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 .
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
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Claims 1, 4, 5 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 11,743,696 (hereinafter ‘696) in view of Ianni et al. – US 2018/0121688 (hereinafter Ianni).
Present application
‘696
Claim 1:
A real-time location method comprising:
sending, by a master beacon device and a plurality of beacon repeater devices, ultra-wideband beacon frames,
the master beacon device comprising a first housing configured to be attached stationary to a wall or ceiling,
the ultra-wideband beacon frames being transmitted as interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames, each interleaved pair being sent either from the master beacon device or the plurality of beacon repeater devices, each interleaved pair including a first ultra-wideband beacon frame and a second ultra-wideband beacon frame;
receiving, by a tag device, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames; and
determining a position of the tag device by time measurements based on the ultra-wideband beacon frames received at the tag device.
Claim 1:
A real-time location method comprising:
sending, by a master beacon device and one or more beacon repeater devices, ultra- wideband beacon frames,
wherein the ultra-wideband beacon frames are transmitted as interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames, wherein each interleaved pair is sent either from the master beacon device or the one or more beacon repeater devices, wherein each interleaved pair includes a first ultra-wideband beacon frame and a second ultra-wideband beacon frame,
and wherein, for each interleaved pair, the first ultra-wideband beacon frame and the second ultra-wideband beacon frame are transmitted with a master time delay;
receiving, by one or more tag devices, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra- wideband beacon frames; receiving, by the one or more beacon repeater devices, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames; receiving, by one of a plurality of tag response receptor units, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames; sending, by the one or more tag devices, ultra-wideband tag response frames; and receiving, by the one of the plurality of tag response receptor units, at least one of the ultra-wideband tag response frames, wherein sending and receiving is performed using an exchange protocol that defines a location rate frame format comprising: a beacon section comprising a series of time slots, wherein the time slots are respectively associated to one of the first ultra-wideband beacon frame and the second ultra- wideband beacon frame of an interleaved pair, such that a separation in time of the time slots associated to each of the interleaved pair is given by the master time delay, wherein, between time slots assigned to the first ultra-wideband beacon frame and the second ultra-wideband beacon frame of a first one of the interleaved pairs, which includes an initial one of the ultra- wideband beacon frames within the beacon section, and wherein an array of time slots is respectively assigned to the first ultra-wideband beacon frames of the remaining pairs; and a tag response section comprising a sequence of time slots, wherein the time slots are respectively associated to one of the ultra-wideband tag response frames; and determining positions of the one or more tag devices by time measurements based on the ultra-wideband tag response frames received at the plurality of tag response receptor units.
Note: the one or more tag devices receive the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frame, then send an ultra-wideband tag response frames which is received by the tag response receptor units; thus, the ultra-wideband tag response frames received at the plurality of tag response receptor units is based on the ultra-wideband beacon frames received at the tag device.
Claim 1 of the ‘696 differs from claim 1 of the present application in that it does not recite the underlined claimed subject matter.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to have known that a housing or an enclosure is desired to protect any electronic component against damage, dust, etc.
Ianni discloses a master anchor (i.e. “master beacon device”) is affixed to a structure to facilitate communication with tag devices (Fig. 2; para. 0019) to provide coordinating transmission, specially when master node has limited bandwidth (para 0002). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have configured a housing for protecting the master device and incorporated the teaching of attaching the master device to a structure of Ianni, into claim 1 of ‘696 for the above benefit.
Re claim 4, Ianni further implies the teaching “wherein the tag device comprises a tag clock” in para. 0028.
Re claim 5, Ianni further discloses “wherein the tag device is a mobile unit” in para. 0015, 0019; Fig 2A; wherein the tags are attached to the player and the ball.
Claim 2 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. ‘696 in view of Ianni, as applied to claim 1 above and further in view of Trishaun et al. – US 10,408,489 (hereinafter Trishaun).
The combination of Claim 1 of ‘696 and Ianni discloses almost all claimed subject matter of claim 2, as stated above, except for “wherein the first housing comprises several holes for fastening screws.”
Trishaun, in similar field of endeavor, discloses such claimed subject matter in claim 12.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to have realized that, in order to mount the housing to a wall or ceiling, some attaching method need to be performed (i.e. adhesive, glue, screws, nails, ect.) Thus, utilizing “holes for fastening screws” as taught by Trishaun would have been one of the option for securely attach the anchor to the wall or ceiling.
Claims 8-12 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 11,743,696 (hereinafter ‘696) in view of Dutz et al. – US 2018/0254925 (hereinafter Dutz).
