DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to application number 18/159,565 filed on January 25th 2023. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 2-4,9-11 and 16-18 have been canceled
Claims 1,6,8,13,15 and 19 have been amended
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on June 26th, 2023 and January 25th, 2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 02/12/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1,5-8,12-15 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Haider et al. (US 20230180052 A1) in view of Chu et al. (US 20230156516 A1).
Regarding claims 1,8 and 15, Haider et al. disclose a non-access point (AP) station comprising: a transceiver configured to: and receive information associated with a restricted target wake time (R-TWT) from an AP (Paragraph 0067 discloses the AP and the STA negotiating through a handshake process, whereby the STA requests and the AP responds and the STA receives with regards to R-TWT ); and a processor coupled to the transceiver, the processor configured to: determine to include a traffic identifier (TID) in a R-TWT Traffic Info field of an R-TWT Parameter Set field in a TWT element (Here Paragraph 0107 and FIG.8 of Haider discloses the TWT IE comprising the R-TWT traffic information further comprising the R-TWT TID bitmap, “FIG. 8 shows an example format of a TWT element field (or TWT IE) 800, according to an example implementation of the present disclosure. The TWT IE 800 may include the fields of element ID 811, length 812, control 813, request type 814, target wake time 815, nominal minimum TWT wake duration 816, TWT wake interval mantissa 817, and/or R-TWT traffic information 818. In some embodiments, the field of R-TWT traffic information 818 may include the subfields of traffic information control 861, R-TWT downlink (DL) TID bitmap 862, and/or R-TWT uplink (UL) TID bitmap 863.”); and determine to include a quality of service (QoS) Characteristics element corresponding to the TID in the TWT element (Here paragraph 0091 of Haider states “In one approach, a device (e.g., EHT AP or non-AP EHT STA) may (e.g., optionally) provide QoS parameters for R-TWT TIDs as part of an R-TWT setup, by including one or more QoS characteristics elements (or QoS information elements (IEs)) in an action field of an R-TWT setup frame. The R-TWT setup frame may be an R-TWT setup request frame or an R-TWT setup response frame. In some embodiments, a device may deliver or provide QoS parameters for R-TWT by (e.g., optionally) using a QoS characteristics element in R-TWT negotiations (e.g., exchanging one or more R-TWT setup request frames and/or one or more R-TWT setup response frames), thereby providing QoS parameters for traffic that belongs to or is associated with an R-TWT schedule (e.g., traffic with latency sensitive traffic identifiers (TIDs).”)
Haider et al. fail to explicitly disclose determine whether a Stream Classification Service Identifier (SCS ID) is indicated in the R-TWT Traffic Info field of the R-TWT Parameter Set field in the TWT element ; and wherein the transceiver is further configured to transmit the TWT element to the AP and exchange an SCS request frame and an SCS response frame with the AP for SCS negotiation associated with the SCS ID.
However in an analogous art Chu et al. teaches determine whether a Stream Classification Service Identifier (SCS ID) is indicated in the R-TWT Traffic Info field of the R-TWT Parameter Set field in the TWT element; and wherein the transceiver is further configured to transmit the TWT element to the AP and exchange an SCS request frame and an SCS response frame with the AP for SCS negotiation associated with the SCS ID (US 20230156516 A1 Paragraph 0067 discloses “In one embodiment, a TWT element transmitted in the rTWT negotiation may include an SCS ID that indicates a traffic stream whose frames are serviced in an rTWT SP. For example, if the TWT element is included in a TWT Setup Request frame and/or a TWT Setup Response frame that is for the rTWT negotiation, then the TWT element carries the SCS ID(s) to indicate the traffic stream(s) whose frames will be serviced in the rTWT SP.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Haider et al. to incorporate the teachings of Chu et al., to determine whether a Stream Classification Service Identifier (SCS ID) is indicated in the R-TWT and to transmit the TWT element to the AP and exchange an SCS request frame and an SCS response frame with the AP for SCS negotiation associated with the SCS ID, in order to reserve resources required to facilitate low latency high priority traffic.
Regarding claims 5 and 12, Haider et al disclose the non-AP station of Claim 1, wherein a TWT Setup frame includes the QoS characteristics element (Paragraph 0107 and FIG.7 disclose the QoS Characteristics IE).
Regarding claims 6, 13 and 19 The non-AP station of Claim 1, wherein: for each TID indicated in the R-TWT Traffic Info field, a plurality of SCS IDs are indicated in a TWT Setup frame (Paragraph 0089 and FIG.6 disclose the SCS ID associated with R-TWT TIDs).
Regarding claims 7, 14 and 20 The non-AP station of Claim 1, wherein a TWT frame includes a stream classification service (SCS) Descriptor element or a QoS Characteristics element in an SCS Request frame (Paragraphs 0020, 0085 and FIG.6 disclose the SCS descriptor IE and the QoS characteristics element in a SCS request frame).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1,8 and 15 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Samuel Dilan Rutnam whose telephone number is 703-756-1374. The examiner can normally be reached between 8:30am-5:00pm Mon-Fri.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached on 571-272-8586.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR.
Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471