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 .
Claims 1, 6, 8, 11, 16, 18 have been amended. Claims 5, 15 have been cancelled.
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 6-7, 9-12, 16-17, 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hedayat (US 20180020460 A1) in view of Trainin et al.(US 20200067682 A1).
Regarding claim 1, 11, Hedayat teaches A first device comprising: one or more processors configured to ([0131] “The example WLAN device 1 includes a baseband processor 10, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver 20, an antenna unit 30, memory 40, an input interface unit 50, an output interface unit 60, and a bus 70. The baseband processor 10 performs baseband signal processing, and includes a MAC processor 11 and a PHY processor 15”):
wirelessly receive, via a transceiver from a second device, a first frame ([0050] “An HE Control subfield that carries information regarding QoSC is referred to herein as an HEC-QoSC subfield. An HEC-QoSC subfield may carry information for requesting a STA to provide its buffer size or for providing buffer size information (e.g., a buffer status report). For example, a requesting STA (e.g., an AP) may use the HEC-QoSC subfield to request that another STA provide its buffer size (e.g., the size of the payload buffered at the STA to be sent to the AP in uplink direction) with a specified granularity.”, (Examiner’s Note: second device is equivalent to AP));
generate a second frame including buffer status data of one or more wireless traffic streams ([0050] “The responding STA may report buffer size with a given granularity by rounding-up the result of the buffer size divided by the granularity size. In another embodiment, the requesting STA does not indicate a preference for the granularity of the reported buffer size. In this case, the responding STA may decide the granularity to use and may indicate this granularity when reporting the buffer size. In one embodiment, the buffer status report includes a first granularity indicator for a first TID (or first AC), a second granularity indicator for a second TID (or second AC), and a third granularity indicator for all TIDs (or all ACs)”);
and wirelessly transmit, via the transceiver, the generated second frame to the second device ([0050] “The responding STA may report buffer size with a given granularity by rounding-up the result of the buffer size divided by the granularity size. In another embodiment, the requesting STA does not indicate a preference for the granularity of the reported buffer size. In this case, the responding STA may decide the granularity to use and may indicate this granularity when reporting the buffer size. In one embodiment, the buffer status report includes a first granularity indicator for a first TID (or first AC), a second granularity indicator for a second TID (or second AC), and a third granularity indicator for all TIDs (or all ACs)”, [0114] “In one embodiment, the buffer size information is carried in a QoS field in the MAC header of an MPDU”).
Hedayat does not explicitly teach wherein in generating the second frame, the one or more processors are configured to set a first queue size field of the second frame to a highest queue size among one or more queue sizes of at least one wireless traffic streams associated with one or more traffic identifiers.
Trainin teaches wherein in generating the second frame ([0054] “At block 520, the RDP engine(s) 220 of the RD responder 310 may generate one or more frames (e.g., A-MPDU)”),
the one or more processors are configured to set a first queue size field of the second frame to a highest queue size among one or more queue sizes of at least one wireless traffic streams associated with one or more traffic identifiers ( Fig. 5 “520”, [0054] “In some embodiments, the sub-field may be the full sub-field, as described herein. The RDP engine(s) 220 may set the sub-field of full using a value of 0 if there is no data to be transmitted. The RDP engine(s) 220 may set the sub-field of full using a value of 1 if there is data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305. If the full sub-field is set using the value 1, then the RDP engine(s) 220 may further set a second sub-field, the UP/TSID, to associate a priority or TS with the data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305”, [0027] “As illustrated, there may be two subfields: full and UP/TSID. The subfield full may be 1 bit size and may have value 0 or 1. Subfield full may be set to 1 when the queue identified in subfield UP/TSID contains not less than a queue threshold MPDUs and set to 0 otherwise”, (Examiner’s Note: More specifically, [0054] By setting the subfield to 0, this means there is no data to transmit (interpret this as the queue is empty i.e. smallest queue size possible). And set the subfield to 1 to show there is data to transmit (i.e. highest queue size, traffic identifiers is equivalent to UP/TSID).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hedayat to incorporate the teachings of Trainin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to allow for a more efficient system.
Regarding claim 2, 12, Hedayat, does not teach wherein the second device is an access point, a soft access point or a peer device.