Present application
‘696
Claim 8:
A real-time location method comprising:
sending, by a master beacon device and a plurality of beacon repeater devices, ultra-wideband beacon frames, the ultra-wideband beacon frames being transmitted as interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames, each interleaved pair being sent either from the master beacon device or the plurality of beacon repeater devices, each interleaved pair including a first ultra-wideband beacon frame and a second ultra-wideband beacon frame,
the first ultra-wideband beacon frame and the second ultra-wideband beacon frame each including a synchronization header, a physical layer header, or a physical layer payload;
receiving, by a tag device, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames; and
determining a position of the tag device by time measurements based on the ultra-wideband beacon frames received at the tag device.
Claim 1:
A real-time location method comprising:
sending, by a master beacon device and one or more beacon repeater devices, ultra- wideband beacon frames, wherein the ultra-wideband beacon frames are transmitted as interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames, wherein each interleaved pair is sent either from the master beacon device or the one or more beacon repeater devices, wherein each interleaved pair includes a first ultra-wideband beacon frame and a second ultra-wideband beacon frame,
and wherein, for each interleaved pair, the first ultra-wideband beacon frame and the second ultra-wideband beacon frame are transmitted with a master time delay;
receiving, by one or more tag devices, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra- wideband beacon frames; receiving, by the one or more beacon repeater devices, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames; receiving, by one of a plurality of tag response receptor units, at least one of the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frames; sending, by the one or more tag devices, ultra-wideband tag response frames; and receiving, by the one of the plurality of tag response receptor units, at least one of the ultra-wideband tag response frames, wherein sending and receiving is performed using an exchange protocol that defines a location rate frame format comprising: a beacon section comprising a series of time slots, wherein the time slots are respectively associated to one of the first ultra-wideband beacon frame and the second ultra- wideband beacon frame of an interleaved pair, such that a separation in time of the time slots associated to each of the interleaved pair is given by the master time delay, wherein, between time slots assigned to the first ultra-wideband beacon frame and the second ultra-wideband beacon frame of a first one of the interleaved pairs, which includes an initial one of the ultra- wideband beacon frames within the beacon section, and wherein an array of time slots is respectively assigned to the first ultra-wideband beacon frames of the remaining pairs; and a tag response section comprising a sequence of time slots, wherein the time slots are respectively associated to one of the ultra-wideband tag response frames; and determining positions of the one or more tag devices by time measurements based on the ultra-wideband tag response frames received at the plurality of tag response receptor units.
Note: the one or more tag devices receive the interleaved pairs of ultra-wideband beacon frame, then send an ultra-wideband tag response frames which is received by the tag response receptor units; thus, the ultra-wideband tag response frames received at the plurality of tag response receptor units is based on the ultra-wideband beacon frames received at the tag device.
The present application differs from ‘696 in that it does recite the underlined claimed subject matter.
Dutz discloses UWB communication with standardized frame format that includes at least “a synchronization header” (Fig. 1; para. 0079; wherein the preamble 101, which include synchronization symbol, is equivalent with the claimed “synchronization header”) and/or “a physical layer header” in Fig. 1; para. 0078, 0080. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to have incorporated the frame format of Dutz into ‘696 for compliance with IEEE 802.15.4-2015.
Re claim 9, Dutz further discloses “wherein the synchronization header comprises a preamble” in para. 0079.
Re claim 10, Dutz further discloses “wherein the synchronization header comprises a start of frame delimiter” in para. 0079.
Re claim 11, Dutz further discloses “wherein the physical layer header comprises information on frame length” in para. 0080.
Re claim 12, Dutz further discloses “wherein the physical layer header comprises information on data rate” in para. 0080.
Claim 13 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. ‘696 in view of Dutz and further in view of Aldana et al. – US 2024/0063844 (hereafter Aldana).
Re claim 13, the combination of ‘696 and Dutz discloses almost all claimed subject matter in claim 13, as stated above, except for “wherein the physical layer header comprises a cyclic redundancy check”.
Aldana discloses such claimed subject matter in Fig. 8, para. 0071, 0020.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to have incorporated teaching of utilization of CRC of Aldana into ‘696 to provide error detection to the system.
Claim 15 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. ‘696 in view of Dutz and further in view of Aldana et al. – US 2024/0063844 (hereafter Aldana).
Re claim 15, the combination of ‘696 and Dutz discloses almost all claimed subject matter in claim 13, as stated above, except for “wherein the physical layer header is configured to decode the physical layer payload”.
Aldana discloses utilizing the information, such as encoding information, in the physical layer header (PHR) for decoding the payload in para. 0074, 0075.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to have incorporated teaching of utilization of information in the PHR of Aldana into ‘696 to provide accurate decoding.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 6, 7, 14, 16 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.
Claims 17-20 are allowed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Daoura et al. – US 12,412,465
Suiter et al. – US 11,201,981
High et al. – US 11,046,562
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/DAC V HA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633