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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application no. CN202111179892.2 filed in China on 10/11/2021. It is noted that the applicant has filed a certified copy of the application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7/10/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the
examiner.
The Non-Patent Literature documents titled "R1-1913243 - FL Summary#0 on Link-Level and System-Level Evaluations for NTN” and “The Design and Application of Network Optimization Based on TD-LTE” have been placed in the application file, but the information referred to has not been considered because the relevant citation information (e.g., the publication dates and page numbers) have not been provided.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because FIG. 2 has two different labels associated with it (“Fig. 2” and “Figure 9-787ac – HE BSS Load element format”). 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.
Specification
Applicant is reminded of the proper language and format for an abstract of the disclosure. The abstract should be in narrative form and generally limited to a single paragraph on a separate sheet within the range of 50 to 150 words in length. The abstract should describe the disclosure sufficiently to assist readers in deciding whether there is a need for consulting the full patent text for details.
The language should be clear and concise and should not repeat information given in the title. It should avoid using phrases which can be implied, such as, “The disclosure concerns,” “The disclosure defined by this invention,” “The disclosure describes,” etc. In addition, the form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as “means” and “said,” should be avoided.
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because the abstract uses the language, “Disclosed in the present disclosure is . . . “. a phrase which can be implied. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: In ¶0060, “HE SAT Count” should read “HE STA Count” for alignment with the reference to FIG. 2.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claim 9 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 9, line 1 recites an electronic device in the preamble. However, the body of the claim lists a series of method steps. The examiner suggests correcting by including a “:” after “comprising”, so that the “processor” and “memory” are included in the body of the claim instead of the preamble.
In Claim 10, line 5, “Acquiring” should read “acquiring”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claims 4-7 and 12-15 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.
In Claim 4, line 16 and Claim 12, line 16, “contention window threshold” is unclear and ambiguous because it could refer to “preset contention window threshold” or “real-time contention window value” or another contention meaning window threshold altogether. The applicant is kindly suggested to replace this term with the appropriate term of art or suitable meaning of the term for clarity.
Regarding Claims 5-7 and 13-15, dependent claims are rejected based on their dependency from the rejected claims.
In Claim 5, line 7, “acquiring an end value of a serial number of the current station and a current time point” and line 10, “computing a product of the end value of the serial number and the current time point” is unclear and ambiguous. The claim language and specification does not provide support for the limitations nor significant detail on the terms involved in the expression (e.g., a product, end value, current time point). Further, it is not clear to the examiner what is being multiplied or if a product is a result/generally and how a serial number of the current station is used to the obtain the product. The applicant is kindly suggested to replace this language and terms with the appropriate term of art or suitable meaning of the term for clarity.
For examination purposes, the examiner interpreted the “end value of the serial number” to correspond to the least place value/the” ones” place of an association identifier (AID) and the “current time point” to correspond to a short interframe space (SIF) value.
Regarding Claims 6-7 and 14-15, dependent claims are rejected based on their dependency from the rejected claims.
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 non-obviousness.
Claims 1-2, 4-10, and 12-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (“OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme for Improving Channel Efficiency in the Dynamic Network Environment of IEEE 802.11ax WLANs”), hereinafter Kim, in view of IEEE P802.11ax™ / D6.0, November 2019, IEEE, hereinafter IEEE, and further in view of HUANG et al. (US 20220015141 A1), hereinafter HUANG.
Regarding Claim 1, Kim teaches a method for selecting a value of an orthogonal frequency division
multiple access back-off (OBO) counter of a station (Abstract, “OBO control scheme where each STA determines its own OBO counter [value]”), comprising:
acquiring a Beacon message sent, after an access point (AP) sends a trigger frame and completes data interaction every time, by the AP (page 3, ¶2 AP first sends a trigger frame/TF to initiate UORA procedure; then, page 3, ¶4, STA acquires a Beacon message/broadcast management frame from AP);
Kim does not explicitly teach . . . the Beacon message comprises a frequency underutilization rate of a resource unit (RU) in a previous trigger frame and a count of associated stations that establish an association relation with a current AP.
