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 .
This office action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 01/13/2025. Claims 1 – 20 are pending in this application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 3, 9, 11 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20160127108 (Jindal).
Regarding claims 1, 9 and 20, Jindal teaches “A power line communication (PLC) method (this appears to be merely a statement of intended use or environment in which the device is used and thus this recitation has not been given patentable weight because the recitation occurs in the preamble. A preamble is generally not accorded any patentable weight where it merely recites the purpose of a process or the intended use of a structure, and where the body of the claim does not depend on the preamble for completeness but, instead, the process steps or structural limitations are able to stand alone. See In re Hirao, 535 F.2d 67, 190 USPQ 15 (CCPA 1976) and Kropa v. Robie, 187 F.2d 150, 152, 88 USPQ 478, 481 (CCPA 1951).), applied to a first node in a PLC system comprising at least three nodes (three devices are shown in FIG 2A), wherein the at least three nodes are in a full-duplex working mode (abstract, paragraphs 0035 and 0044: in-band full-duplex operation. FIG 2C and paragraph 0048: Devices A, B and C are full duplex capable), and wherein the method comprises:
transmitting, by the first node, first information (paragraph 0039: the first device detects a transmission from a third device, and determines to stop, delay or modify the transmission of the frame based on the detection of the transmission from the third device. Stopping the transmission means that the first device is currently “transmitting” “first information”);
receiving, by the first node and from a second node, second information, wherein the second node is any node in the at least three nodes other than the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device detects a transmission from a third device (“receiving, by the first node and from a second node, second information”), and determines to stop, delay or modify the transmission of the frame based on the detection of the transmission from the third device.); and
interrupting, by the first node and based on a first priority of the second node or a second priority of the second information, transmission of the first information (paragraph 0039: the first device detects a transmission from a third device, and determines whether to … stop … the transmission of the frame (“interrupting, by the first node … transmission of the first information”) based on a priority of the transmission from the third device (“based on a … a second priority of the second information”). Paragraph 0057: all devices currently transmitting to the sender of the collision message, end their transmission(s). The collision message specifies or identifies the device(s) that are to end transmission (e.g., to allow one transmission, such as a transmission with the most power or priority, to continue or proceed without interference). Also paragraph 0059).”
Regarding claims 3 and 11, Jindal teaches “wherein interrupting the transmission comprises interrupting the transmission when the second priority is higher than a third priority of the first information (paragraph 0059: a protocol assigns different priorities to different transmissions, e.g., control messages have top or preferred priority. If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority (i.e. “the second priority [of the message received from another device] is higher than a third priority of the first information” being transmitted by the device itself), the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission is to terminate.).”
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.
Claims 2, 4 – 7, 10 and 12 – 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20160127108 (Jindal).
Regarding claims 2 and 10, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “wherein interrupting the transmission comprises interrupting the transmission when the first priority is higher than a third priority of the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device determines the priority based on at least one or more of: content, message length, duration, a most recent transmission, or battery status associated with the transmission from the third device. Paragraph 0060: the control module 233 determines a battery status or power supply level (e.g., low power devices generally allowed to proceed with a transmission) to determine a priority for the corresponding device. A high or preferred priority is assigned to a new device and/or a new connection, or a higher or preferred priority is assigned to a specific type of device relative to another type of device. Therefore, since it is clear from paragraph 0057 that the transmissions with the highest priority are to proceed while the transmissions with a lower priority are to be terminated, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to allow the device with a highest priority to proceed with the transmission while the device with a lower priority is to stop the transmission. Doing so would have simply been one of the practical implementations of the method disclosed by Jindal when the priorities of the devices are different).”
Regarding claims 4 and 12, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “wherein interrupting the transmission comprises interrupting the transmission when the first priority is higher than a third priority of the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device determines the priority based on at least one or more of: content, message length, duration, a most recent transmission, or battery status associated with the transmission from the third device. Paragraph 0060: the control module 233 determines a battery status or power supply level (e.g., low power devices generally allowed to proceed with a transmission) to determine a priority for the corresponding device. A high or preferred priority is assigned to a new device and/or a new connection, or a higher or preferred priority is assigned to a specific type of device relative to another type of device. Therefore, since it is clear from paragraph 0057 that the transmissions with the highest priority are to proceed while the transmissions with a lower priority are to be terminated, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to allow the device with a highest priority to proceed with the transmission while the device with a lower priority is to stop the transmission. Doing so would have simply been one of the practical implementations of the method disclosed by Jindal when the priorities of the devices are different) and when the second priority is higher than a fourth priority of the first information (paragraph 0059: a protocol assigns different priorities to different transmissions, e.g., control messages have top or preferred priority. If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority (i.e. “the second priority [of the message received from another device] is higher than a fourth priority of the first information” being transmitted by the device itself), the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission is to terminate.).”
