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 § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-7, 9-11, 13-16, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Vaswani et al. (US 2018/0159753 A1, hereinafter refers as Vaswani).
Regarding claim 1, Vaswani discloses a utility system, comprising:
a plurality of electrical meters (Fig. 1, el. 130);
a plurality of load devices (Fig. 1, el. 110, the access point connects directly with the utility meter); and a utility controller (Fig. 1, el. 24, el. 120),
the utility controller configured to:
receive a command and an associated managerial group (Fig. 1, Fig. 6, para. 41, group of one or more utility meter within a predetermined geographic area, to receive operation commands from the communication station);
determine a plurality of target devices based on the received managerial group, wherein the target devices include one or more of the plurality of electrical meters and one or more of the plurality of load devices (Fig. 1 and 6, 12 meters el. 130A-130L, para. 41, para. 112, are determined in a predetermined geographic area el. 650, a command can be set to a target group of utility meters el. 130 and associated load devices);
determine a first optimal communication group of a plurality of communication groups associated with the utility system, wherein the first optimal communication group includes one or more of the plurality of determined target devices (Fig. 1, Fig. 6, para. 182, the node or meter to search optimal communication path to an access point);
and issue the received command to the determined optimal communication group (para. 134, the communication station [el. 120] transmit a control command).
Regarding claim 2, Vaswani discloses wherein the plurality of communication groups include one or more of the plurality of electrical meters and one or more of the plurality of load devices (Fig. 1, para. 182, the access point [el. 110] , and utility meters [el. 130]).
Regarding claim 3, Vaswani discloses wherein the utility controller is further configured to: determine whether any of the plurality of target devices were not included in the optimal communication group; and determine a second optimal communication group, wherein the second optimal communication group includes one or more of the plurality of target devices not included in the first optimal communication group (Fig. 1, para. 182, the node [el. 130, meter] search for an optimal communication path to an access point based on communication factors such as a path cost, and the link cos… as such, the second group is the additional access points and meters are not in the optimal group).
Regarding claim 5, Vaswani discloses wherein the command and an associated managerial group are transmitted by a third-party device (Fig. 1, fit. 6, para. 41, el. 120, a communication station).
Regarding claim 6, Vaswani discloses wherein the command includes an instruction to respond to the command using synchronous communication (para. 184, para. 186, the synchronization packets are sent to other nodes).
Regarding claim 7, Vaswani discloses wherein synchronous communication requires each of the target devices to transmit a response at a predefined frequency and timeslot (para. 185-186).
Regarding claim 9, Vaswani discloses a method for issuing commands to devices within a utility system, comprising:
receiving a command at a utility controller, wherein the command includes a grouping of target devices within a utility system to execute the command (Fig. 1, Fig. 6, para. 41, group of one or more utility meter within a predetermined geographic area, to receive operation commands from the communication station);
determining, at the utility controller, a plurality of target devices within the utility system based on the received command (Fig. 1 and 6, 12 meters el. 130A-130L, para. 41, para. 112, are determined in a predetermined geographic area el. 650, a command can be set to a target group of utility meters el. 130 and associated load devices);
and determining a first optimal communication group of a plurality of communication groups associated with the utility system, wherein the first optimal communication group includes one or more of the plurality of determined target devices (Fig. 1, Fig. 6, para. 182, the node or meter to search optimal communication path to an access point).
Regarding claim 10, the instant claim is met by the rejection of claim 2.
Regarding claim 11, the instant claim is met by the rejection of claim 3.
Regarding claim 13, Vaswani discloses wherein the command and an associated managerial group are transmitted by an external device (Fig. 1, fit. 6, para. 41, el. 120, a communication station).
Regarding claim 14, the instant claim is met by the rejection of claim 6.
Regarding claim 15, the instant claim is met by the rejection of claim 7.
Regarding claim 16, Vaswani discloses a utility device, comprising:
a communication interface (Fig. 1);
and an electronic processor configured to:
receive a command via the communication interface; determine whether the received command is addressed to the utility device; process the command in response to determining that the received command is addressed to the utility device (Fig. 1, Fig. 6, para. 41, para. 61, para. 64, one or more utility meter within a predetermined geographic area, to receive and process operation commands from the communication station);
determine whether the command requires a synchronous response (para. 184-186);
determine a response frequency and timeslot for responding to the command in response to determining that the command requires a synchronous response (para. 184-186, to establish synchronization with a node 3 times a time, i.e., with timeslot of 2:00-2:10 pm);
determine whether the determined timeslot has occurred (para. 184, 2:00-2:10 pm);
and transmitting a response via the communication interface to the command in response to determining the timeslot has occurred (para. 185-186, to transmit the notification to the communication station).
Regarding claim 18, Vaswani discloses wherein the utility device is a load switching device (para. 66, Fig. 1 and 2, el. 130, the meter device has a switch, in which el. 2 to check its switch status).
Regarding claim 19, Vaswani discloses wherein the utility device is an electrical meter (el. 130, i.e., a meter).
Regarding claim 20, Vaswani discloses wherein the command is received from a utility controller (para. 41, a command is received).
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) 4 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vaswani in view of Yang et al. (US 2018/0076967 A1, hereinafter refers as Yang).
Regarding claim 4, Vaswani discloses all limitation of claim 1,
Vaswani does not explicitly disclose wherein the first optimal communication group includes a largest quantity of the plurality of target devices;
Yang teaches wherein the first optimal communication group includes a largest quantity of the plurality of target devices (para. 34);
It would be obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention to modify Vaswani to include Yang in order to find a primary communication path with minimal failures in transmission. (para. 181-183).
Regarding claim 12, Vaswani discloses all limitation of claim 1,
Vaswani does not explicitly disclose wherein the first optimal communication group includes a largest number of the plurality of target devices;
Yang teaches wherein the first optimal communication group includes a largest number of the plurality of target devices (para. 34);
It would be obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention to modify Vaswani to include Yang in order to find a primary communication path with minimal failures in transmission. (para. 181-183).
Claim(s) 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vaswani in view of Keren et al. (US 2022/0286479 A1, hereinafter refers as Keren).
Regarding claim 8, Vaswani discloses all limitation of claim 1,
Vaswani does not explicitly disclose wherein the utility controller performs a union and intersection operation to determine the optimal communication group;
Keren teaches wherein the utility controller performs a union and intersection operation to determine the optimal communication group (para. 104, performs the intersection or union);
It would be obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the invention to modify Vaswani to include Keren in order for the purpose of providing path analysis thereby determining a path the communication can move through to provide the command (para. 31, para. 104).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 17 is 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:
Regarding claim 17 and its dependents, the art of record either alone or in combination fails to particular disclose or suggest the claim “wherein the utility device is configured to refrain from transmitting on the response frequency during the timeslot in response to determining that the command is not addressed to the utility device.”
As to the art of record, Vaswani reference discloses a system to detect anomalous event in the utility network. However, Vaswani does not teach with respect to the entire or combination claim limitation stated as above.
Conclusion
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/CAI Y CHEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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