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
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2022/0337980 A1) in view of Tanaka et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2021/0083769 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Yoshida et al. teaches in FIG. 2 a visible light communication system (Yoshida et al. teaches in paragraph [0004] visible light communication) configured to perform visible light communication between a terminal apparatus and a base station apparatus, the visible light communication system comprising: the terminal apparatus comprising multiple visible light communicators comprising a first visible light communicator and a second visible light communicator (Yoshida et al. teaches in paragraph [0052] that the terminal device 2 is provided with a plurality of communicators), the first visible light communicator performing visible light communication with a first base station apparatus and the second visible light communicator performing visible light communication with a second base station apparatus (Yoshida et al. teaches in FIG. 2 that the terminal device 2 communicates with base station apparatus 3A and base station apparatus 3B). The difference between Yoshida et al. and the claimed invention is that Yoshida et al. does not teach a controller configured to control the multiple visible light communicators, wherein the multiple visible light communicators each have a directivity in a different direction, and the controller is configured to perform simultaneous communication control of the first visible light communicator and the second visible light communicator. Tanaka et al. teaches in FIG. 7 an optical communication device comprising an optical communication section 125 and a beam control section 126. Tanaka et al. teaches in paragraph [0063] that the beam control section 126 controls the direction of the beam of the optical communication section. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Tanaka et al. with the system of Yoshida et al. because changing the direction of the optical transceiver to align with the other party of the communication optimizes the performance of the communication channel. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to control the direction of the optical transceiver, as taught by Tanaka et al., in the system of Yoshida et al.
Regarding claim 2, Yoshida et al. teaches in FIG. 2 that a communicator comprises at least one light emitting element (light emitter 21), at least one light receiving element (light receiver), and a transceiver configured to perform transmission and reception processing on a visible light signal by using the light emitting element and the light receiving element (modulation/demodulation circuit 23, optical wireless communication device 24 and signal processing device 25).
Claim 20 is rejected based on the same reason for rejecting claim 1.
Claim(s) 3-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. and Tanaka et al. as applied to claims 1-2 and 20 above, and further in view of Jungnickel et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2021/0195632 A1).
Yoshida et al. and Tanaka et al. have been discussed above in regard to claims 1-2 and 20. The difference between Yoshida et al. and Tanaka et al. and the claimed invention is that Yoshida et al. and Tanaka et al. do not teach that the controller is configured to perform measurement processing on pilot visible light signals that the multiple visible light communicators receive from each of base station apparatuses while the first visible light communicator is performing visible light communication with the first base station apparatus.
Jungnickel et al. teaches in FIG. 1 a wireless optical communication network comprising base station frontends 14a-14g and terminals 16. Jungnickel et al. teaches in FIG. 2 that the frontends send beacon signals (equivalent to pilot signals of instant claim) to the terminals where the beacon signals comprise pilot sequences, and in FIG. 3 that the terminal perform measurement 31 based on the beacon signals. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Jungnickel et al. with the modified system of Yoshida et al. and Tanaka et al. because the beacon signals can be used to determine the quality of different channels of the different frontends so that appropriate communication parameters can be chosen. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use beacon signals for measuring channel quality, as taught by Jungnickel et al., in the modified system of Yoshida et al. and Tanaka et al.
Regarding claim 4, Jungnickel et al. teaches in FIG. 2 that the sending of the beacon signal is triggered by the starting of a time period.
Regarding claim 5, Jungnickel et al. teaches in paragraph [0183] that the frontends may transmit the beacon at a plurality of signals at different frequencies simultaneously.
Regarding claim 6, Jungnickel et al. teaches in FIG. 3 that the terminal sends a feedback (i.e. a report) to the base station.
Regarding claim 7, Jungnickel et al. teaches in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 that the report is sent to the base station in a periodic manner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-19 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHI K LI whose telephone number is (571)272-3031. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6:53 a.m. -3:23 p.m.
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skl21 June 2026
/SHI K LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
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