Trainin teaches wherein the second device is an access point, a soft access point or a peer device ([0076] “In addition, program modules that support the functionality described herein may form part of one or more applications executable across any number of systems or devices in accordance with any suitable computing model such as, for example, a client-server model, a peer-to-peer model, and so forth. In addition, any of the functionality described as being supported by any of the program modules described herein may be implemented, at least partially, in hardware and/or firmware across any number of devices”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hedayat to incorporate the teachings of Trainin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to allow for a more efficient system.
Regarding claim 6, 16, Hedayat, does not explicitly teach wherein in generating the second frame, the one or more processors are configured to: set a first traffic identifier field of the second frame to a traffic identifier corresponding to the highest queue size.
Trainin teaches wherein in generating the second frame, the one or more processors are configured to: set a first traffic identifier field of the second frame to a traffic identifier corresponding to the highest queue size ([0052] “At block 415, the RD grantor 305 may receive a frame (e.g., A-MPDU) that comprises or is otherwise associated with multiple sub-frames 325A-325F. In some embodiments, the frame may be multiple single MPDUs, each one containing the same information it contains being a sub-frame in an A-MPDU. In some embodiments, the sub-frames 325A-325F may be QoS data frames or QoS null frames. In some embodiments, the sub-frames 325A-325F may each include sub-fields that may be used to indicate to the RD grantor 305 a current state of data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305 from the RD responder 310. At block 420, the RD grantor 305 may determine that a subfield of a sub-frame is indicative that there is data to be transmitted (e.g., received by the RD grantor 305). Then at block 425, if there is data to be transmitted based on, for example, evaluating the full sub-field of a sub-frame, the RD grantor 305 may evaluate the UP/TSID sub-field of the sub-frame to determine a priority or traffic stream associated with the data to be transmitted”, [0054] “In some embodiments, the sub-field may be the full sub-field, as described herein. The RDP engine(s) 220 may set the sub-field of full using a value of 0 if there is no data to be transmitted. The RDP engine(s) 220 may set the sub-field of full using a value of 1 if there is data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305. If the full sub-field is set using the value 1, then the RDP engine(s) 220 may further set a second sub-field, the UP/TSID, to associate a priority or TS with the data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hedayat to incorporate the teachings of Trainin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to allow for a more efficient system.
Regarding claim 7, 17, Hedayat does not teach wherein in generating the second frame, the one or more processors are configured to: set a second queue size field of the second frame to a total queue size of traffic associated with the one or more traffic identifiers.
Trainin teaches wherein in generating the second frame, the one or more processors are configured to: set a second queue size field of the second frame to a total queue size of traffic associated with the one or more traffic identifiers ([0052] “At block 415, the RD grantor 305 may receive a frame (e.g., A-MPDU) that comprises or is otherwise associated with multiple sub-frames 325A-325F. In some embodiments, the frame may be multiple single MPDUs, each one containing the same information it contains being a sub-frame in an A-MPDU. In some embodiments, the sub-frames 325A-325F may be QoS data frames or QoS null frames. In some embodiments, the sub-frames 325A-325F may each include sub-fields that may be used to indicate to the RD grantor 305 a current state of data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305 from the RD responder 310. At block 420, the RD grantor 305 may determine that a subfield of a sub-frame is indicative that there is data to be transmitted (e.g., received by the RD grantor 305). Then at block 425, if there is data to be transmitted based on, for example, evaluating the full sub-field of a sub-frame, the RD grantor 305 may evaluate the UP/TSID sub-field of the sub-frame to determine a priority or traffic stream associated with the data to be transmitted”, [0054] “In some embodiments, the sub-field may be the full sub-field, as described herein. The RDP engine(s) 220 may set the sub-field of full using a value of 0 if there is no data to be transmitted. The RDP engine(s) 220 may set the sub-field of full using a value of 1 if there is data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305. If the full sub-field is set using the value 1, then the RDP engine(s) 220 may further set a second sub-field, the UP/TSID, to associate a priority or TS with the data to be transmitted to the RD grantor 305”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hedayat to incorporate the teachings of Trainin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to allow for a more efficient system.