Since both criteria individually indicate that the device with lower priority is to stop transmission while the device with higher priority is to continue the transmission, as well as the device transmitting information of lower priority is to stop the transmission while the device transmitting information of higher priority is to continue the transmission, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application that when both criteria are fulfilled for the same first device, so that if the first device has lower priority than the second device, and transmits information of lower priority than that of transmitted by the second device, to terminate the transmission by the first device and continue the transmission by the second device. Doing so would have simply been one of the practical implementations of the method disclosed by Jindal when the priorities of the devices are different as well as priorities of the information transmitted by the devices are different.
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “wherein interrupting the transmission comprises interrupting the transmission when the first priority is lower than a third priority of the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device determines the priority based on at least one or more of: content, message length, duration, a most recent transmission, or battery status associated with the transmission from the third device. Paragraph 0060: the control module 233 determines a battery status or power supply level (e.g., low power devices generally allowed to proceed with a transmission) to determine a priority for the corresponding device. A high or preferred priority is assigned to a new device and/or a new connection, or a higher or preferred priority is assigned to a specific type of device relative to another type of device.), when the second priority is higher than a fourth priority of the first information (paragraph 0059: a protocol assigns different priorities to different transmissions, e.g., control messages have top or preferred priority. If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority (i.e. “the second priority [of the message received from another device] is higher than a fourth priority of the first information” being transmitted by the device itself), the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission is to terminate.), and when the second information is first-type information (paragraph 0060: priority depends on content of the message, and/or other parameters, such as: message length).”
The claim requires three different criteria to determine whether the first device continues or stops its own transmission when a colliding transmission is detected from the second device. This may be summarized in the following table:
Criterion
First device
Second device
Result as would follow from the teaching of Jindal
Node priority
Higher
Lower
Transmits first device
Information priority (disclosed as transmission priority)
Lower
Higher
Transmits second device
Type of second information
First-type information
As may be seen, the first two criteria yield conflicting results. Therefore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to resolve the situation. Paragraph 0060 of Jindal’s disclosure provides a solution: vary priority based on the content of the message or such message parameters as message length. Therefore, in the situation when two criteria based on device priority and information (disclosed as transmission) priority result in conflicting decisions, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to base the final determination of which device to transmit and which device to terminate its ongoing transmission on the content or the length of the message to be transmitted. For example, when the message includes first type of content or is of a first length (corresponds to the claimed “the second information is first-type information”), to allow the second device to proceed with the transmission while the first device to interrupt its own transmission. Doing so would have simply been a particular implementation of the method disclosed by Jindal when decisions based on the priorities of the devices conflict with the decisions based on the priorities of the information transmitted by the devices.
Regarding claim 6, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “further comprising not interrupting the transmission when the first priority is lower than a third priority of the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device determines the priority based on at least one or more of: content, message length, duration, a most recent transmission, or battery status associated with the transmission from the third device. Paragraph 0060: the control module 233 determines a battery status or power supply level (e.g., low power devices generally allowed to proceed with a transmission) to determine a priority for the corresponding device. A high or preferred priority is assigned to a new device and/or a new connection, or a higher or preferred priority is assigned to a specific type of device relative to another type of device.), when the second priority is higher than a fourth priority of the first information (paragraph 0059: a protocol assigns different priorities to different transmissions, e.g., control messages have top or preferred priority. If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority, the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission is to terminate.), and when the second information is second-type information (paragraph 0060: priority depends on content of the message, and/or other parameters, such as: message length).”
