CTNF 19/100,158 CTNF 94969 DETAILED ACTION The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. This action is in response to the communication filed on 01/31/2025. Claims 1-3, 6-9 and 12-17 are pending in this application. Priority This application claims priority of PCT/EP2022/072784, filed 08/15/2022. The assignee of record is ABB SCHWEIZ AG. The listed inventor(s) is/are: Pang et al. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 01/31/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS(s) is/are being considered by the examiner. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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 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. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-23-aia AIA The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co. , 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows: 1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art. 2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue. 3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art. 4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness. 07-20-02-aia AIA This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 1-3, 6-9 and 13-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210382462 A1 (hereinafter Racz), in view of “Wireless networked control systems with QoS-based sampling” (hereinafter Colandairaj) . For Claim 1, Racz teaches a cycle time determining device (Racz exemplifies Remote Controller 106 in FIG. 1A) for determining a cycle time of a process control system (Racz teaches adapting a update time of a closed-loop control process; FIG. 1A; para. [0006] “… Industrial process control can be performed at various levels in regard to latency and other QoS requirements. For example, a highly delay sensitive task is a closed-loop control (e.g., a Proportional-Integral-Derivative, PID, control of servos in the robot cell), with required update times of typically between 1 and 15 ms. Higher level control ( e.g., when movement commands are sent to valves or conveyor belts) also benefit from low update times, but low update times are not always necessary for such control tasks …”; para. [0063] “… The remote controller 106 is configured to generate control data for the robotic devices 102, optionally on the basis of the robot cell state data and/or the status information pertaining to the wireless data transmission, and to forward the control data via the wireless access domain 100B to the local controllers 102A of the robotic devices 102 …”) , the process control system comprising an automation device (Racz exemplifies Robotic Device 102 with Robot Controller 102A and Monitoring Device 104 in FIG. 1A) , a process control function and hardware (Racz, FIG. 1A; para. [0056] “… Each local controller 102A comprises or represents, from the perspective of an industrial process communication protocol such as ProfiNet, a field device (e.g., an Input/Output, I/O, device) within the robot cell domain 100A. The local controllers 102A may have components, such as software and/or hardware interfaces, functionally located on OSI level 1 (physical level). The local controllers 102A may comprise hardware PLCs, discrete PID controllers, or similar devices. …”) implementing the process control function, where the process control function controls the automation device in a process control loop via a first wireless communication network (Racz, FIG. 1A; para. [0061] “… As illustrated in FIG. 1A, the robotic devices 102 with their associated local robot controllers 102A are configured to receive control data generated in the cloud computing domain 100C from the wireless access domain 100B. Moreover, the state data as acquired by the monitoring devices 104 and the local controllers 102A are wirelessly communicated via the wireless access domain 100B to the cloud computing domain 100C …”) ; Racz does not explicitly teach, but Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device including a cycle time determining function and hardware implementing the cycle time determining function (Colandairaj exemplifies a Controller and Sampling Policy in FIG. 1 to teach a framework for sampling interval adaptation; FIG. 1; Section 2 Sample rate adaptation “… When the measurement frame arrives at the controller end, the data is used to (i) calculate the control action, u(k) – which may or may not use any QoS information, depending on whether the chosen control scheme utilises any form of delay/frame loss compensation and (ii) decide on the next sampling interval, h(k + 1) …”) , the cycle time determining function being configured to: obtain a first mapping of cycle time of the process control loop to quality of service of the first wireless communication network and control performance of the process control loop (Colandairaj teaches establishing relationship between sampling interval, QoS, and control performance/stability for wireless networked control systems; FIG. 1; Section 2 Sample rate adaptation “… Fig. 1 illustrates the proposed technique for adapting the sampling interval to network and control parameters … The choice of sampling interval and the effectiveness of the adaptation depends heavily on the sampling policy – variations in the sampling interval can either be sensitive to network conditions (e.g. congestion, length of delays and channel quality), closed-loop control performance or a weighted mixture of the two …”; Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship; the control performance/stability is simulated and discussed to be related to the adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures in Section 4, “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”) ; analyse the first mapping between cycle time, quality of service and control performance (Colandairaj simulates and analyzes the tradeoffs between the adaptive sampling intervals, QoS measures and control performance/stability in Section 3 and Section 4; Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship; the control performance/stability is simulated and discussed to be related to the adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures in Section 4, “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”) ; and determine a cycle time to be used in the first wireless communication network based on the analysis (Colandairaj teaches dynamically adapting sampling intervals in Section 3 and Section 4; Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship; the control performance/stability is simulated and discussed to be related to the adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures in Section 4, “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”) , wherein the cycle time determining function is further configured to obtain at least one further mapping between cycle time, control performance and quality of service of at least one other communication network (Racz teaches multiple communication arrangements (e.g. 5G or 4G radio access networks, etc.) and applied industrial process communication protocol for determining the update time in para. [0050]; Colandairaj teaches adapting sampling intervals being related with differing network conditions and control performance/stability in Section 3 and Section 4) and where the obtaining of the first mapping includes obtaining a relationship between cycle time and quality of service of the first wireless communication network (Colandairaj, Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses establishing the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship) and adding estimates of control performance to said relationship between cycle time and quality of service for forming the first mapping (Colandairaj teaches estimating the control performance/stability (i.e. controller to actuator delay when establishing relationship between the sampling intervals and the QoS in equation (31) in page 433) where the estimates of control performance are based on the mapping of control performance to the cycle time and quality of service in the at least one further mapping (Colandairaj teaches that the control performance/stability is simulated and evaluated to be related to the adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures in Section 4). Colandairaj and Racz are analogous art because they are both related to industrial/automation process control systems. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the QoS based adaptive sampling intervals determination techniques of Colandairaj with the system of Racz to improve the closed-loop stability and meet the control design criteria in the presence of channels errors and severe channel contention (Colandairaj, Abstract) . For Claim 2, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device according to claim 1, wherein the determined cycle time is a cycle time for which the combination of cycle time, quality of service and control performance fulfils a control loop criterion (Colandairaj teaches simulating and analyzing the relationships of the sampling interval, QoS measures and control performance/stability on a closed-loop wireless networked control system; Abstract “… Simulation results on a cart-mounted inverted pendulum show that closed-loop stability can be improved using sample rate adaptation and that the control design criteria can be met in the presence of channel errors and severe channel contention …”). See motivation to combine for claim 1. For Claim 3, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device according to claim 2, wherein the control loop criterion is that the combination is optimal (Colandairaj teaches simulating and analyzing the situation of reaching the stable control performance/stability with adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures; Section 4.3 Sample rate adaptation in the presence of channel contention “… A comparison of the round-trip delays in Fig. 8 shows the significant reduction in t rtt with sample rate adaptation; the delay value is reduced by over 50% from that with constant sampling. The reduction in delay jitter, shown in Table 2, is equally impressive. The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”). See motivation to combine for claim 1. For Claim 6, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device according to claim 1, wherein the at least one further mapping comprises a group of further mappings, where the mappings are mappings of cycle time and control performance to quality of service of different types of communication networks (Racz teaches multiple communication arrangements (e.g. 5G or 4G radio access networks, etc.) and applied industrial process communication protocol for determining the update time in para. [0050]; Colandairaj discusses adapting sampling intervals being related with differing network conditions and control performance/stability in Section 3 and Section 4). See motivation to combine for claim 1. For Claim 7, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device according to claim 1, wherein the control performance comprises a performance of the automation device (Colandairaj teaches analyzing the closed-loop control performance/stability of a cart and pendulum on a cart-mounted inverted pendulum system; Section 4.3 Sample rate adaptation in the presence of channel contention “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”). See motivation to combine for claim 1. For Claim 8, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device according to claim 1, wherein the control performance comprises a performance of communication between the process control function and the automation device (Colandairaj teaches analyzing the closed-loop control performance/stability/responsiveness of the cart/pendulum with considering the effect of the communication characteristics (e.g. network delay, throughput, frame loss, bandwidth usage, channel error/contention, etc.) and the adaptive sampling intervals in Section 