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 .
DETAILED ACTION
2. This action is in response to the Amendment filed July 22, 2026.
3. Claims 21, 30, 35-40, have been amended, claims 31-32 have been canceled and new claims 41-42 have been added.
4. Claims 21-30 and 33-42 have been examined and are pending with this action.
Response to Arguments
5. Applicant's arguments filed July 22, 2026 with respect to the rejection of claims 21-40, previously rejected under Litichever et al. (US 2018/0225230 A1) have been fully considered, but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
After further searching, Kessler (US 2013/0124763 A1), herein referenced Kessler, which was cited in the initial search results, has been applied to better teach the claim limitations as presently amended. Please see rejections set forth below.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
6. Claims 21-23, 26, 29-30, 33-35, 38, and 40-42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kessler (US 2013/0124763 A1).
INDEPENDENT:
As per claim 21, Kessler teaches a communication system, comprising:
a first network device (see Kessler, FIG. 5 & FIG. 6; and Abstract: “Various embodiments of the present invention methods for discovery, configuration, and coordinating data communications between master and slave devices in a communication system.”); and
N second network devices, wherein the first network device is a master device in the communication system, the N second network devices are slave devices in the communication system, and N is a positive integer (see Kessler, FIG. 9 & FIG. 10; Abstract: “Various embodiments of the present invention methods for discovery, configuration, and coordinating data communications between master and slave devices in a communication system.”; and [0114]: “Here, the switches are only shown at the first slave device 1804 but the master 1802 and other slaves also may have switches to propagate power in a controlled fashion.”);
wherein the first network device is configured to adjust at least one of a bus scale, a channel capacity, or a power state, wherein the bus scale comprises at least one of a quantity of devices accessing a bus or a link length, the channel capacity comprises a bandwidth, and the power state comprises at least one of sequential power-on, power-on of a new node, or power-off of a faulty node (see Kessler, [0093]: “Various embodiments of the present invention provide a two-wire (e.g., unshielded twisted pair) bus system that is simple (e.g., no microcontroller required in slave devices), synchronous with embedded clock information, inexpensive, automotive EMC compliant, and has sufficient speed and bandwidth for a large number of slave devices/peripherals, and also provides various protocols that can be used in various communication systems such as a two-wire bus system.”; [0141]: “Also, the ability to selectively switch off power to the downstream bus segment allows, among other things, the master to shut down the slave devices in an orderly fashion if so desired and also allows for the master and/or slave device to isolate certain types of faults, as will be discussed more fully below.”; and [0177]: “NAM (2 bits)--The NAM (Node Addressing Mode) field is used to control access to slave node registers over the A2B Bus.”); and
wherein the first network device is configured to connect paths between the first network device and M second network devices in the N second network devices in a same time period, to enable the first network device to establish communication connections to the M second network devices, and reduce a quantity of devices accessing the bus in the same time period, wherein M is a positive integer less than N (see Kessler, [0107]: “the master device typically places a DC bias on the bus segment on the line side of its AC coupling (e.g., by connecting one wire to Vdd and the other to ground), and each successive slave device can selectively tap the upstream bus segment on the line side of its upstream AC coupling to recover power, which may be used to power the slave itself (and optionally devices coupled to it) and also to selectively bias the downstream bus segment on the line side of its downstream AC coupling (as will be discussed below, slaves may be powered one at a time in some embodiments, e.g., using one or more switches to selectively apply DC bias to the downstream bus segment). Typically, the correct polarities of the two bus wires on a given bus segment must be maintained, although in certain alternative embodiments, provisions may be made to allow operation even if the signal wires are reversed (e.g., the slave devices may include full wave rectifiers on the power supply that, together with the encoding scheme, allow the signal wires to be reversed and the circuit to still function).”; and [0214]: “For example, if all slaves have pre-programmed slave addresses and the bus is fully powered (e.g., the slaves do not have switches for selectively enabling and disabling power to downstream devices), the master may simply poll the individual slave devices.”).
As per claim 30, Kessler teaches a method, applied to a network device, the method comprising:
adjusting at least one of a bus scale, a channel capacity, or a power state, wherein the bus scale comprises at least one of a quantity of devices accessing a bus or a link length, the channel capacity comprises a bandwidth, and the power state comprises at least one of sequential power- on, power-on of a new node, or power-off of a faulty node (see Claim 21 rejection above).