However, in the analogous art, IEEE explicitly discloses . . . the Beacon message comprises a frequency underutilization rate of a resource unit (RU) in a previous trigger frame and a count of associated stations that establish an association relation with a current AP (FIG. 9-787ac, page 216, the Beacon message (HE BSS Load element) comprises a count of associated stations (HE STA count) and frequency underutilization rate of RU; “A STA receiving the HE BSS Load element/beacon message from the AP might use the information it conveys in an implementation-specific AP selection algorithm" (intended use)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN. The motivation is to improve access control for HE wireless communications [IEEE, page 2].
Kim further teaches computing a count of unallocated stations allocated no RU among the associated stations, according to the count of the associated stations (page 3, ¶5 – page 4, ¶1, STAs 1–8 are associated, and STA 9 is unassociated and . . . on receiving the trigger frame/TF/count of associated stations, STA 1–8 decrease OBO counters by 8, and STA 9 decreases its OBO counter by 1);
acquiring a count of contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame, wherein the contentious RUs mean that RUs are available through contention (page 3, ¶1 the STA acquires the RUs in a contention-based manner; page 3, ¶3, an associated or unassociated STA decreases its OBO counter by the number of RUs with an association identifier/AID of 0 or 2045, respectively);
Kim and IEEE do not explicitly teach computing a count of contention-failed RUs in the contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame, according to the frequency underutilization rate, . . .
However, in the analogous art, HUANG explicitly discloses computing a count of contention-failed RUs in the contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame , according to the frequency underutilization rate, . . . (FIG. 8, ¶0074-0075, computing a count of contention failed RUs (RA-RUs for unassociated STAs) in the contentious RUs (associated RA-RUs) allocated to the associated stations (STA 1 - STA4) by the AP in the previous Trigger frame, according to the frequency underutilization rate (examiner interprets availability of RU’s in Band A (5GHz) and Band B (e.g. 6GHz) to be equivalent to the frequency underutilization rate).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN and HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication. The motivation is to increase peak throughput and capacity [HUANG, ¶0004].
Kim further teaches . . . wherein the contention-failed RUs mean that remaining RUs due to failed competition (page 2, ¶5, each STA controls its OBO counter adaptively according to the result of the previous transmission (failure or success); page 4, ¶1, “since RU/STA 7 maintains its OBO counter greater than 0, it cannot access the channel (i.e., contention failed RU) and decreases its OBO counter upon receiving the next trigger frame/TF”); and
determining a value of the OBO counter according to the count of the unallocated stations, the count of the contentious RUs . . . (page 3, ¶3, an associated or unassociated STA determines/decreases its OBO counter, in a contention-based manner, by page 3, ¶5 – page 4, ¶1, STAs 1–8 are associated, and STA 9 is unassociated and . . . on receiving the trigger frame/TF/count of associated stations, STA 1–8 decrease OBO counters by 8, and STA 9 decreases its OBO counter by 1).
Kim and IEEE do not explicitly teach . . . determining a value of the OBO counter according to the count of the contention-failed RUs.
However, in the analogous art, HUANG explicitly discloses . . . determining a value of the OBO counter according to the count of the contention-failed RUs (FIG. 8; ¶0075, STA (here, STA3 decrements its OBO (i.e., determines a value of the OBO counter) by the number of eligible RA-RUs for unassociated band; (here, two RA-RUs in 5GHz with AID subfield = 2045); examiner interprets the number of eligible RA-RU’s in the unassociated band to correspond to the count of contention-failed RUs).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN and HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication. The motivation is to increase peak throughput and capacity [HUANG, ¶0004].
Regarding Claim 2, Kim in view of IEEE and HUANG teach Claim 1, as outlined above.