Regarding claim 9, 19, Hedayat teaches wherein the frame type field of the first frame is a subfield of a common information field that is shared among a plurality of users or devices ([0114] “The Trigger Type subfield is used to carry information regarding the type of response that is expected from the STAs that are expected to participate in the UL MU simultaneous transmission. In one embodiment, the Trigger Type subfield is encoded according to Table I… In one embodiment, the buffer size information is carried in an HEC-QoSC subfield in the MAC header of an MPDU. In one embodiment, the buffer size information is carried in a QoS field in the MAC header of an MPDU”, [0113] “The Common Info field may include a Trigger Type subfield, a Length subfield”, [0112] “The Common Info field (which is sometimes referred to as UL MU PPDU attributes field) is used to carry information regarding the UL MU PPDU that is common to all of the STAs that are expected to participate in the UL MU simultaneous transmission”).
Regarding claim 10, 20 Hedayat teaches wherein the frame type field of the first frame indicates a type associated with a trigger frame ([0114] “The Trigger Type subfield is used to carry information regarding the type of response that is expected from the STAs that are expected to participate in the UL MU simultaneous transmission. In one embodiment, the Trigger Type subfield is encoded according to Table I… In one embodiment, the buffer size information is carried in an HEC-QoSC subfield in the MAC header of an MPDU. In one embodiment, the buffer size information is carried in a QoS field in the MAC header of an MPDU”).
Claim(s) 3-4, 8, 13-14, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hedayat in view of Trainin further in view of Asterjadhi et al.(US 20190261402).
Regarding claim 3, 13, Hedayat teaches wherein in generating the second frame, the one or more processors are configured to: to indicate the one or more traffic identifiers ([0050] “In response to receiving such a request from a requesting STA (e.g., AP), the responding STA may use the HEC-QoSC subfield to report the buffer sizes for the requested TIDs (or ACs) with the indicated granularities (unless the buffer size is zero for some of the TIDs (or ACs)”).
Hedayat, Trainin does not explicitly teach set one or more bits of a traffic identifier bitmap field of the second frame.
Asterjadhi teaches set one or more bits of a traffic identifier bitmap field of the second frame ([0046] “TID-specific BSRs may convey increased buffer sizes. A BSR control field may include an Access Category Identifier (ACI) bitmap, a delta TID parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Delta TID subfield), a first queue size parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Queue Size High subfield), and a second queue size parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Queue Size All subfield). The ACI bitmap and the delta TID parameter may indicate a mapping of buffer status information for one or more TIDs to the first queue size subfield and the second queue size subfield, thus providing for TID-specific buffer status reporting”, [0047] “the ACI bitmap and the delta TID parameter may collectively indicate one or more values of TID(s) associated with the BSR control field. For example, bits of the ACI Bitmap subfield and bits of a Delta TID subfield (e.g., or bits of a new TID Indication subfield) may collectively indicate one or more 3-bit values corresponding to TIDs (e.g., TID0 through TID7). As another example, MPDUs may be generated with BSR control fields that include TID bitmaps (e.g., a new TID Bitmap subfield, or a TID bitmap) which may explicitly indicate one or more TIDs associated with the BSR control field. A TID bitmap may include 8 bits, and each bit location may correspond to one of 8 TIDs (e.g., TID0 through TID7”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination Hedayat, Trainin to incorporate the teachings of Asterjadhi. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improved traffic identifier (TID) based buffer status reporting to increase system performance.
Regarding claim 4, 14, Hedayat, Trainin does not teach wherein the traffic identifier bitmap field of the second frame comprises a plurality of bits each corresponding to a traffic identifier associated with one of the plurality of traffic categories.
Asterjadhi teaches wherein the traffic identifier bitmap field of the second frame comprises a plurality of bits each corresponding to the traffic identifier associated with one of a plurality of traffic categories ([0046] “TID-specific BSRs may convey increased buffer sizes. A BSR control field may include an Access Category Identifier (ACI) bitmap, a delta TID parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Delta TID subfield), a first queue size parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Queue Size High subfield), and a second queue size parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Queue Size All subfield). The ACI bitmap and the delta TID parameter may indicate a mapping of buffer status information for one or more TIDs to the first queue size subfield and the second queue size subfield, thus providing for TID-specific buffer status reporting”, [0047] “the ACI bitmap and the delta TID parameter may collectively indicate one or more values of TID(s) associated with the BSR control field. For example, bits of the ACI Bitmap subfield and bits of a Delta TID subfield (e.g., or bits of a new TID Indication subfield) may collectively indicate one or more 3-bit values corresponding to TIDs (e.g., TID0 through TID7). As another example, MPDUs may be generated with BSR control fields that include TID bitmaps (e.g., a new TID Bitmap subfield, or a TID bitmap) which may explicitly indicate one or more TIDs associated with the BSR control field. A TID bitmap may include 8 bits, and each bit location may correspond to one of 8 TIDs (e.g., TID0 through TID7”, [0044] “performed on a per Access Category (AC) or all AC basis (e.g., BSR may be reported for a single AC, which may each be associated with two TIDs, or may be cumulatively reported for all Acs”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Hedayat, Trainin to incorporate the teachings of Asterjadhi. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improved traffic identifier (TID) based buffer status reporting to increase system performance.