As per claim 40, Kessler teaches a network device, comprising:
at least one processor (see Kessler, [0290]: “Various aspects of the present invention may be embodied in different forms, including, but in no way limited to, computer program logic for use with a processor (e.g., a microprocessor, microcontroller, digital signal processor, or general purpose computer), programmable logic for use with a programmable logic device (e.g., a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other PLD), discrete components, integrated circuitry (e.g., an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)), or any other means including any combination thereof.”); and
a memory storing computer instructions, wherein the at least one processor is configured to invoke the computer instructions, to enable the network device to (see Kessler, [0290]: “Computer program logic implementing some or all of the described functionality is typically implemented as a set of computer program instructions that is converted into a computer executable form, stored as such in a computer readable medium, and executed by a microprocessor under the control of an operating system. Hardware-based logic implementing some or all of the described functionality may be implemented using one or more appropriately configured FPGAs.”):
adjust at least one of a bus scale, a channel capacity, or a power state, wherein the bus scale comprises at least one of a quantity of devices accessing a bus or a link length, the channel capacity comprises a bandwidth, and the power state comprises at least one of sequential power-on, power-on of a new node, or power-off of a faulty node (see Claim 21 rejection above).
DEPENDENT:
As per claims 22, 33, and 41, which respectively depend on claims 21, 30, and 40, Kessler further teaches wherein the first network device is further configured to allocate a spectrum resource transmitted on the bus (see Kessler, [0107]: “For power distribution (which is optional, as some nodes may be configured to have local power provided to them), the master device typically places a DC bias on the bus segment on the line side of its AC coupling (e.g., by connecting one wire to Vdd and the other to ground), and each successive slave device can selectively tap the upstream bus segment on the line side of its upstream AC coupling to recover power, which may be used to power the slave itself (and optionally devices coupled to it) and also to selectively bias the downstream bus segment on the line side of its downstream AC coupling (as will be discussed below, slaves may be powered one at a time in some embodiments, e.g., using one or more switches to selectively apply DC bias to the downstream bus segment).””).
As per claims 23 and 35, which respectively depend on claims 21 and 30, Litichever further teaches wherein the first network device is further configured to:
obtain a topology type of a target link, wherein the topology type comprises a point-to- point topology or a point-to-multipoint topology (see Kessler, [0022]: “The method involves, in each of a number of successive discovery cycles, transmitting a discovery signal by the master device on a downstream communication link; by each discovered slave device that receives the discovery signal, forwarding the discovery signal on a downstream communication link; and by an undiscovered slave device that receives the discovery signal, responding upstream to the discovery signal without forwarding the discovery signal on a downstream communication link.”; and [0095]: “A number of bus configurations are discussed below, including a bi-directional point-to-point bus configuration, a uni-directional ring configuration, and a bi-directional multipoint line configuration”); and
determine a working mode of the first network device based on the topology type (see Kessler, [0162]: “As will be described below, the synchronization control frame includes a preamble field for signaling the start of synchronization as well as fields that allow for various addressing modes (e.g., normal, broadcast, discovery), configuration information (e.g., writing to slave device registers), conveyance of I2C information, remote control of certain general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins at the slave devices, and other services.”; and [0176]: “FIG. 58 shows downstream A2B synchronization control frame formats for I2C mode, discovery mode, and normal (i.e., not I2C or discover) mode, in accordance with one specific exemplary embodiment”).
As per claim 26, which depends on claim 23, Kessler further teaches wherein the first network device is configured to determine the working mode of the first network device based on link transmission information and the topology type (see Claim 23 rejection above).
As per claim 29, which depends on claim 21, Kessler further teaches wherein the first network device is further configured to:
obtain link transmission information (see Claim 23 rejection above); and
when the link transmission information indicates that the first network device corresponds to a low-latency target link, determine that a working mode of the first network device comprises disabling an error correction encoding and decoding function (see Kessler, [0209]: “Specifically, the master device sends a control word to the first slave, commanding it to enable the next slave (default is disabled next slave).”; and [0214]: “For example, if all slaves have pre-programmed slave addresses and the bus is fully powered (e.g., the slaves do not have switches for selectively enabling and disabling power to downstream devices), the master may simply poll the individual slave devices.”).