Kim further teaches wherein computing the count of unallocated stations allocated no RU among the associated stations, according to the count of the associated stations comprises:
Acquiring a count of allocated stations allocated RUs among the associated stations from the previous trigger frame (page 3, ¶2; acquiring from AP in TF the count/number of allocated stations (RA-RUs with an AID of 0 that can be accessed by associated stations); and
computing the count of the unallocated stations allocated no RU, according to the count of the associated stations and the count of the allocated stations (FIG. 1, page 3, ¶2; computing the count/number of unallocated stations allocated no RU (RA-RUs with an AID of 2045 that can be accessed by unassociated stations) according to the count of associated stations and the count of allocated stations (RA-RUs with an AID of 0 that can be accessed by associated stations);
Regarding Claim 4, Kim in view of IEEE and HUANG teach Claim 1, as outlined above.
Kim further teaches . . . acquiring several counts of the unallocated stations (FIG. 1, page 3, ¶2; computing the count/number of unallocated stations allocated no RU (RA-RUs with an AID of 2045 that can be accessed by unassociated stations), several counts of the contentious RUs (page 8, ¶1 acquiring several counts/numbers of STAs (Nsta) that participate in contention at a given time), and several counts of the contention-failed RUs (page 4, ¶1; acquiring expected number of STAs that are fail due to RU collision/idle/fail);, and computing average values separately (page 13 ¶3, Table 2; page 14-15, FIG.5; Table 3, FIG. 9, page 20, ¶1, computing average values of throughput (per RU); average values of Nsta (contentious RUs), and average values of Mru (contentious failed RUs)).
computing a contention success probability of the current station for the contentious RUs according to the average value of the counts of the unallocated stations, the average value of the counts of the contentious RUs and the average value of the counts of the contention-failed RUs (page 5, Section 3., Computing Pc conditional probability, and page 6 ¶2, access probability, collision probability);
selecting a ratio of the average value of the counts of the contentious RUs to the contention success probability as a real-time contention window value (page 6, ¶1 selecting a channel efficiency 𝜇 / ratio of the expected number of STAs that successfully transmit a frame to the number of RUs, which is equivalent to the fraction of RUs that are neither idle nor colliding); and
Kim and IEEE do not explicitly teach . . . in a case of the real-time contention window value is greater than a preset contention window threshold, selecting the contention window threshold as the value of the OBO counter.
However, in the analogous art, HUANG explicitly discloses . . . in a case of the real-time contention window value is greater than a preset contention window threshold, selecting the contention window threshold as the value of the OBO counter (¶0058, if the updated OCW (real time contention window value) becomes greater than OCWmax (preset contention window threshold) then the STA may set the value of the OBO counter to the OCWmax value)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN and HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication. The motivation is to increase peak throughput and capacity [HUANG, ¶0004].
Regarding Claim 5, Kim in view of IEEE and HUANG teach Claim 4.
Kim and IEEE do not explicitly teach . . . in a case of the real-time contention window value is less than or equal to the preset contention window threshold, acquiring an end value of a serial number of the current station and a current time point;
However, in the analogous art, HUANG explicitly discloses . . . in a case of the real-time contention window value is less than or equal to the preset contention window threshold (¶0058, in a case of the OCW (real time contention window value) is less than or equal to OCWmax (preset contention window threshold), acquiring an end value of a serial number of the current station (¶0052; ¶0056, AID12 subfield number of 2045 or 0 (examiner interprets end value of serial number to correspond to end value of AID subfield number, which here is 5 or 0 respectively); ¶0055-0056, acquires end value (0 or 5) of AID for STA 1) and a current time point (FIG. 5; ¶0047 a SIFS, 240, examiner interprets a SIFS (short interframe spacing value as a current time point);
computing a product of the end value of the serial number and the current time point (FIG. 5; ¶0047 a SIFS, 240, ¶0055-0056, the result/product of acquiring end value (0 or 5) of AID for STA 1) and SIFS/current time); and
determining the value of the OBO counter according to the end value of the product in a value range from a preset reference value to the real-time contention window value (¶0055-0056 determining OBO counter value according to the end value of the product in a value range from (0 to 5, from the AID12 subfield number) to the OCW/real time contention window value)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN and HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication. The motivation is to increase peak throughput and capacity [HUANG, ¶0004].
Regarding Claim 6, Kim in view of IEEE and HUANG teach Claim 5.