Regarding claim 8, 18, Hadayat teaches wherein the one or more processors are configured to: determine whether a frame type field of the first frame is a first type indicating a buffer status trigger frame ([0114] “The Trigger Type subfield is used to carry information regarding the type of response that is expected from the STAs that are expected to participate in the UL MU simultaneous transmission. In one embodiment, the Trigger Type subfield is encoded according to Table I… In one embodiment, the buffer size information is carried in an HEC-QoSC subfield in the MAC header of an MPDU. In one embodiment, the buffer size information is carried in a QoS field in the MAC header of an MPDU”);
and identify the one or more traffic identifiers to a defined value ([0050] “In one embodiment, the requesting STA requests that the responding STA provide its buffer size for one or more specified Traffic Identifiers (TIDs) or one or more specified Access Categories (ACs) with a specific granularity. In one embodiment, the requesting STA requests that the responding STA provide its buffer size for a subset of all TIDs or a subset of all ACs, e.g. all TIDs or all ACs. In one embodiment, the request for buffer status report includes a first granularity indicator for a first TID (or first AC), a second granularity indicator for a second TID (or second AC), and a third granularity indicator for the indicated subset of all TIDs (or the indicated subset of all ACs). In response to receiving such a request from a requesting STA (e.g., AP), the responding STA may use the HEC-QoSC subfield to report the buffer sizes for the requested TIDs (or ACs) with the indicated granularities (unless the buffer size is zero for some of the TIDs (or ACs)”).
Hedayat, Trainin does explictly teach traffic identifier bitmap field; from one or more bits of the traffic identifier bitmap field set.
Asterjadhi teaches traffic identifier bitmap field; from one or more bits of the traffic identifier bitmap field set ([0046] “TID-specific BSRs may convey increased buffer sizes. A BSR control field may include an Access Category Identifier (ACI) bitmap, a delta TID parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Delta TID subfield), a first queue size parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Queue Size High subfield), and a second queue size parameter (e.g., corresponding to a Queue Size All subfield). The ACI bitmap and the delta TID parameter may indicate a mapping of buffer status information for one or more TIDs to the first queue size subfield and the second queue size subfield, thus providing for TID-specific buffer status reporting”, [0047] “the ACI bitmap and the delta TID parameter may collectively indicate one or more values of TID(s) associated with the BSR control field. For example, bits of the ACI Bitmap subfield and bits of a Delta TID subfield (e.g., or bits of a new TID Indication subfield) may collectively indicate one or more 3-bit values corresponding to TIDs (e.g., TID0 through TID7). As another example, MPDUs may be generated with BSR control fields that include TID bitmaps (e.g., a new TID Bitmap subfield, or a TID bitmap) which may explicitly indicate one or more TIDs associated with the BSR control field. A TID bitmap may include 8 bits, and each bit location may correspond to one of 8 TIDs (e.g., TID0 through TID7”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Hedayat, TRainin to incorporate the teachings of Asterjadhi. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to improved traffic identifier (TID) based buffer status reporting to increase system performance.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/10/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s Argument 1
Hedayat, Asterjadhi, and Shirali, whether taken alone or in combination (which combination Applicant does not acquiesce in), fail to teach the above-noted feature (i) that "the one or more processors are configured to set afirst queue size field of the second frame to a highest queue size among one or more queue sizes of at least one wireless traffic streams associated with one or more traffic identifiers" (emphasis added) as recited in amended claim 1.
Examiner’s Response 1
Examiner respectfully disagrees. See updated rejection. Shirali is no longer relied upon, new reference Trainin has been added.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure Kim et al. (US20190246312) mentions Access category bitmap being sent to an AP from an UE.
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/K.T.F./Examiner, Art Unit 2411
/DERRICK W FERRIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2411