As per claim 34, which depends on claim 33, Kessler further teaches wherein allocating the spectrum resource transmitted on the bus comprises: allocating different frequency band resources or a same frequency band resource to different services (see Claim 27 rejection above).
As per claim 38, which depends on claim 35, Kessler teaches further comprising:
obtaining link transmission information of the target link (see Claim 23 rejection above); and
wherein determining the working mode of the network device based on the topology type comprises: determining the working mode of the network device based on the link transmission information and the topology type (see Claim 23 rejection above).
As per claim 42, which depends on claim 41, Kessler further teaches wherein allocating the spectrum resource transmitted on the bus comprises: allocating different frequency band resources or a same frequency band resource to different services (see Kessler, [0108]: “The DC component is tapped for power, typically through filters (e.g., ferrites or other inductors) that eliminate the high-frequency AC component (in an exemplary embodiment, the bus runs at a frequency of around 49.152 MHz and the filters are selected to filter frequencies in this range).”).
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.
7. Claims 24 and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kessler (US 2013/0124763 A1) in view of Pandey (US 2020/0072889 A1).
As per claims 24 and 36, which respectively depend on claims 23 and 35, Kessler does not explicitly teach wherein the first network device is configured to: when it is determined that the topology type is the point-to-point topology, determine that the working mode comprises enabling an echo cancellation function.
Pandey teaches when it is determined that the topology type is the point-to-point topology, determine that the working mode comprises enabling an echo cancellation function (see, [0070]: “FIG. 5 depicts an embodiment of a point-to-point communications network 500 that includes an expanded view of the transceivers 510 shown in FIG. 1 in which both transceivers include a voltage detection circuit 520… Although not shown in FIG. 5, the receivers 514 may each include a DSP that is configured to perform digital processing functions such as, for example, equalizer functions, echo cancellation functions, automatic gain control (AGC) functions, clock data recovery (CDR) functions, baseline wander (BLW) functions, and/or data recovery functions.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Kessler in view of Pandey so that when it is determined that the topology type is the point-to-point topology, determine that the working mode comprises enabling an echo cancellation function. One would be motivated to do so because echo cancellation is well-known, routine, and conventional for improving clarity, efficiency, and stability by removing reflected versions of signals.
8. Claims 25 and 37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kessler (US 2013/0124763 A1) in view of Bunker (US 2001/0045914 A1).
As per claims 25 and 37, which respectively depend on claims 23 and 35, Kessler does not explicitly teach teaches wherein the first network device is configured to: when the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises a modulation scheme of multi-carrier modulation; or when the topology type is the point-to-point topology, determine that the working mode comprises a modulation scheme of single-carrier modulation.
Bunker teaches wherein the first network device is configured to: when the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises a modulation scheme of multi-carrier modulation; or when the topology type is the point-to-point topology, determine that the working mode comprises a modulation scheme of single-carrier modulation (see Bunker, [0034]: “Generally, wireless point-to-point and point-to-multipoint networks operate within a single frequency, or deploy a means of creating channels within the frequency utilizing expensive modulation technologies such as spread spectrum, frequency shift keying, multiple carrier, phase shift keying (PSK), amplitude shift keying (AKS) or other techniques known in the art.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Kessler in view of Bunker so that when the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises a modulation scheme of multi-carrier modulation. One would be motivated to do so because such an implementation would enable handling diversity naturally.
9. Claims 27-28 and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kessler (US 2013/0124763 A1) in view of Shattil (US 2007/0211786 A1).
As per claims 27 and 39, which respectively depend on claims 26 and 38, Kessler does not explicitly teach wherein the link transmission information comprises a signal transmission feature, and the first network device is configured to: when the signal transmission feature indicates that a frequency band in which the first network device sends a first signal to at least one of the M second network devices overlaps a frequency band in which the first network device receives a second signal from the at least one of the M second network devices, and the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises that a first time period corresponding to the first signal does not intersect with a second time period corresponding to the second signal.
