DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. Claims 1-14 are pending.
Priority
3. Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies or papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
4. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 07/08/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner.
Drawings
5. Figure 1 should be designated by a legend such as --Prior Art-- because only that which is old is illustrated. See MPEP § 608.02(g). Corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The replacement sheet(s) should be labeled “Replacement Sheet” in the page header (as per 37 CFR 1.84(c)) so as not to obstruct any portion of the drawing figures. 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 § 112
6. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
7. Claims 2 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 2 and 9: The term “a distance between the local side device and the remote side device is greater than a predetermined distance” in claims 2 and 9 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “a distance between the local side device and the remote side device is greater than a predetermined distance” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. There is no description on how to determine or measure a distance between the local side device and the remote side device.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
8. 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.
9. Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Milan et al. (US Pub. No. 2010/0218042 A1 hereinafter “Milan”) in view of Wright (US Patent No. 7,334,072 B1 hereinafter “Wright”).
Referring to claim 1, Milan discloses a wireless universal serial bus (USB) hub (Milan – Fig. 2 & Par. [0026] disclose a wireless USB hub 40.), comprising:
a local side device (Milan – Fig. 2 & Par. [0030] disclose a data reception circuit 47 including a RF receiver 48 and a signal discriminator 70.); and
a remote side device communicatively connected to the local side device (Milan – Fig. 2 & Par. [0030] disclose a USB hub controller 42 including a serial interface engine (SIE) 72 connected to the data reception circuit 47.),
wherein the local side device receives at least one data, at least one check code, and at least one identifier from at least one first device respectively, generates a data packet based on the at least one data, the at least one check code, and the at least one identifier, and transmits the data packet to the remote side device (Milan – Fig. 8 & Par. [0044] disclose “The data from the wireless peripheral devices 52, 54, 56 is transmitted to the USB hub 130 on a single radio frequency which is received by the RF receiver 48. The data contains an ID number which indicates which device is transmitting the data. The data byte also includes a checksum nibble or by used to insure the data byte is valid as described above. The receiver 48 produces a ttl serial data packet including an ID byte for indicating which device is transmitting the data, a number of data bytes and associated checksum as described above.”. Par. [0045] discloses “The hub controller 42 includes the serial interface engine 72 as described above. The data packet is sent to the appropriate serial interface engine port (shown as M, K, or J) corresponding to the source of the data.”.), and
the remote side device generates serial differential data based on the data packet and outputs the serial differential data to a second device (Milan – Par. [0033, 0045] discloses “The serial interface engine 72 converts the data into USB compatible information for the specific peripheral device and transmits it via the hub controller 42 to the USB upstream port 44 and to the computer 12 via the cable 43 and connector 46.”.).
Milan fails to explicitly disclose the local side device wirelessly transmits the data packet to the remote side device.
Wright discloses the local side device wirelessly transmits the data packet to the remote side device, and the remote side device generates serial differential data based on the data packet and outputs the serial differential data to a second device (Wright – Fig. 8 & Col. 10, lines 47-50 disclose “The remote station 208 similarly transmits wireless radio signals 230 from antenna 206 that are received by antenna 204 and converted by the base station 202 into USB data that is processed by the USB host 200.”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to include Wright’s teachings with Milan’s techniques for the benefit of enabling USB peripherals to be wirelessly connected to USB hosts without modification to the USB peripheral (Wright – Col. 17, lines 48-51).
Referring to claim 2, Milan and Wright disclose the wireless USB hub of claim l, wherein a distance between the local side device and the remote side device is greater than a predetermined distance (Wright – Col. 2, lines 54-57 disclose “As opposed to USB cables, in the case of wireless connections, there is no predefined physical limit to the distance between the USB host and the USB peripheral device.”.).
Referring to claim 3, Milan and Wright disclose the wireless USB hub of claim 1, wherein the local side device further comprises: a plurality of first USB interfaces, wherein at least one first USB interface in the first USB interfaces is respectively used to be coupled to the at least one first device (Wright – Fig. 6 & Col. 10, lines 47-50 disclose the remote unit 26 comprising a plurality of first USB interfaces (USB B) 100, and at least one first USB interface (USB B) 100 is coupled to peripheral device 22.), and respectively receive the at least one data, the at least one check code, and the at least one identifier from the at least one first device (Milan – Fig. 8 & Par. [0044] disclose “The data from the wireless peripheral devices 52, 54, 56 is transmitted to the USB hub 130 on a single radio frequency which is received by the RF receiver 48. The data contains an ID number which indicates which device is transmitting the data. The data byte also includes a checksum nibble or by used to insure the data byte is valid as described above. The receiver 48 produces a ttl serial data packet including an ID byte for indicating which device is transmitting the data, a number of data bytes and associated checksum as described above.”.).
