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 .
This is responsive to Application 18/203,257 filed 05/30/2023 in which claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-10 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lu et al (US 2022/0030450 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Lu teaches an apparatus of an access-point station (AP), the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry; and memory, wherein for communicating multi-user (MU) physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs) (MU-PPDUs) with plurality of non-AP stations (STAs) using dynamic channel switching (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048]), the processing circuitry is configured to:
acquire a transmission opportunity (TXOP) on a channel comprising a primary channel and one or more non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], AP obtains TXOP on P80/primary channel);
encode a channel switching indication frame for transmission during the TXOP, the channel switching indication frame requesting that at least some of the STAs switch from operating on the primary channel to operating on one of the non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], AP sends control frame MU-RTS indicating channel switching from P80/primary to S_80/non-primary for intended STAs, i.e. EHT STA1, STA2, STA3);
decode a response frame from each of the STAs that are indicated to switch, each response frame received on the non-primary channel that an indicated STA is requested to switch to (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], EHT TB ACK); and
wherein for a downlink (DL) transmission, the processing circuitry is configured to:
encode a DL MU-PPDU for transmission to scheduled STAs of the plurality, the DL MU-PPDU configurable to be comprised of a plurality of PPDUs of different physical layer (PHY) types, the plurality of PPDUs including:
at least a first PPDU for transmission on the primary channel to a first STA that had not been instructed to switch to a non-primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], HE DL PPDU to HE STA(s)) and
at least a second PPDU for transmission on one of the non-primary channels to a second STA that had been instructed to switch to the one of the non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], EHT DL PPDU to EHT STA1, STA2, STA3)); and
after expiration of the TXOP, communicate with the STAs on the primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], switching back to P80/primary after the end of TXOP).
Regarding claim 17, Lu teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by processing circuitry of an access-point station (AP), wherein communicating multi-user (MU) physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs) (MU-PPDUs) with plurality of non-AP stations (STAs) using dynamic channel switching, the processing circuitry is configured to:
acquire a transmission opportunity (TXOP) on a channel comprising a primary channel and one or more non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], AP obtains TXOP on P80/primary channel);
encode a channel switching indication frame for transmission during the TXOP, the channel switching indication frame requesting that at least some of the STAs switch from operating on the primary channel to operating on one of the non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], AP sends control frame MU-RTS indicating channel switching from P80/primary to S_80/non-primary for intended STAs, i.e. EHT STA1, STA2, STA3);
decode a response frame from each of the STAs that are indicated to switch, each response frame received on the non-primary channel that an indicated STA is requested to switch to (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], EHT TB ACK); and
wherein for a downlink (DL) transmission, the processing circuitry is configured to:
encode a DL MU-PPDU for transmission to scheduled STAs of the plurality, the DL MU-PPDU configurable to be comprised of a plurality of PPDUs of different physical layer (PHY) types, the plurality of PPDUs including:
at least a first PPDU for transmission on the primary channel to a first STA that had not been instructed to switch to a non-primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], HE DL PPDU to HE STA(s)) and
at least a second PPDU for transmission on one of the non-primary channels to a second STA that had been instructed to switch to the one of the non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], EHT DL PPDU to EHT STA1, STA2, STA3)); and
after expiration of the TXOP, communicate with the STAs on the primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], switching back to P80/primary after the end of TXOP).
Regarding claim 19, Lu teaches an apparatus of a non-access-point station (STA), the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry; and memory, wherein for reception of a multi-user (MU) physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs) (MU-PPDUs) from an access point (AP) station (AP) using dynamic channel switching (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048]), the processing circuitry is configured to:
decode a channel switching indication frame received from the AP during a transmission opportunity (TXOP) acquired by the AP on a channel comprising a primary channel and one or more non-primary channels, the channel switching indication frame requesting that the STA switch from operating on the primary channel to operating on one of the non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], AP sends control frame MU-RTS indicating channel switching from P80/primary to S_80/non-primary for intended STAs, i.e. EHT STA1, STA2, STA3);
encode a response frame for transmission to the AP on the non-primary channel that the STA is requested to switch to (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], EHT TB ACK); and
decode a PPDU from the AP on the non-primary channel that the STA had been instructed to switch to (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], EHT DL PPDU to EHT STA1, STA2, STA3)); and
after expiration of the TXOP, switch back to operating on the primary channel ((Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], switching back to P80/primary after the end of TXOP).