Kim and IEEE do not explicitly teach [determining the value of the OBO counter according to the end value of the product in a value range from the preset reference value to the real-time contention window value comprises:] . . . in a case of the end value of the product is not 0, comparing the end value of the product with several preset data intervals, to determine a target data interval corresponding to the end value of the product; determining a corresponding target value selection range according to the target data interval in the value range from the reference value to the real-time contention window value; and selecting a value from the target value selection range randomly as the value of the OBO counter.
However, in the analogous art, HUANG explicitly discloses . . . in a case of the end value of the product is not 0 (¶0055-0056, if the end value of product is non-zero; examiner interprets end value of product to correspond to AID12 subfield number if AID subfield number is non zero and the SIFs/time value is non zero), comparing the end value of the product with several preset data intervals (SIFs ), to determine a target data interval (¶0049, the OCW Range) corresponding to the end value of the product (¶0058, STA may set the value of OCW to the new OCWmax value) ;
determining a corresponding target value selection range according to the target data interval in the value range from the reference value to the real-time contention window value (¶0058 determining a corresponding target value selection range/a uniform distribution in the range of 0 to OCW).
and selecting a value from the target value selection range randomly as the value of the OBO counter (¶0021; ¶0050 randomly select an eligible RA-RU corresponding to the OBO counter; ¶0053, ¶0058 STA may set its OBO counter to a random value drawn from a uniform distribution in the range 0 to OCW).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN and HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication. The motivation is to increase peak throughput and capacity [HUANG, ¶0004].
Regarding Claim 7, Kim in view of IEEE and HUANG teach Claim 5.
Kim and IEEE do not explicitly teach . . . in a case of the end value of the product is 0, selecting data from the value range from the reference value to the real-time contention window value randomly as the value of the OBO counter.
However, in the analogous art, HUANG explicitly discloses . . . in a case of the end value of the product is 0, selecting data from the value range from the reference value to the real-time contention window value randomly as the value of the OBO counter (¶0055-0056 if the end value of the product/AID is 0, the STA randomly selects the value of the OBO counter from the (reference value, real time window value) range; examiner interprets end value of product to correspond to AID12 subfield number if AID subfield number is 0).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN and HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication. The motivation is to increase peak throughput and capacity [HUANG, ¶0004].
Regarding Claim 8, the claim discloses similar features of Claim 1 and is rejected based on the same rationale of Claim 1, in apparatus form (Huang, a Station (FIG. 1; FIG. 16; ¶0100-0101) comprising: a message acquiring component (FIG. 1 (150); FIG. 16 (2150) radio receiver, ¶0101); an unallocated station count determination component (FIG. 16, 2116 UORA parameter determiner); a contentious RU count determination component (FIG. 16, 2119 Tigger information parser); and an OBO counter value selection component (FIG. 16, 2118 UORA circuitry)).
Regarding Claims 9-10 and 12-15, the claims disclose similar features of Claims 1-2 and 4-7, respectively, and are rejected based on the same rationales of Claims 1-2 and 4-7, in apparatus form (HUANG, FIG. 1; FIG. 16).
Claim 3 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim in view of IEEE and HUANG as applied to Claim 1 above, and further in view of ADACHI et al. (US 20170127428 A1), hereinafter ADACHI.
Regarding Claim 3, Kim in view of IEEE and HUANG teach Claim 1, as outlined above.
Kim and IEEE do not explicitly teach . . . [acquiring the count of contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame, comprises:]
acquiring a first bandwidth value that is carried in the Beacon message and occupied by the contentious RUs in the previous trigger frame; computing a second bandwidth value of the contention-failed RUs in the contentious RUs; computing a count of RUs to be determined according to the frequency underutilization rate, the first bandwidth value and the second bandwidth value; in a case of the count of the RUs to be determined is greater than the count of the contention-failed RUs, for which the associated stations fail to contend, allocated by the AP in the previous trigger frame, selecting the count of the contention-failed RUs as the count of the contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame; and in a case of the count of the RUs to be determined is less than or equal to the count of the contention-failed RUs, selecting the count of the RUs to be determined as the count of the contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame.
