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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on July 23rd, 2026, is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 10-11 were cancelled in the amendment filed 2/12/2026. Claims 10 and 11 are missing from the claim amendment filed 6/25/2026 but will be treated as cancelled based on the cancellation in the response filed 2/12/2026.
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 Viger et al. (US 12500842 B2).
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 Viger 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; (Paragraphs 233-239 and FIG 8C disclose “(233) In one alternative embodiment, the SCSID is located inside a further field 833 following the ‘Broadcast TWT Info’ field 832. (234) The Restricted TWT Traffic Info field 833 is present when the Restricted TWT Traffic Info Present subfield 844 is set to 1. This value is mandatory when the broadcast TWT is related to an SCS LL stream (otherwise, the Traffic Info is related to TIDs). (235) The Restricted TWT Traffic Info field 833 is composed of a ‘Traffic Control Info’ field that indicates whether the following fields 851, 852 and 841b are valid.(236) The DL TID Bitmap Valid subfield 853 (respectively UL TID Bitmap Valid subfield 854) indicates if the ‘Restricted TWT DL TID Bitmap’ field 851 (respectively ‘Restricted TWT UL TID Bitmap’ field 852) has valid information. Those fields are of less importance for the invention as they identify TIDs as latency sensitive traffic. (237) The ‘SCSID Valid’ 855 subfield indicates if the SCSID field 841b has valid information. When the value is set to 0, it indicates that no SCS is identified as latency sensitive traffic for the present TWT IE, and the SCSID field 841b is reserved. A value of 1 indicates that the present TWT IE relies to a SCS stream identified by the SCSID value of 841b. (238) When valid, the SCSID field 841b in a Restricted TWT Traffic info field is always set to a non-zero value. (239) The SCSID field 841b is mutually exclusive against TID bitmaps 851 and 852. That is to say that the present TWT IE refers either to a TID flow or to a SCSID stream (not both).”) 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 (Paragraph 280 discloses “Upon receipt of an ML-SCS Request frame from an associated non-AP MLD (step 1050), the AP shall respond with a corresponding SCS Response frame. A value of SUCCESS shall be set in the corresponding Status field of the SCS Status in the SCS Response frame when the AP MLD accepts the ML-SCS request for the requested SCSID.”).
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 Viger 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, Haider et al disclose 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, Haider et al disclose 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.
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/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/MOHAMMAD S ADHAMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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