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 .
Prelim. Amdt./Amendment
Receipt is acknowledged of the Preliminary Amendment filed on April 07, 2025.
Claim Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Please clarify what “it” is referring to in next communication. The examiner will interpret the “it” as --the autonomous wireless tape agents--.
Appropriate correction is required.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the “stationary antenna” must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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)(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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 7, 12, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Christopher (US 2018/0293535).
Re claim 1: Christopher teaches a system (100, 300) for establishing a wireless communications connection between autonomous wireless tape agents (110) and a remote server (130), comprising autonomous wireless tape agents (110) adhered to stationary infrastructure such as location tags (210, 310A) and mobile assets (200, 305A) within a physical premises environment (fig. 2), a mobile vehicle (230) carrying a wireless gateway such as a reader (220, 315A) comprising a first wireless communications interface (320) to communicate with the remote server (130, 325), and a second wireless communications interface (i.e., emitting RF signal from the RFID reader to the RFID asset tag and a RFID location tag, paragraph 0005) to communicate with the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment, wherein the second communications interface is operable to transmit one or more wakeup signals to wake the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment (i.e., the RFID tag (110) can be a passive tag in which the RFID tag receives the electromagnetic energy serving as a wake-up signals in order to transmit data stored in the RFID tag, paragraph 0024), and the second communications interface is further operable to scan wireless signals transmitted by the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment (see figs. 1-8; paragraph 0005, 0022-0034, 0038-0049).
Re claim 3: Wherein the second communications interface is operable to transmit wakeup signals concurrently (i.e., the reader (605) can multiple RFID tag (615) and asset tags (640, 645) simultaneously (fig. 6B, paragraph 0047)).
Re claim 7: Wherein the wakeup signal concurrently wakes multiple of the autonomous wireless tape agents, and each autonomous wireless tape agent is configured to wait a random amount of time before transmitting data on the second communications interface.
Re claim 12: Christopher teaches a method of establishing a wireless communications connection between autonomous wireless tape agents (110) and a remote server (130), comprising adhering autonomous wireless tape agents (110) to stationary infrastructure such as location tags (210, 310A) and mobile assets (200, 305A) within a physical premises environment (fig. 2), carrying, by a mobile vehicle (230), a wireless gateway such as a reader (220, 315A) comprising a first wireless communications interface (320) to communicate with the remote server (130, 325), by a second wireless communications interface (i.e., emitting RF signal from the RFID reader to the RFID asset tag and a RFID location tag, paragraph 0005), communicating with the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment, transmitting, by the second communications interface, one or more wakeup signals to wake the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment (i.e., the RFID tag (110) can be a passive tag in which the RFID tag receives the electromagnetic energy serving as a wake-up signals in order to transmit data stored in the RFID tag, paragraph 0024), and scanning, by the second communications interface, wireless signals transmitted by the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment (see figs. 1-8; paragraph 0005, 0022-0034, 0038-0049).
Re claim 13: Christopher teaches a system for establishing a wireless communications connection between autonomous wireless tape agents (110) and a remote server (130), comprising autonomous wireless tape agents (110) adhered to stationary infrastructure such as location tags (210, 310A) and mobile assets (200, 305A) within a physical premises environment (fig. 2), a mobile vehicle (230) associated with a wireless gateway such as a reader (220, 315A) comprising by a first wireless communications interface (320), an executable code portion to communicate with the remote server, by a second wireless communications interface (i.e., emitting RF signal from the RFID reader to the RFID asset tag and a RFID location tag, paragraph 0005), an executable code portion to communicate with the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment, an executable code portion to transmit, by the second communications interface, one or more wakeup signals to wake the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment (i.e., the RFID tag (110) can be a passive tag in which the RFID tag receives the electromagnetic energy serving as a wake-up signals in order to transmit data stored in the RFID tag, paragraph 0024), and an executable code portion to scan, by the second communications interface, wireless signals transmitted by the autonomous wireless tape agents in the physical premises environment , wherein the reader, the RFID tags, and the server comprising memory to store executables codes for scanning and transmitting information therewith (not particularly shown)(see figs. 1-8; paragraph 0005, 0022-0034, 0038-0049).
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.
Claim(s) 2, 4, 5, 8, and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Christopher in view of Kim (US 2009/0224890).
The teachings of Christopher have been discussed above.
Although, Christopher teaches the RFID system for tracking assets, he fairly suggests to convert the mode of operation.
However, Kim teaches a RFID reader (10) transmit a wake-up signal to an active RFID tag wherein the active RFID tag converted from the sleep mode to the active mode in response to receive the wake-up signal (see fig. 2, paragraph 0009), the RFID reader transmit the wake-up signal prior to transmitting a data signal (paragraph 0009) which serves as transmitting wakeup signals serially using a single channel serial interface, wherein at least one of the autonomous wireless tape agents comprises a idle mode serving as a low-power radio that is awake while a primary radio remains off until the autonomous wireless tape agents is awakened by the receipt of a wakeup packet by the low-power radio (fig. 6, paragraph 0039), the reader (605) comprising a antenna serving as a stationary antenna wherein Identification of the scanner (605) also transmitted to the server (paragraph 0044)
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 incorporate the teachings of Kim to the teachings of Christopher in order to reduce power consumption.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Christopher in view of Najass et al. (WO 2018/223189).
The teachings of Christopher have been discussed above.
Although, Christopher teaches the RFID system for tracking assets, he fairly suggests that the interface is LoRaWan interface.
However, Najass teaches a wireless monitoring system comprising a reader (50) communicating with multiple tags (20) wherein the Long Range Wan (LoRaWAN) protocol can be used to communicate (see figs. 1-2; paragraph 0012).
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 incorporate the teachings of Najass to the teachings of Christopher in order to provide long range, low power wireless communication protocol.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 10 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
None of prior art teaches the autonomous wireless tape agents download respective non-interfering schedules of times to transmit data to the wireless gateway over the second communications interface, and the serial communications interface is operable to transmit the logged serial communications data to the second communications interface of the wireless gateway when the mobile vehicle is within range of the stationary antenna as set forth in the claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Schleef et al. (US 10089567) teaches a low powered radio tag.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEUNG H LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-2401. The examiner can normally be reached 7-4:00PM.
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/SEUNG H LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
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