Regarding claims 2, 18 and 20, Lu teaches wherein the channel switching indication frame is encoded to include channel switching information comprising, for each STA that is indicated to switch, a location of the non-primary channel to temporarily switch to and a duration that the STA is to temporarily remain on the non-primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048], duration of TXOP; switching to S80_1, S80_2).
Regarding claim 3, Lu teaches wherein the channel is a 320 MHz channel and for transmission of the DL MU-PPDU on the 320 MHz channel to the plurality of non-AP STAs wherein each STA having at least an 80 MHz capability (Lu: Figs. 5-6 and 10; [0043]-[0045], channel bandwidth of 320 Mhz):
the 320 MHz channel comprises a 160 MHz primary channel (P160) and a 160 MHz non-primary channel (S160), the P160 comprises a 80 MHz primary channel (P80) and a 80 MHz non-primary channel (S80) (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048]), and
wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: encode the first PPDU for transmission on the 80 MHz primary channel to a first 80 MHz STA that had not been instructed to switch to a non-primary channel, and encode the second PPDU for transmission on the 80 MHz non-primary channel to the second STA that had switched to the 80 MHz non-primary channel; and encode a third PPDU for transmission on the 160 MHz non-primary channel to a third STA that had switched to the 160 MHz non-primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0048] see also Figs. 11-12).
Regarding claim 4, Lu teaches wherein a PHY type of each PPDU of the DL MU-PPDU is configured to be compatible with a PHY type of a receiving STA, the PHY type encoded in an 80 MHz EHT universal signal (U-SIG) field of each PPDU (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048] see also Figs. 11-12).
Regarding claim 5, Lu teaches wherein for transmission of the DL MU-PPDU, the processing circuitry is configured to align preambles, orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) symbol durations and cyclic prefix lengths of each 80 MHz transmission that comprises the first, second and third PPDUs (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048], the PPDUs are aligned; see also Figs. 11-12).
Regarding claim 6, Lu teaches wherein when the third STA is a 160 MHz ultra-high rate (UHR) STA that was requested to switch from operating on the 160 MHz primary channel to the 160 MHz non-primary channel, the third PPDU comprises one of a high-efficiency (HE) PPDU, an extremely high throughput (EHT) PPDU and a UHR PPDU that is transmitted on the 160 MHz non-primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048] EHT STA3 see also Figs. 11-12),
wherein when the second STA is an 80 MHz UHR STA that was requested to switch from operating on the 80 MHz primary channel to the 80 MHz non- primary channel, the second PPDU comprises an HE PPDU transmitted on the 80 MHz non-primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048] EHT STA2 see also Figs. 11-12), and
wherein when the first STA is an 80 MHz HE STA that had not been requested to switch to operating on a non-primary channel, the first PPDU comprises an HE PPDU transmitted on the 80 MHz primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048], HE STA(s) see also Figs. 11-12).
Regarding claim 7, Lu teaches wherein the channel switching indication frame comprises a management frame and is transmitted to each STA of the plurality on the primary channel (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048] control frame MU-RTS see also Figs. 11-12).
Regarding claim 8, Lu teaches wherein the management frame comprises an 80 MHz multi-user request to send transmission (MU-RTS TXS) frame that is repeated on each of the non-primary channels (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048] control frame MU-RTS see also Figs. 11-12).
Regarding claim 9, Lu teaches wherein the response frames received from the STAs comprise clear-to-send (CTS) frames, the CTS frames being received from the STAs that are indicated to switch over one or more 20 MHz subchannels of an indicated non-primary channel (Lu: Fig. 8; [0047]-[0048]).
Regarding claim 10, Lu teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to decode a block acknowledgement (BA) frame received from the STAs, the BA frame being received from each STA that had been requested to switch to a non-primary channel on the non-primary channel, and wherein each of the STAs that had been requested to switch to a non- primary channel is configured to switch back to the primary channel after transmission of the BA frame (Lu: Fig. 10; [0047]-[0048] HE TB ACK as response to the control frame MU-RTS see also Figs. 11-12).
Conclusion
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/KODZOVI ACOLATSE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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