4, therefore the communication performance is considered as part of the control performance/stability/responsiveness). See motivation to combine for claim 1. For Claim 9, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and therefore is rejected for the same reasoning set forth above . For Claim 13, Racz teaches a process control system comprising: an automation device (Racz exemplifies Robotic Device 102 with Robot Controller 102A and Monitoring Device 104 in FIG. 1A) ; a process control function and hardware implementing the process control function (Racz, FIG. 1A; para. [0056] “… Each local controller 102A comprises or represents, from the perspective of an industrial process communication protocol such as ProfiNet, a field device (e.g., an Input/Output, I/O, device) within the robot cell domain 100A. The local controllers 102A may have components, such as software and/or hardware interfaces, functionally located on OSI level 1 (physical level). The local controllers 102A may comprise hardware PLCs, discrete PID controllers, or similar devices. …”; para. [0063] “… The remote controller 106 is configured to generate control data for the robotic devices 102, optionally on the basis of the robot cell state data and/or the status information pertaining to the wireless data transmission, and to forward the control data via the wireless access domain 100B to the local controllers 102A of the robotic devices 102 …”) , where the process control function controls the automation device in a process control loop via a first wireless communication network (Racz, FIG. 1A; para. [0061] “… As illustrated in FIG. 1A, the robotic devices 102 with their associated local robot controllers 102A are configured to receive control data generated in the cloud computing domain 100C from the wireless access domain 100B. Moreover, the state data as acquired by the monitoring devices 104 and the local controllers 102A are wirelessly communicated via the wireless access domain 100B to the cloud computing domain 100C …”) ; and Racz does not explicitly teach, but Colandairaj teaches a cycle time determining function and hardware implementing a cycle time determining function (Colandairaj exemplifies a Controller and Sampling Policy in FIG. 1 to teach a framework for sampling interval adaptation; FIG. 1; Section 2 Sample rate adaptation “… When the measurement frame arrives at the controller end, the data is used to (i) calculate the control action, u(k) – which may or may not use any QoS information, depending on whether the chosen control scheme utilises any form of delay/frame loss compensation and (ii) decide on the next sampling interval, h(k + 1) …”) , … the cycle time determining function being configured to obtain a first mapping of cycle time of the process control loop to quality of service of the first wireless communication network and control performance of the process control loop (Colandairaj teaches establishing relationship between sampling interval, QoS, and control performance/stability for wireless networked control systems; FIG. 1; Section 2 Sample rate adaptation “… Fig. 1 illustrates the proposed technique for adapting the sampling interval to network and control parameters … The choice of sampling interval and the effectiveness of the adaptation depends heavily on the sampling policy – variations in the sampling interval can either be sensitive to network conditions (e.g. congestion, length of delays and channel quality), closed-loop control performance or a weighted mixture of the two …”; Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship; the control performance/stability is simulated and discussed to be related to the adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures in Section 4, “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”) , analyse the first mapping between cycle time, quality of service and control performance (Colandairaj simulates and analyzes the tradeoffs between the adaptive sampling intervals, QoS measures and control performance/stability in Section 3 and Section 4; Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship; the control performance/stability is simulated and discussed to be related to the adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures in Section 4, “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”) and determine a cycle time to be used in the first wireless communication network based on the analysis (Colandairaj teaches dynamically adapting sampling intervals in Section 3 and Section 4; Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship; the control performance/stability is simulated and discussed to be related to the adaptive sampling intervals and QoS measures in Section 4, “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”). Colandairaj and Racz are analogous art because they are both related to industrial/automation process control systems. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the QoS based adaptive sampling intervals determination techniques of Colandairaj with the system of Racz to improve the closed-loop stability and meet the control design criteria in the presence of channels errors and severe channel contention (Colandairaj, Abstract) . For Claim 14, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and therefore is rejected for the same reasoning set forth above . For Claim 15, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and therefore is rejected for the same reasoning set forth above. Additionally, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the computer program product comprising a data carrier with the computer program code (Racz, para. [0041] “… Also provided is a computer program product comprising program code for performing the steps of any of the metho aspects presented herein when executed by one or more processors. The computer program product may be stored on a computer-readable recording medium …”). For Claim 16, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device