Referring to claim 4, Milan and Wright disclose the wireless USB hub of claim 1, wherein the local side device (Wright – Fig. 6 shows the remote unit 26.) further comprises:
a hub controller used to generate serial data (Wright – Fig. 6 shows hub 26 capable of generating serial data. Col. 8, lines 5-6 disclose “it is understood that a signal could also be transmitted from the peripheral 22 to the host 20”.) according to the at least one data, the at least one check code, and the at least one identifier (Milan – Fig. 8 & Par. [0044] disclose “The data contains an ID number which indicates which device is transmitting the data. The data byte also includes a checksum nibble or by used to insure the data byte is valid as described above. The receiver 48 produces a ttl serial data packet including an ID byte for indicating which device is transmitting the data, a number of data bytes and associated checksum as described above.”.); and
a first wireless transmission circuit used to modulate the serial data to generate the data packet complying with a wireless communication standard (Wright – Fig. 6 & Col. 9, lines 58-60 disclose the transmission medium 28 may be implemented using a wireless (radio frequency (RF) or infrared (IR)) medium.), and wirelessly transmit the data packet to the remote side device (Wright – Fig. 8 & Col. 10, lines 47-50 disclose “The remote station 208 similarly transmits wireless radio signals 230 from antenna 206 that are received by antenna 204 and converted by the base station 202 into USB data that is processed by the USB host 200.”.).
Referring to claim 6, Milan and Wright disclose the wireless USB hub of claim 1, wherein the remote side device (Wright – Fig. 5 shows a local unit 24) further comprises: a second wireless transmission circuit used to receive the data packet from the local side device and demodulate the data packet to obtain serial data (Wright – Fig. 5 & Col. 9, lines 58-60 disclose the transmission medium 28 may be implemented using a wireless (radio frequency (RF) or infrared (IR)) medium.); and a port physical layer (PHY) circuit used to convert the serial data to the serial differential data (Wright – Fig. 5 & col. 4, lines 33-36 disclose “The hub 30 and the signal converter 32… may be embodied as a single device or apparatus or may be integrated into a single integrated circuit.” It’s implied that the serial data being converted to the serial differential data since Col. 8, lines 5-6 disclose “it is understood that a signal could also be transmitted from the peripheral 22 to the host 20”.).
Referring to claim 7, Milan and Wright disclose the wireless USB hub of claim 1, wherein the remote side device comprises: a second USB interface used to be coupled to the second device and output the serial differential data to the second device (Wright – Fig. 5 shows a local unit 24 comprising a USB A connector 76 coupled to host 22. Fig. 8 & Col. 10, lines 47-50 disclose “The remote station 208 similarly transmits wireless radio signals 230 from antenna 206 that are received by antenna 204 and converted by the base station 202 into USB data that is processed by the USB host 200.”.).
Referring to claim 8, note the rejections of claim 1 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Referring to claim 9, note the rejections of claim 2 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Referring to claim 10, note the rejections of claim 3 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Referring to claim 11, note the rejections of claim 4 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Referring to claim 13, note the rejections of claim 6 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Referring to claim 14, note the rejections of claim 7 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
10. Claims 5 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Milan in view of Wright, and further in view of Sadeghi et al. (US Pub. No. 2014/0140258 A1 hereinafter “Sadeghi”).
Referring to claim 5, Milan and Wright disclose the wireless USB hub of claim 4, however, fail to explicitly disclose wherein the wireless communication standard is an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) standard.
Sadeghi discloses the wireless communication standard is an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) standard (Sadeghi – Par. [0022] discloses a type of wireless communication signal and/or system using Orthogonal FDM (OFDM).).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to include Sadeghi’s teachings with Milan and Wright’s techniques for the benefit of controlling data flow over a communication network (Sadeghi – Abstract).
Referring to claim 12, note the rejections of claim 7 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Conclusion
The examiner requests, in response to this office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line number(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application. When responding to this office action, applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections. See 37 C.F.R.I .Ill(c).
In amending in reply to a rejection of claims in an application or patent under reexamination, the applicant or patent owner must clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present in view the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. The applicant or patent owner must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAYTON LEWIS-TAYLOR whose telephone number is (571) 2707754. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday, 8AM TO 4PM, EASTERN TIME.
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, Idriss Alrobaye, can be reached on (571) 270-1023. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Dayton Lewis-Taylor/
Examiner, Art Unit 2181
Prosecution Insights