DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
2. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 06/30/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
3. Claims 1-2, 8, 17-19, and 21-22 are pending wherein claims 1 and 17 are in independent form.
4. Claims 1 and 17 have been amended.
5. Claims 3 and 20 have been cancelled. Claims 4-7 and 9-16 have been withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
6. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 and 17 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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.
8. Claims 1-2, 17, and 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oteri et al (US 20220030611, hereinafter referred to as Oteri) in view of Xue et al (US 20200396766, hereinafter referred to as Xue).
Re claim 1, Oteri teaches a communication apparatus (AP1, Fig. 15), comprising:
(i) circuitry (processor, Par 0274), which in operation, generates a frame (first trigger frame, Fig. 15) comprising information (transmission frequency information, transmission starting time information, power information) indicating whether a type of a subsequent transmission (multi-AP data transmission of Data1, Data2, Fig. 15) is asynchronous or synchronous (first trigger frame including transmission starting time information indicating a synchronized transmission, Par 0161, Par 0163-0164, Par 0173-0175, Par 0177-0183----The frame/trigger frame indicates synchronous transmission. The claimed frame indicates a synchronous or asynchronous transmission, it does not/cannot indicate both (synchronous and asynchronous transmission) in the same frame. When Oteri discloses that the frame indicates synchronous transmission, it is not required to indicate asynchronous transmission in the same frame); and
(ii) a transmitter (radio frequency transceiver, Par 0274), which in operation, transmits the frame (first trigger frame, Fig. 15) to another communication apparatus (AP2, STA) (Fig. 15, Par 0160-0162, Par 0181-0183, Par 0186, Par 0208), wherein
(iv) when the information transmitted in the frame (first trigger frame) indicates the type of subsequent transmission is synchronous (first trigger frame including transmission frequency information indicating synchronized transmission), the communication apparatus (AP1) controls the frequency resource (AP1 regulates the transmission frequency) (Fig. 15, Par 0173, Par 0177-0179, Par 0182-0183).
Oteri does not explicitly disclose that (iii) when the information transmitted in the frame indicates the type of subsequent transmission is asynchronous, the communication apparatus does not control a frequency resource on which the another communication apparatus performs the subsequent transmission.
Xue teaches that (iii) when the information transmitted in the frame indicates the type of subsequent transmission is asynchronous (asynchronous transmission), the communication apparatus does not control a frequency resource on which the another communication apparatus performs the subsequent transmission (for asynchronous transmission, carrier sense based (CSMA/CA or LBT) channel access is performed and thus, channel access is not controlled by the communication apparatus/primary node) (Fig. 4-5A-B, Fig. 6A, Par 0050, Par 0052, Par 0068, Par 0086-0087, Par 0090-0092, Par 0095-0104, Par 0106-0108, Par 0120-0121).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Oteri by including the step that (iii) when the information transmitted in the frame indicates the type of subsequent transmission is asynchronous, the communication apparatus does not control a frequency resource on which the another communication apparatus performs the subsequent transmission, as taught by Xue for the purpose of improving “the reliability and throughput of communications between multiple network nodes and a UE”, as taught by Xue (Par 0086).
Claim 17 recites a method performing the functions recited in claim 1 and thereby, is rejected for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1.
Re claim 2, Oteri teaches that the communication apparatus (AP1) and the another communication apparatus (AP2) are access points (APs) (Fig. 15, Par 0181-0183, Par 0186, Par 0190, Par 0197, Par 0199).
Re claim 21, Oteri teaches that the communication apparatus and the another communication apparatus perform coordinated transmission (AP1 and AP2 perform coordinated transmission) (Fig. 15, Par 0155-0157, Par 0161-0164, Par 0173, Par 0177-0179, Par 0182-0183, Par 0186, Par 0194-0202).
Re claim 22, Oteri teaches that the communication apparatus and the another communication apparatus perform orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (C-OFDMA) transmission (Fig. 2, Par 0100-0103, Par 0169, Par 0225).
9. Claims 8 and 18-19, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oteri and Xue as applied to claims 1 and 17 above and further in view of Viger et al (US 20230217491, hereinafter referred to as Viger).
Re claims 8, 18, 19, Oteri teaches that the frame is a multiple access point (MAP) trigger frame (first trigger frame) (Fig. 15, Par 0160-0162).
Oteri does not explicitly disclose that when a block-acknowledgement (BA) Soliciting Manner subfield in the MAP trigger frame is indicated as ‘triggered response scheduling (TRS) Control field or Trigger frame’, the transmitter may be configured to transmit a frame carrying a TRS Control subfield or a MAP BlockAck Scheduling (MBS) Control subfield to indicate parameters of BlockAck frame to an associated STA.
Viger teaches that when a block-acknowledgement (BA) Soliciting Manner subfield in the MAP trigger frame is indicated as ‘triggered response scheduling (TRS) Control field or Trigger frame (TRS field triggering a response), the transmitter may be configured to transmit a frame carrying a TRS Control subfield or a MAP BlockAck Scheduling (MBS) Control subfield to indicate parameters of BlockAck frame to an associated STA (DL frame including TRS subfield is sent to non-AP station) (Fig. 11, Par 0247-0250).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Oteri by including the step that when a block-acknowledgement (BA) Soliciting Manner subfield in the MAP trigger frame is indicated as ‘triggered response scheduling (TRS) Control field or Trigger frame’, the transmitter may be configured to transmit a frame carrying a TRS Control subfield or a MAP BlockAck Scheduling (MBS) Control subfield to indicate parameters of BlockAck frame to an associated STA, as taught by Viger for the purpose of providing “efficient mechanisms to perform synchronized multi-AP operation”, as taught by Viger (Par 0015).
Relevant Prior Art
Guo (US 20200374870 A1) discloses to perform synchronous or asynchronous transmission by multiple access points based on a trigger frame received from a primary AP/first AP (Fig. 2a-d, Fig. 4a-b, Par 0116-0120, Par 0153, Par 0028-0229).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARUN UR R CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)270-3895. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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/HARUN CHOWDHURY/Examiner, Art Unit 2473
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