The claim requires three different criteria to determine whether the first device continues or stops its own transmission when a colliding transmission is detected from the second device. This may be summarized in the following table:
Criterion
First device
Second device
Result as would follow from the teaching of Jindal
Node priority
Higher
Lower
Transmits first device
Information priority (disclosed as transmission priority)
Lower
Higher
Transmits second device
Type of second information
Second-type information
As may be seen, the first two criteria yield conflicting results. Therefore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to resolve the situation. Paragraph 0060 of Jindal’s disclosure provides a solution: vary priority based on the content of the message or such message parameters as message length. Therefore, in the situation when two criteria based on device priority and information (disclosed as transmission) priority result in conflicting decisions, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to base the final determination of which device to transmit and which device to terminate its ongoing transmission on the content or the length of the message to be transmitted. For example, when the message includes second type of content or is of second length (corresponds to the claimed “the second information is second-type information”), to allow the first device to continue with the ongoing transmission (i.e. not interrupting it). Doing so would have simply been a particular implementation of the method disclosed by Jindal when decisions based on the priorities of the devices conflict with the decisions based on the priorities of the information transmitted by the devices.
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “further comprising resuming, by the first node and after a preset time, the transmission of the first information (paragraph 0055: the transmitting device 103 includes a scheduler 221 configured to determine a time to begin a transmission, stop/delay/hold the transmission, and/or determine a time to continue the transmission or to restart the transmission. This corresponds to “resuming” “the transmission of the first information”. Paragraph 0059: If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority, the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission is to back off, terminate or be delayed. Backing off the transmission at least implies that it is to be resumed at a later time. Thus, Jindal teaches or at least fairly suggest that the transmission “of the first information” is to be resumed at a later time. Although Jindal is silent with respect to restarting the transmission specifically “after a preset time”, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to set this time to be sufficient for the completion of the message which has higher priority. Doing so would have allowed to avoid any further collisions by refraining from restarting the transmission until such time as the higher priority transmission is no longer being received).”
Regarding claim 14, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to interrupt the transmission by interrupting the transmission when the first priority is lower than a third priority of the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device determines the priority based on at least one or more of: content, message length, duration, a most recent transmission, or battery status associated with the transmission from the third device. Paragraph 0060: the control module 233 determines a battery status or power supply level (e.g., low power devices generally allowed to proceed with a transmission) to determine a priority for the corresponding device. A high or preferred priority is assigned to a new device and/or a new connection, or a higher or preferred priority is assigned to a specific type of device relative to another type of device.), when the second priority is higher than a fourth priority of the first information (paragraph 0059: a protocol assigns different priorities to different transmissions, e.g., control messages have top or preferred priority. If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority (i.e. “the second priority [of the message received from another device] is higher than a fourth priority of the first information” being transmitted by the device itself), the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission is to terminate.), and when the second information is second-type information (paragraph 0060: priority depends on content of the message, and/or other parameters, such as: message length).”
The claim requires three different criteria to determine whether the first device continues or stops its own transmission when a colliding transmission is detected from the second device. This may be summarized in the following table:
Criterion
First device
Second device
Result as would follow from the teaching of Jindal
Node priority
Higher
Lower
Transmits first device
Information priority (disclosed as transmission priority)
Lower
Higher
Transmits second device
Type of second information
Second-type information
As may be seen, the first two criteria yield conflicting results. Therefore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to resolve the situation. Paragraph 0060 of Jindal’s disclosure provides a solution: vary priority based on the content of the message or such message parameters as message length. Therefore, in the situation when two criteria based on device priority and information (disclosed as transmission) priority result in conflicting decisions, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to base the final determination of which device to transmit and which device to terminate its ongoing transmission on the content or the length of the message to be transmitted. For example, when the message includes first type of content or is of first length (corresponds to the claimed “the second information is second-type information”), to allow the second device to proceed with the transmission while the first device is to interrupt its own transmission. Doing so would have simply been a particular implementation of the method disclosed by Jindal when decisions based on the priorities of the devices conflict with the decisions based on the priorities of the information transmitted by the devices.
Regarding claims 16 and 18, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to interrupt the transmission by interrupting the transmission when the first priority is equal to a third priority of the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device determines the priority based on at least one or more of: content, message length, duration, a most recent transmission, or battery status associated with the transmission from the third device. Paragraph 0060: the control module 233 determines a battery status or power supply level (e.g., low power devices generally allowed to proceed with a transmission) to determine a priority for the corresponding device. A high or preferred priority is assigned to a new device and/or a new connection, or a higher or preferred priority is assigned to a specific type of device relative to another type of device. Although not explicitly disclosed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application that when multiple devices are present in the network, there may be devices which have the same priorities) and when the second priority is higher than a fourth priority of the first information (paragraph 0059: a protocol assigns different priorities to different transmissions, e.g., control messages have top or preferred priority. If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority (i.e. “the second priority [of the message received from another device] is higher than a fourth priority of the first information” being transmitted by the device itself), the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission by the first device is to terminate.).”
