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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (US 2023/0362543) in view of Gurin (US 2021/0209237) and Reeves (US 2025/0119713).
Regarding claim 1, Lee describes a wireless local area network access method, applied to a system comprising a mobile device, and at least one device, wherein the at least one device comprises a first device (fig. 9, MBS (first device) in SoftAP or STA mode (mobile device) attempts to communicate with/access STAs in network), and the method comprises:
sending, by the first device, at least one broadcast frame in an access point (AP) mode, wherein the at least one broadcast frame comprises a first broadcast frame, and (fig. 11A & para. 259 in view of para. 18-19, MBX broadcasts to synchronization request to STAs labelled SPK-A, SPD-B, SPK-C & SPK-D);
receiving, by the mobile device, the first broadcast frame, and sending a reply frame for the first broadcast frame to the first IoT device (fig. 11A & para. 262-263, MBX receives sqba/sqbb (replies) from SPK-A & SPK-B respectively);
switching, by the first IoT device, from the AP mode to a station (STA) mode in response to receiving the reply frame (para. 11-12, MBX swich between an access point mode & a STA mode after receiving synchronization response message from sending the synchronization request message. See also abstract & fig. 9 before as AP and after as STA);
sending, by the first IoT device in the STA mode, a second broadcast frame on at least one wireless channel, and the at least one wireless channel comprises an operating channel of any network device (fig. 11A & para. 266, MBX (now in STA mode as first IoT device) broadcasts to STAs labelled SPK-A, SPK-B, SPK-C & SPK-D, where channels used are all/a plurality of pre-stored channels).
Lee fails to further explicitly describe:
a configuration device
determining, by the configuration device, a device trustlist, wherein the device trustlist comprises device identifiers of one or more IoT devices;
receiving, by the configuration device, the second broadcast frame, determining, based on the second broadcast frame, that the device identifier of the first IoT device matches the device trustlist, and providing, for the first IoT device, network configuration information of a wireless local area network in which the configuration device is located, wherein the network configuration information is used by the first IoT device to access the wireless local area network.
Gurin also describes network communications, further describing:
a configuration device (fig. 3-4 & para. 8, cloud platform comprising securing module 205),
determining, by the configuration device, a device trustlist, wherein the device trustlist comprises device identifiers of one or more IoT devices (para. 8, security module 205 in the cloud platform registers/collects/determine a trust list of IoT device for data exchange),
receiving, by the configuration device, the second broadcast frame, determining, based on the second broadcast frame, that the device identifier of the first IoT device matches the device trustlist, and providing, for the first IoT device, network configuration information of a wireless local area network in which the configuration device is located, wherein the network configuration information is used by the first IoT device to access the wireless local area network (para. 8, registering a list of trusted IoT devices and their relevant IDs in the cloud platform is for ensuring information exchange with trusted IoT devices).
wherein the second broadcast frame comprises a device identifier of the first IoT device (para. 61, exchanges comprising ID of IoT device).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the network method in Lee to additionally comprise the above additional specific steps as in Gurin.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this implementation yields a new, safe and universal method and the system for control of a plurality of IoT devices (Gurin, para. 6).
Lee and Gurin combined fail to further explicitly describe:
the first broadcast frame comprises a first network identifier of a wireless local area network provided by the first IoT device.
Reeves also describes wireless network operations (title), further explicitly describe:
the [first] broadcast frame comprises a first network identifier of a wireless local area network provided by the first IoT device (abstract, broadcast message comprises a WLAN network identifier. The UE retrieves the network identifier from the another (network) node).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the first broadcast frame in Lee and Gurin to comprise a first network identifier provided by the first IoT device as in Reeves.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this implementation will not suffer from poor scalability, i.e. yields efficient scalability (Reeves para. 7).
Regarding claims 8 and 14, Lee describes a first IoT device/wireless local area network access method, applied in a first IoT device (fig. 9, MBS (first device) in SoftAP or STA mode (mobile device) attempts to communicate with/access STAs in network), comprising:
[a memory, configured to store instructions for execution by one or more processors of the first IoT device; and
a processor, configured to execute the instructions in the memory, so that the first IoT device performs performs the operations of]
sending at least one broadcast frame in an access point (AP) mode, wherein the at least one broadcast frame comprises a first broadcast frame, and the first broadcast frame comprises a first network identifier of a wireless local area network provided by the first IoT device (fig. 11A & para. 259 in view of para. 18-19, MBX broadcasts to synchronization request to STAs labelled SPK-A, SPD-B, SPK-C & SPK-D);
receiving a reply frame for the first broadcast frame from a mobile device, and switching from the AP mode to a station (STA) mode (fig. 11A & para. 262-263, MBX receives sqba/sqbb (replies) from SPK-A & SPK-B respectively);
sending, by the first IoT device in the STA mode, a second broadcast frame on at least one wireless channel, and the at least one wireless channel comprises an operating channel of any network device (fig. 11A & para. 266, MBX (now in STA mode as first IoT device) broadcasts to STAs labelled SPK-A, SPK-B, SPK-C & SPK-D, where channels used are all/a plurality of pre-stored channels).