Shattil teaches a device configured to: when the signal transmission feature indicates that a frequency band in which the first network device sends a first signal to at least one of the M second network devices overlaps a frequency band in which the first network device receives a second signal from the at least one of the M second network devices, and the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises that a first time period corresponding to the first signal does not intersect with a second time period corresponding to the second signal (see Shattil, [0048]: “Thus, the invention allows concentration of complex operations at base stations in point-to-multipoint communication links, greatly reducing the cost of the overall system.”; and [0931]: “A number N of samples are represented in FIG. 70 by equally spaced time intervals 7010.0 to 7010.N corresponding to an integer multiple of a desired waveform's period. In this example, the sample intervals 7010.0 to 7010.N intersect the peaks of a desired waveform. However, the sample intervals 7010.0 to 7010.N intersect the other waveforms at various parts of their cycles. An important aspect of the invention involves selecting the time interval (or symbol duration Ts) over which samples are combined. The symbol duration Ts defines the frequency spacing fs=1/ Ts of orthogonal waveforms. When N samples collected over a period Ts are combined, a desired signal can be separated from interfering signals modulated on orthogonal waveforms.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Kessler in view of Shattil so that the device configured to: when the signal transmission feature indicates that a frequency band in which the first network device sends a first signal to at least one of the M second network devices overlaps a frequency band in which the first network device receives a second signal from the at least one of the M second network devices, and the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises that a first time period corresponding to the first signal does not intersect with a second time period corresponding to the second signal. One would be motivated to do so because Kessler teaches in paragraph [0108], “Each slave typically includes a power regulator in order to produce a predetermined voltage (e.g., 1.8V or 3.3V) from the line voltage, which may drop along the length of the bus in some embodiments. In this way, power can be conveyed from the master to all of the slave devices while preserving the ability for high-speed data bi-directional communications on each bus segment.”.
As per claim 28, which depends on claim 26, Kessler further teaches wherein the link transmission information comprises a signal transmission feature, and the first network device is configured to: when the signal transmission feature indicates that a time period in which the first network device sends a first signal to at least one of the M second network devices overlaps a time period in which the first network device receives a second signal from the at least one of the M second network devices, and the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises that a first frequency band corresponding to the first signal does not intersect with a second frequency band corresponding to the second signal.
Shattil teaches a device configured to: when the signal transmission feature indicates that a time period in which the first network device sends a first signal to at least one of the M second network devices overlaps a time period in which the first network device receives a second signal from the at least one of the M second network devices, and the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises that a first frequency band corresponding to the first signal does not intersect with a second frequency band corresponding to the second signal (see Shattil, [0048]: “Thus, the invention allows concentration of complex operations at base stations in point-to-multipoint communication links, greatly reducing the cost of the overall system.”; and [0931]: “A number N of samples are represented in FIG. 70 by equally spaced time intervals 7010.0 to 7010.N corresponding to an integer multiple of a desired waveform's period. In this example, the sample intervals 7010.0 to 7010.N intersect the peaks of a desired waveform. However, the sample intervals 7010.0 to 7010.N intersect the other waveforms at various parts of their cycles. An important aspect of the invention involves selecting the time interval (or symbol duration Ts) over which samples are combined. The symbol duration Ts defines the frequency spacing fs=1/ Ts of orthogonal waveforms. When N samples collected over a period Ts are combined, a desired signal can be separated from interfering signals modulated on orthogonal waveforms.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Kessler in view of Shattil so that the device configured to: when the signal transmission feature indicates that a time period in which the first network device sends a first signal to at least one of the M second network devices overlaps a time period in which the first network device receives a second signal from the at least one of the M second network devices, and the topology type is the point-to-multipoint topology, determine that the working mode comprises that a first frequency band corresponding to the first signal does not intersect with a second frequency band corresponding to the second signal. One would be motivated to do so because paragraph [0111], “In this exemplary embodiment, the transmitter and receiver blocks are essentially shared by the two bus ports A and B through a set of switches (such a configuration may allow one bus port to receive while the other bus port transmits and vice versa but not both ports receiving or transmitting at the same time), although alternative embodiments may have separate transmitter and receiver blocks for each bus port. It should be noted that the oscillator (OSC) block is shown in dashed lines to indicate that a crystal oscillator is not needed in the slave device.”.
Conclusion
10. For the reasons above, claims 21-40 have been rejected and remain pending.
11, Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
12. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL Y WON whose telephone number is (571)272-3993. The examiner can normally be reached on Wk.1: M-F: 8-5 PST & Wk.2: M-Th: 8-7 PST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas R Taylor can be reached on 571-272-3889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Michael Won/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
Prosecution Insights