DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This Office Action is in response to the submission filed 2026-07-06 (herein referred to as the Reply) where claim(s) 1-14, 17, 19-23 are pending for consideration.
35 USC §112(b) – Claim Rejections
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.
Claim(s) is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) for not particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter of the invention.
Claim(s) 1, 8, 17 and 2-7, 9-14, 19-23
The claim(s) have been amended to recite variants of:
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Issue 1
The phrase “interacting a…request frame and a…frame” is confusing. The phase “interacting a [noun]” is not typical English grammar in the same one saying “interacting a house and car” would be confusing.
Issue 2
With regards to the latter portion of the paragraph (after the first “wherein”): Due to the run-on sentence nature of the limitation, it is unclear as to how to the limitation should be interpreted. There are too many chained clauses where it is unclear if they are independent or continuing a previous clause. For example, Does the block acknowledgement frame indicate all three of : more than one traffic ID, the sequence control information and the bitmaps? In other words, are the commas used to indicate a list, or are clauses between the commas independent clauses?
Dependent claims do not cure the deficiencies of the base/intervening claims as discussed herein and are therefore rejected for at least the same reasons.
Relevant Cited References
US20170111951
US20060034274
US20190045537
US20220287122
Examiner’s Notes
Due to the confusing amendments corresponding to the USC112(b) rejections herein, the Examiner cannot properly construe the claims for purposes of prior art rejection (i.e., I can’t apply prior art to an invention I don’t understand). In the interest of expedited prosecution, the Examiner conduced a prior art search for features in the amendments where “interacting a” was guessed to be “exchanged between two devices.” The results of the search are listed in the section above. The Examiner recommends reviewing the references as each of them teaches a block ACK request frame including bitmaps corresponding to traffic IDs and sequence control information; they appear very relevant to the amendments and would potentially used in prior art rejections once the Applicant has clarified their amendments.
Response to Arguments
The Reply’s arguments have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the rejection(s), which was necessitated by the Applicant’s amendments, being used in the current rejection.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDRE TACDIRAN whose telephone number is 571-272-1717. The examiner can normally be reached on M-TH, 10-5PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached on 571-270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
/ANDRE TACDIRAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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