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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed on 11/07/2024 and 04/01/2025 has been considered and placed of record in the file.
Oath/Declaration
The Oath or Declaration is being considered by examiner and complies with PTO requirements.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 12-14, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Saifullah et al. US 2008/0031174 in view of Gao et al. US 2022/0271805.
Consider claim 1, Saifullah discloses A method performed by a relay (see FIG. 3), the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station, an indication of power saving configuration that specifies a framework for operating in an enabled power saving mode (see FIG. 3, ¶ [0099-0100], wherein the relay station 5a receives a sleep command message i.e. an indication of power saving configuration, from a base station 1, that specifies the sleep/wake-up window to operate to shut down i.e. enabled power saving mode); and
operating in the enabled power saving mode by performing at least one power saving state transition specified by the power saving configuration (see FIG. 3 and ¶ [0100], wherein the relay station 5a operates to shut down the receiving circuitry during these sleep windows portions).
However Saifullah does not explicitly disclose an adaptive phase-changing device (APD) for configuring a surface of the APD. Gao teaches an adaptive phase-changing device (APD) for configuring a surface of the APD (see ¶ [0119] and [0124], wherein the relay station can be an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) in which the IRS includes array elements that can independently perform phase adjustment on an incident signal, hence an adaptive phase-change device). Gao further discloses providing very lower power consumption and cost (see ¶ [0124]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify the invention of Saifullah, and to include an adaptive phase-changing device (APD) for configuring a surface of the APD, as taught by Gao for the purpose of providing very lower power consumption and cost.
Consider claim 13, Saifullah discloses A relay (see FIG. 2-3), comprising:
a processor (see FIG. 2 and ¶ [0091], processor 103); and
computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, executable by the processor (see ¶ [0116]), to configured the replay to:
receive, from a base station, an indication of power saving configuration that specifies a framework for operating in an enabled power saving mode (see FIG. 3, ¶ [0099-0100], wherein the relay station 5a receives a sleep command message i.e. an indication of power saving configuration, from a base station 1, that specifies the sleep/wake-up window to operate to shut down i.e. enabled power saving mode); and
operate in the enabled power saving mode by performing at least one power saving state transition specified by the power saving configuration (see FIG. 3 and ¶ [0100], wherein the relay station 5a operates to shut down the receiving circuitry during these sleep windows portions).
However Saifullah does not explicitly disclose an adaptive phase-changing device (APD) for configuring a surface of the APD. Gao teaches an adaptive phase-changing device (APD) for configuring a surface of the APD (see ¶ [0119] and [0124], wherein the relay station can be an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) in which the IRS includes array elements that can independently perform phase adjustment on an incident signal, hence an adaptive phase-change device). Gao further discloses providing very lower power consumption and cost (see ¶ [0124]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify the invention of Saifullah, and to include an adaptive phase-changing device (APD) for configuring a surface of the APD, as taught by Gao for the purpose of providing very lower power consumption and cost.
Consider claims 2 and 14, Saifullah discloses wherein receiving the indication of the APD-PS configuration further comprises: receiving at least one or more APD-PS state-transitions (see FIG. 4 and ¶ [0102], wherein the replay station comprises window transition from active to inactive).
Consider claims 12 and 19, Saifullah discloses comprising: receiving, from the base station, a sleep signal; and transitioning to an APD-PS sleep-state (see ¶ [0112]).
Consider claim 20, Saifullah discloses at least one wireless transceiver (see FIG. 2, transceiver 105). Gao discloses a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) (see FIG. 2 and ¶ [0119]).
Claim(s) 7 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Saifullah et al. US 2008/0031174 in view of Gao et al. US 2022/0271805 as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of Murata US 2013/0064538.
Consider claim 7, Saifullah in view of Gao discloses every claimed limitation in claim 1.
However Saifullah in view of Gao does not explicitly disclose receiving directions to operate in a full APD-PS sleep-state or a partial APD-PS sleep-state. Murata teaches receiving directions to operate in a full APD-PS sleep-state or a partial APD-PS sleep-state (see claim 3). Murata further discloses achieving more power savings mainly in a data relay apparatus used on the home side (see ¶ [0010]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify the invention of Saifullah in view of Gao, and to include receiving directions to operate in a full APD-PS sleep-state or a partial APD-PS sleep-state, as taught by Murata for the purpose of achieving more power savings mainly in a data relay apparatus used on the home side.
Claim 17 is rejected on the same ground as for claim 7 because of similar scope.
Claim(s) 10 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Saifullah et al. US 2008/0031174 in view of Gao et al. US 2022/0271805 as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of Di Marco et al. US 2022/0232449.
Consider claim 10, Saifullah in view of Gao discloses every claimed limitation in claim 1.
However Saifullah in view of Gao does not explicitly disclose receiving, from the base station, a wakeup signal; and transitioning to a disabled APD-PS mode or an APD-PS awake-state. Di marco teaches receiving, from the base station, a wakeup signal; and transitioning to a disabled APD-PS mode or an APD-PS awake-state (see FIG. 3 and ¶ [0088-0089], wherein the relay node 12 receives a wakeup signal from the source node 11, and transitioning to a awake-state). Di Marco further discloses improvements to forwarding of data messages in those wireless mesh network (see ¶ [0001]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify the invention of Saifullah in view of Gao, and to include receiving, from the base station, a wakeup signal; and transitioning to a disabled APD-PS mode or an APD-PS awake-state, as taught by Di Marco for the purpose of improvements to forwarding of data messages in those wireless mesh network.
Claim 18 is rejected on the same ground as for claim 10 because of similar scope.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6, 8-9, 11, and 15-16 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.
Conclusion
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/JANICE N TIEU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633