according to claim 2, wherein the control performance comprises a performance of the automation device (Colandairaj teaches analyzing the closed-loop control performance/stability of a cart and pendulum on a cart-mounted inverted pendulum system; Section 4.3 Sample rate adaptation in the presence of channel contention “… The closed-loop step responses in Fig. 9, show that with constant sampling, the cart and pendulum have gone unstable. With sample rate adaptation, the closed-loop performance once more meets the design criteria, but with slightly more overshoot than in the hardwired case …”). See motivation to combine for claim 1. For Claim 17, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the cycle time determining device according to claim 2, wherein the control performance comprises a performance of communication between the process control function and the automation device (Colandairaj teaches analyzing the closed-loop control performance/stability/responsiveness of the cart/pendulum with considering the effect of the communication characteristics (e.g. network delay, throughput, frame loss, bandwidth usage, channel error/contention, etc.) and the adaptive sampling intervals in Section 4, therefore the communication performance is considered as part of the control performance/stability/responsiveness). See motivation to combine for claim 1 . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-21-aia AIA Claim 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210382462 A1 (hereinafter Racz), in view of “Wireless networked control systems with QoS-based sampling” (hereinafter Colandairaj), and in further view of US 20140341040 A1 (hereinafter Lee) . For Claim 12, Racz-Colandairaj teaches the method according to claim 9, …, which negotiated quality of service corresponds to the determined cycle time (Colandairaj, Section 3 Discrete-time MJLS discusses establishing the relationship of QoS measure (e.g. round trip delay) with adaptive sampling intervals in subsection 3.1 Closed-loop system representation with time-varying sampling period and time delay, equation (31) and FIG. 2 illustrate this relationship). See motivation to combine for claim 1. Racz-Colandairaj does not explicitly teach, but Lee teaches further comprising negotiating a quality of service with a network management system of the first wireless communication network (Lee, FIG. 2, FIG. 6; para. [0061] teaches that the peripheral device 204A exchanges reservation information and negotiates traffic specification (TSPEC) with the access point 202 for at least one traffic type based on the reservation information, establishes a QoS associated with the at least one traffic type using the TSPEC, reserves a requested bandwidth of a wireless medium based on the established QoS). Lee and Racz-Colandairaj are analogous art because they are both related to network communication systems. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the QoS based bandwidth negotiation techniques of Lee with the system of Racz-Colandairaj to facilitate transmitting data based on a deterministic QoS in a communication network (Lee, para. [0009]) . Citation of Pertinent Prior Art 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is listed below, thank you: i. US 20200218239 A1 (hereinafter Guo) teaches that a networked control system for controlling at least one plant includes a receiver configured to receive a feedback signal indicative of a current state of a controlled variable of a plant over a wireless link and a controller configured to determine a control command based on a control error between a reference state of the controlled variable and the current state of the control variable. The system also includes a processor configured to determine, based on a function of the control error, a number of transmission times a packet with the control command needs to be transmitted over the wireless link, and a transmitter configured to transmit the packet over the wireless link the number of transmission times (Abstract). ii. US 20210359925 A1 (hereinafter Bader) teaches that a technique for determining performance of industrial process control is provided, wherein local controllers of the industrial process are coupled via a wireless communication network to a central controller and supervised by a supervisory system that captures operational information from the local controllers. A method implementation of the technique includes receiving first event records captured from the wireless communication network, receiving second event records captured from the supervisory system, correlating at least the first and second event records that pertain to substantially the same period of time in a correlation record, and determining a performance indicator on the basis of information included in one or more correlation records (Abstract). Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZONGHUA DU whose telephone number is (408)918-7596. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 AM - 5 PM PST. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, John Follansbee can be reached on (571) 272-3964. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /Z.D./Examiner, Art Unit 2444 /SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 2 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 3 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 4 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 5 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 6 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 7 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 8 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 9 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 10 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 11 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 12 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 13 Art Unit: 2444 Application/Control Number: 19/100,158 Page 14 Art Unit: 2444
Prosecution Insights