Lee fails to further explicitly describe:
a configuration device
determining, by the configuration device, a device trustlist, wherein the device trustlist comprises device identifiers of one or more IoT devices;
receiving, by the configuration device, the second broadcast frame, determining, based on the second broadcast frame, that the device identifier of the first IoT device matches the device trustlist, and providing, for the first IoT device, network configuration information of a wireless local area network in which the configuration device is located, wherein the network configuration information is used by the first IoT device to access the wireless local area network.
Gurin also describes network communications, further describing:
a configuration device (fig. 3-4 & para. 8, cloud platform comprising securing module 205),
determining, by the configuration device, a device trustlist, wherein the device trustlist comprises device identifiers of one or more IoT devices (para. 8, security module 205 in the cloud platform registers/collects/determine a trust list of IoT device for data exchange),
receiving, by the configuration device, the second broadcast frame, determining, based on the second broadcast frame, that the device identifier of the first IoT device matches the device trustlist, and providing, for the first IoT device, network configuration information of a wireless local area network in which the configuration device is located, wherein the network configuration information is used by the first IoT device to access the wireless local area network (para. 8, registering a list of trusted IoT devices and their relevant IDs in the cloud platform is for ensuring information exchange with trusted IoT devices).
wherein the second broadcast frame comprises a device identifier of the first IoT device (para. 61, exchanges comprising ID of IoT device).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the network method in Lee to additionally comprise the above additional specific steps as in Gurin.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this implementation yields a new, safe and universal method and the system for control of a plurality of IoT devices (Gurin, para. 6).
Lee and Gurin combined fail to further explicitly describe:
the first broadcast frame comprises a first network identifier of a wireless local area network provided by the first IoT device.
Reeves also describes wireless network operations (title), further explicitly describe:
the [first] broadcast frame comprises a first network identifier of a wireless local area network provided by the first IoT device (abstract, broadcast message comprises a WLAN network identifier. The UE retrieves the network identifier from the another (network) node).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the first broadcast frame in Lee and Gurin to comprise a first network identifier provided by the first IoT device as in Reeves.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this implementation will not suffer from poor scalability, i.e. yields efficient scalability (Reeves para. 7).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7, 9-13 and 15-19 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.
Regarding claim 2, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the at least one IoT device further comprises a second IoT device; and the method further comprises:
sending, by the second IoT device, a third broadcast frame in the AP mode, wherein the third broadcast frame comprises a first network identifier of a wireless local area network provided by the second IoT device;
receiving, by the first IoT device that has switched to the STA mode, the third broadcast frame; and
sending, by the first IoT device, a reply frame for the third broadcast frame to the second IoT device, wherein the reply frame that is sent by the first IoT device and that is for the third broadcast frame is used to trigger the second IoT device to switch from the AP mode to the STA mode.
Regarding claims 3, 10-11 and 16-17, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the first network identifier is a character string named according to a first rule, and the first network identifier comprises a random character.
Regarding claim 5, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the reply frame that is sent by the mobile device and that is for the first broadcast frame comprises a first packet, and the first packet is a packet determined based on the first network identifier.
Regarding claim 6, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the determining, by the configuration device, a device trustlist comprises: receiving, by the configuration device, the device identifiers of the one or more IoT devices from the mobile device, and determining the device trustlist based on the received device identifiers.
Regarding claim 7, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
the first broadcast frame is a beacon frame; or the network configuration information of the wireless local area network comprises a network identifier SSID of the wireless local area network; or the device identifier of the IoT device comprises a MAC address of the IoT device.
Regarding claims 9 and 15, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the method further comprises:
receiving, by the first IoT device that has switched to the STA mode, a third broadcast frame sent by a second IoT device in the AP mode, wherein the third broadcast frame comprises a first network identifier of a network provided by the second IoT device; and
sending a reply frame for the third broadcast frame to the second IoT device, wherein the reply frame that is sent by the first IoT device and that is for the third broadcast frame is used to trigger the second IoT device to switch from the AP mode to the STA mode.
For all above objected to claims 2-3, 5-7, 9 -11 and 15-17, the closest prior art, Qi (CN 113473439) describing Wi-Fi device operable in STA and AP modes, where if all conditions in the first condition set are satisfied at the same time, then the Wi-Fi device closes the own AP function (abstract), in combination with Lee, Gurin and Reeves as used above for art rejection, fail to render each of the objected to claims as a whole obvious.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Yu (US 2023/0318916) describing network configuration for intelligent (IoT) devices using broadcasting of discovery packet (abstract), Chen (US 2020/0154340) describing home appliance network configuration method (title), Jeong (WO 2025135545) describing performing a registration procedure of the electronic device by using the acquired onboarding information, and Xu (US 2022/0167164) describing device network configuration and registration by broadcast packet (fig. 7).
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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