DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 10/29/2024. Claims 1- 20 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
4. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted step is receiving from A-IoT a sequence in order to decode the received sequence.
Claims 2-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, because of their dependency from claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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, 9-14, and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khojastepour et al. (US 2021/0248879 A1) in view of Gupta et al. (US 2024/0275542 A1).
For claim 1 Khojastepour teaches a method of wireless communication of a reader (paragraph 78 “reader 700” and paragraph 84 “reader 700 includes a plurality of software defined radio (SDR) platforms 710 for wireless communications”), comprising:
broadcasting a radio signal indicating an available slot set (paragraph 78 “broadcast a query command and indicates the number available slots”);
transmitting an acknowledge (ACK) signal including a decoded sequence to an ambient internet of things (A-IoT) device (paragraph 78 “acknowledge decode RN16 (sequence)”); and
receiving an identifier from the A-IoT device, wherein the identifier is a reply of the A-IoT device when there is a match between the decoded sequence and a chosen sequence, and the chosen sequence is a random sequence that responds to the radio signal in a random slot chosen from the available slot set (paragraph 78 “replies with electronic product code-EPC- (identifier) of RFID (A-IoT)”).
Khojastepour does not explicitly teach ambient internet of things (A-IoT) device.
However, Gupta teaches a synchronous operation of an ambient IoT device (e.g., backscatter device 605, UE 120, or a similar device) may communicate with a network device 710 (e.g., RF source 610, reader 608, network node 110, a CU, a DU, and/or an RU) (Gupta: paragraph 105). In addition, Gupta teaches in passive IoT,
a terminal (e.g., a radio frequency identification (RFID) (Gupta: paragraphs 93-94). In addition, Gupta teaches to achieve further cost reduction and zero-power communication, 5G+/6G wireless networks may utilize a type of passive IoT device referred to as an "ambient backscatter device" or a "backscatter device”. More particularly, the backscatter device 605 communicates with a reader 608 (e.g., a UE 120, a network node 110, or another network device) by modulating a reflecting radio
signal from an RF source 610 (e.g., a network node 110, a UE 120, or another network device) (Gupta: paragraphs 94-95).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of Gupta in the RFID device of Khojastepour in order to replace the RFID device with a A-IoT to achieve further cost reduction and zero-power communication, 5G+/6G wireless networks may utilize a type of passive IoT device referred to as an "ambient backscatter device" or a "backscatter device” (Gupta: paragraphs 94-95).
For claim 2 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein the reader comprises a user equipment (UE) or a gNodeB (gNB) (Gupta: paragraph 95 “UE 120 reader or network node (gNB) 110 reader”).
For claim 3 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method the method of claim 2, wherein when the reader is the UE, the method further comprises:
forwarding the identifier to a base station (Khojastepour: paragraph 156 “tag responds with its unique ID called an Electronic Product Code (EPC)”).
For claim 4 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method of claim 3, further comprising:
forwarding the random sequence to the base station (as discussed in claim 1); and
receiving the ACK signal from the base station, wherein the decoded sequence is obtained by the base station decoding the random sequence (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 5 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the UE receives from the base station a control signal specifying control parameters when the UE is in a communication process with the A-IoT device (Gupta: Fig. 7 “network device (base station) in communication with ambient IoT device (UE)”).
For claim 6 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the control parameters comprise the available slot set (Khojastepour: paragraph 78 “available slots”).
For claim 7 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein validity of signals between the reader and the A-IoT device is checked by using a cyclic-redundancy check (CRC) (Gupta: paragraph 121 “CRC”).
For claim 9 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein the random sequence is a modulated sequence using FM0 modulation, and is preceded by a preamble sequence (Khojastepour: paragraph 78 “FM0 modulation-design option” and paragraph 85 “preamble-based correlation and decodes the RN16 and EPC packets”).
For claim 10 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method of claim 2, wherein a reader-to-device (R2D) link from the reader to the A-IoT device employs or on-off keying (OOK) (Gupta: paragraph 98 “Link 620 employs OOK”),
For claim 11 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method of claim 10, wherein a first R2D preamble is used for an initial transmission between the UE and the A-IoT device to enable the A-IoT device to synchronize with the UE, a second R2D preamble is used for a start of a signaling after the synchronization between the UE and the A-IoT device, and the second R2D preamble is shorter than the first R2D preamble (these limitation are considered as intended use-do not carry patentability weight).
