group allocation method is applied to a communication frame included in a communication stream, wherein the group allocation method is for allocating a time slot for transmitting a communication frame in a unit of group of one or more communication frames having a common attribute (Pg. 299, second column, “Moreover, we distinguish between isochronous streams, cyclic streams, and best effort streams”; Pg. 300, first column, “Isochronous streams typically require minimal end-to-end delays and minimal jitter bounds, e.g., for motion control applications […] For cyclic traffic, we assume that the end-to-end delay may not exceed one network cycle time and that the jitter may be in the magnitude of one cycle time”; Pg. 301, first column, section B, “Class-based scheduling is a TAS-based approach to give e2e delay and jitter guarantees to cyclic streams […] class-based scheduling, streams sharing jitter and deadline requirements are scheduled as a group. To provide isolation among different groups, all streams of one group as assigned to a dedicated traffic class”)stream according to the group allocation method (Pg. 302, first column, second paragraph, “Class-based scheduling gives guarantees in the range of one cycle time e2e delay and jitter. These guarantees are sufficient for cyclic traffic”), (Pg. 302, second column, section C, first paragraph, “Stream-based scheduling is another way to use the TAS. In contrast to class-based scheduling, it considers each stream individually rather than groups of streams. Therefore, it is well-suited for isochronous traffic [...] This approach guarantees minimal queuing delays"; Pg. 302, second column, section C, second paragraph, "the talker application provides the data just in-time and the network can deliver the data within the reserved time slots"); and
to perform calculation to allocate the time slot to the communication frame included in the communication stream according to the decided allocation method (Pg. 302, second column, section C, second paragraph; Pg. 303, first column, section B).
Hellmanns is silent on to decide, when the delay is allowed, to allocate the time slot to the communication frame included in the communication stream according to the group allocation method, and to decide, when the delay is not allowed, to allocate the time slot to the communication frame included in the communication stream according to a frame allocation method for allocating the time slot in a unit of communication frame.
However, Hellmanns already discloses that since none of the stream-based scheduling and the class-based scheduling is capable to serve all use cases, a combination of these approaches is required (Pg. 303, second column, section VI).
Further, Hellmanns mentions that the stream-based scheduling is well-suited for isochronous traffic/streams requiring minimal or zero delay (Pg. 302, second column, section C) and that class-based scheduling "gives guarantees in the range of one cycle time e2e delay and jitter. These guarantees are sufficient for cyclic traffic" (Pg. 302, first column, second paragraph) and is thus suitable for cyclic traffic/streams requiring a certain delay. Therefore, because the control apparatus supports both above-mentioned scheduling methods, the decision by the control apparatus to use the class-based scheduling method when delay is allowed (cyclic traffic) and to use the stream-based scheduling method when delay is not allowed (isochronous traffic) is an obvious combination of the scheduling methods already disclosed by Hellmanns.
The test for obviousness is not that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981).
It 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 to modify the teachings of Hellmanns in the aforementioned manner in order to serve all use cases with a combination of stream-based scheduling and the class-based scheduling (Pg. 303, second column, section VI).
As to claim 2, the claim is rejected for reasons similar to those given for claim 1 above. Hellmanns discloses the invention is applied to a plurality of frames (Pg. 299, left column, section A, second paragraph).
As to claim 3, the claim is rejected for reasons similar to those given for claim 1 above. Hellmanns discloses “making an informed decision when choosing between stream-based TAS, class-based TAS, and frame preemption by comparing these mechanisms in selected scenarios using our TSN network simulation tool NeSTiNg” (Pg. 298, left column, Abstract, ln. 17-20).
As to claim 4, the claim is rejected for reasons similar to those given for claim 1 above. Hellmanns discloses “making an informed decision when choosing between stream-based TAS, class-based TAS, and frame preemption by comparing these mechanisms in selected scenarios using our TSN network simulation tool NeSTiNg” (Pg. 298, left column, Abstract, ln. 17-20).
As to claim 5, the claim is rejected for reasons similar to those given for claim 1 above. Hellmanns discloses “making an informed decision when choosing between stream-based TAS, class-based TAS, and frame preemption by comparing these mechanisms in selected scenarios using our TSN network simulation tool NeSTiNg” (Pg. 298, left column, Abstract, ln. 17-20).
As to claim 6, the claim is rejected for reasons similar to those given for claim 1 above.
As to claim 7, the claim is rejected for reasons similar to those given for claim 1 above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Brian Whipple whose telephone number is (571)270-1244. The examiner can normally be reached Mondays-Fridays from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM ET and Saturdays from 10:30 AM to 8:30 PM ET.
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/Brian Whipple/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2447
2/11/26