However, in the analogous art, HUANG explicitly discloses . . . [acquiring the count of contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame, comprises:]
acquiring a first bandwidth value that is carried in the Beacon message and occupied by the contentious RUs in the previous trigger frame (HUANG, FIG. 7, ¶0064; ¶0067, UORA Parameter set element 650 included in beacon frame/beacon message includes (first) bandwidth value (band indication 658) for a first band/BAND A (e.g., 5GHz band));
computing a second bandwidth value of the contention-failed RUs in the contentious RUs (HUANG, FIG. 7, ¶0064 UORA Parameter set element 650 included in beacon frame/beacon message includes (second) bandwidth value (band indication 658) for a second band/BAND B (e.g., 6GHz band));
computing a count of RUs to be determined according to the frequency underutilization rate, the first bandwidth value and the second bandwidth value (HUANG, FIG. 8; ¶0074-0075 eligible set of RUs in Band A / first bandwidth value (e.g., 5 GHz) and Band B/second bandwidth value (e.g., 6 GHz);
in a case of the count of the RUs to be determined is greater than the count of the contention-failed RUs, for which the associated stations fail to contend, allocated by the AP in the previous trigger frame selecting the count of the contention-failed RUs as the count of the contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame (FIG. 8, ¶0075, in case the RUs are greater than the count of contention failed RUs (RU1-RU6 > unassociated RUs for STA3), later trigger frame carrying RA-RUs for unassociated STAs (examiner interprets unassociated STAs to correspond to count/number of contention-failed RUs).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN and HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication. The motivation is to increase peak throughput and capacity [HUANG, ¶0004].
Kim, IEEE and HUANG do not explicitly teach . . . in a case of the count of the RUs to be determined is less than or equal to the count of the contention-failed RUs, selecting the count of the RUs to be determined as the count of the contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame.
However, in the analogous art, ADACHI explicitly discloses . . . in a case of the count of the RUs to be determined is less than or equal to the count of the contention-failed RUs, selecting the count of the RUs to be determined as the count of the contentious RUs allocated to the associated stations by the AP in the previous trigger frame (¶0242 in a case where count/number of resource units having failed in the transmission (i.e., contention failed RUs) is greater than (or equal to) the threshold (count of RUs) the count of the contention-failed RUs, ¶0245 select the count of RUs as the count of contentious RUs (the number of the terminals having succeeded in the transmission).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kim’s disclosure of an OFDMA Backoff Control Scheme with IEEE’s disclosure of enhancements for High Efficiency WLAN, HUANG’s invention of an apparatus and method for wireless multi-band communication and ADACHI’s wireless communication device and method. The motivation is to provide multi-user communication between a base station and a plurality of wireless communication terminals using OFDMA scheme. [ADACHI, ¶0003].
Regarding Claim 11, the claim discloses similar features of Claims 3 and is rejected based on the same rationales of Claims 3, in apparatus form (ADACHI, FIG. 1; FIG. 23-26).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure:
Patil et al. US 20180255570 A1: Abstract, FIG. 5 ¶0082, STA obtains access information of BSS operated by the AP using a beacon msg which is periodically transmitted; terminal may adjust the value of the OCW according to the result of transmission
KO et al. US 20200037395 A1: Abstract, FIG. 5, ¶0082; ¶0112 wireless communication method using BSS Identifier/AP sends Beacon message to STA containing UORA parameter set element
Li et al. US 20220191923 A1: Abstract, ¶0004 AP uses a beacon frame to broadcast UORA parameters - - - and the STA evenly and randomly selects a value from OCW as a value of OBO counter - - - ¶0103"beacon frame" value of OBO counter value determined based on parameter of UORA
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TRACY L WILLIAMS whose telephone number is 571-270-7694. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 8:30-5:30. 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, Ayman Abaza can be reached on 571-270-0422. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/T.L.W./Examiner, Art Unit 2465
/AYMAN A ABAZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465