For claim 12 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein the reader employs Manchester encoding and pulse-interval encoding (PIE) for a reader-to-device (R2D) communication from the reader to the A-IoT device (Gupta: paragraph 126 “PIE design choice”).
For claim 13 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches a method of wireless communication of an ambient internet of things (A-IoT) device (as discussed in claim 1), comprising:
receiving a radio signal indicating an available slot set from a reader; transmitting a random sequence that responds to the radio signal in a random slot chosen from the available slot set (as discussed in claim 1);
receiving an acknowledge (ACK) signal including a decoded sequence (as discussed in claim 1); and
transmitting an identifier when there is a match between the decoded sequence and the random sequence (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 14 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein validity of signals between the reader and the A-IoT device is checked by using a cyclic-redundancy check (CRC) (as discussed in claim 7).
For claim 16 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein the random sequence is a modulated sequence using FM0 modulation, and is preceded by a preamble sequence (as discussed in claim 9).
For claim 17 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein a device-to-reader (D2R) link from the A-IoT device to the reader employs a modulation scheme including amplitude shift keying (ASK) (Gupta: paragraph 98 “ASK modulation”) or and/or
For claim 18 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein the A-IoT device replies to a command from the reader by using an immediate reply, a delayed reply (Khojastepour: paragraph 65 “tags wake up to listen for the reader
commands and react to them,” and Gupta: paragraph 127 “a delay encoding scheme”) or or
For claim 19 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches an apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus being a reader (as discussed in claim 1), comprising:
a memory (Gupta: paragraphs 8 “a network device (a reader) includes a memory and one or more processors”); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory (Gupta: paragraphs 8 “a network device (a reader) includes a memory and one or more processors”) and configured to: broadcast a radio signal indicating an available slot set (as discussed in claim 1);
transmit an acknowledge (ACK) signal including a decoded sequence to an ambient internet of things (A-IoT) device (as discussed in claim 1); and
receive an identifier from the A-IoT device, wherein the identifier is a reply of the A-IoT device when there is a match between the decoded sequence and a chosen sequence, and the chosen sequence is a random sequence that responds to the radio signal in a random slot chosen from the available slot set (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 20 an apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus being an ambient internet of things (A-IoT) device (as discussed in claim 1), comprising:
a memory (Gupta: paragraphs 7 “an ambient IoT device may include a memory and one or more processors coupled to the memory”); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory (Gupta: paragraphs 7 “an ambient IoT device may include a memory and one or more processors coupled to the memory”) and configured to:
receiving a radio signal indicating an available slot set from a reader (as discussed in claim 1);
transmitting a random sequence that responds to the radio signal in a random slot chosen from the available slot set (as discussed in claim 1);
receiving an acknowledge (ACK) signal including a decoded sequence; and transmitting an identifier when there is a match between the decoded sequence and the random sequence (as discussed in claim 1).
6. Claims 8 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khojastepour et al. (US 2021/0248879 A1) in view of Gupta et al. (US 2024/0275542 A1) further in view of Brewster et al. (US 2024/0305431 A1).
For claim 8 Khojastepour in view of Gupta teaches the method, wherein the radio signal comprises a protocol-control information (PCI) that regulates timing and format of data transmission between the reader and the A-IoT device.
Gupta teaches a slot format indicator (SFI) that indicates (regulates) a location of the down Link slots 810 and the uplink slots 820 within the frame structure 800 (Gupta: paragraph 18 and claim 8). In addition, Gupta teaches the network node 110 may include a scheduler 246 to schedule one or more UEs 120 for downlink and/or uplink
Communications (Gupta: paragraph 57).
Khojastepour in view of Gupta does not explicitly teach protocol-control information.
However, Brewster teaches The Gen2 Protocol specifies that the identifier in the tag reply will be either a portion of or the entire EPC of the tag, and that the other supporting information may include protocol-control information (e.g., PC/XPC bits and CRC bits) (Brewster: paragraph 82).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of Gupta in the combined RFID device of Khojastepour in order to include protocol-control information associated with EPC-a design option (Gupta: paragraphs 94-95).
For claim 15 Khojastepour in view of Gupta in view of Brewster teaches the method, wherein the radio signal comprises a protocol-control information (PCI) that regulates timing and format of data transmission between the reader and the A-IoT device (as discussed in claim 8).
Conclusion
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571)270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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