The claim requires two different criteria to determine whether the first device continues or stops its own transmission when a colliding transmission is detected from the second device. This may be summarized in the following table:
Criterion
First device
Second device
Result as would follow from the teaching of Jindal
Node priority
Equal
Equal
No preference
Information priority (disclosed as transmission priority)
Lower
Higher
Transmits second device
As may be seen, the first criterion does not provide any preference to any of the devices, while the second criterion stipulates transmission by the second device which means that the first device is to interrupt its transmission.
Therefore, in the situation when one of the criteria does not provide any preference to any of the devices, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize the second criterion which provides specific instruction of which device to transmit and which device to interrupt its transmission. In this specific case, this would result in interrupting the transmission by the first device.
Regarding claims 17 and 19, Jindal teaches or fairly suggests “wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to interrupt the transmission by interrupting the transmission when the first priority is higher than a third priority of the first node (paragraph 0039: the first device determines the priority based on at least one or more of: content, message length, duration, a most recent transmission, or battery status associated with the transmission from the third device. Paragraph 0060: the control module 233 determines a battery status or power supply level (e.g., low power devices generally allowed to proceed with a transmission) to determine a priority for the corresponding device. A high or preferred priority is assigned to a new device and/or a new connection, or a higher or preferred priority is assigned to a specific type of device relative to another type of device.) and when the second priority is equal to a fourth priority of the first information (paragraph 0059: a protocol assigns different priorities to different transmissions, e.g., control messages have top or preferred priority. If the transmitting device 103 decodes a preamble of another frame or transmission with a higher priority, the control module 233 and/or scheduler 221 determines that the current transmission is to terminate. Although not explicitly disclosed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application that when multiple devices are present in the network and/or devices transmitting different types of information, there may be transmissions of information which have the same priorities).”
The claim requires two different criteria to determine whether the first device continues or stops its own transmission when a colliding transmission is detected from the second device. This may be summarized in the following table:
Criterion
First device
Second device
Result as would follow from the teaching of Jindal
Node priority
Lower
Higher
Transmits second device
Information priority (disclosed as transmission priority)
Equal
Equal
No preference
As may be seen, the second criterion does not provide any preference to any of the devices, while the first criterion stipulates transmission by the second device which means that the first device is to interrupt its transmission.
Therefore, in the situation when one of the criteria does not provide any preference to any of the devices, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize the second criterion which provides specific instruction of which device to transmit and which device to interrupt its transmission. In this specific case, this would result in interrupting the transmission by the first device.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20160127108 (Jindal) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20140241148 (Ryoo).
Regarding claim 8, while teaching in paragraph 0060 that the battery status or power supply level may determine a priority for the corresponding device, as well as assigning a high or preferred priority to a new device and/or a new connection, or a specific type of device relative to another type of device, Jindal does not teach “determining, by the first node and based on any one of a media access control (MAC) address, an Internet Protocol (IP) address, or a network identifier of the second node, the first priority.”
Ryoo teaches determination of priorities “based on any one of a media access control (MAC) address (abstract: link priorities between nodes or node priorities are determined based on media access control (MAC) addresses. Paragraphs 0030 – 0033: the node A acquires port information of the node B (that is, the MAC address of the port in a direction of the link connected to the node A: 26) through a message received from the node B. The node A and node B compare the MAC address of the port connected to the link which receives the message with the MAC address of the source existing in the payload (or a source address field) of the message received through the link and determines the MAC address having a higher value from among the compared MAC addresses as link priority (LP).) … or a network identifier of the second node (paragraph 0034: since each node has a node ID, the link priority between each node may be determined based on the node IDs. Node numbers designated by a user may be used as the node priority, in addition to the node IDs, or separate node priority numbers may be given to each node so as to be used as the node priority.).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize priorities based on MAC addresses and/or network identifiers of the nodes in the network, as disclosed by Ryoo, in the system of Jindal as an additional way of priority determination. Doing so would have increased flexibility of the system by allowing it to assign and determine priorities using additional factors.
Conclusion
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/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648
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