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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-11 in the reply to restriction, filed on December 11, 2025 is acknowledged. Applicant canceled claims 12-20 in response to restriction.
Claims 1-11 are currently pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 04/25/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. Regarding claim 1, claim 1 recites as “encode the states of the operational interfaces of the AP into an information element (IE); append the IE to a data frame to be transmitted by the AP for receipt by at least one of a neighboring AP or client device”, is considered indefinite. As claim language does not disclose what information is disclosed in “information element”. Examiner recommend to review specification to define the information disclosed in “information element”.
An appropriate correction is required.
Further regarding claim 4, claim 4 states “the health”, there is antecedent basis issue regarding this limitation as “health” is not initially defined in claims 1 or 3.
An appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 of this title, 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lo et al. (US 2024/0223439 A1) in view of Pathak et al. (US 2018/0310279 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Lo discloses an access point (AP) comprising: one or more processors; and a machine readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the AP to: (Fig. 3 discloses network device 500 comprises processor 406 and memory 512); determine states of operational interfaces of the AP (Fig. 4, paragraph 0111 disclose a first network device 500A detects an issue with sending telemetry data 130 to NMS 150 via a first network path (402). For example, a failure by network device 500 to send telemetry data 130 to NMS 500, or a failure by router 108B to send or receive a heartbeat message from NMS 500, may indicate that router 108B has lost connectivity with NMS 150 due to an error, such as a failed interface or path, etc. First network device 500A sends diagnostics data 140 to the second network device 500B via a second network path, such as path 112A of FIG. 1. Sending the diagnostics data to the second network device comprises: modifying a keepalive packet to include metadata specifying the diagnostics data; and sending the keepalive packet to the second network device).
Lo does not specifically discloses encode the states of the operational interfaces of the AP into an information element (IE); append the IE to a data frame to be transmitted by the AP for receipt by at least one of a neighboring AP or client device; and transmit the data frame including the IE to the at least one of the neighboring AP or the client device.
In analogous art, Pathak discloses encode the states of the operational interfaces of the AP into an information element (IE) (Fig. 3, paragraph 0065 discloses the first AP may scan a set of channels to obtain all of the channel condition information that can be observed by scanning the channels. Alternatively, or additionally, the first AP may use any combination of techniques to obtain the channel condition information, including: scanning the set of channels to detect (encoding, one or more modules of computer program instructions, encoded on a computer storage media for execution by, or to control the operation of, data processing apparatus) the channel condition information, querying at least a second AP in the network to request the channel condition information, and requesting (from the root AP or Multi-AP Controller) consolidated channel condition information regarding one or more other APs in the network. FIG. 6 includes an example data frame 620. The data frame 620 may include a preamble 622, a frame header 624, a frame body 610, and a frame check sequence (FCS) 626. The preamble 622 may include one or more bits to establish synchronization. The frame header 624 may include source and destination network addresses (such as the network address of the sending AP and receiving AP, respectively), the length of data frame, or other frame control information. The frame body 610 may be organized with a message format and may include a variety of fields or information elements 632, 636, and 638);
append the IE to a data frame to be transmitted by the AP for receipt by at least one of a neighboring AP or client device (Fig. 6, paragraph 0095-0096 disclose the frame body 610 may be organized with a message format and may include a variety of fields or information elements 632, 636, and 638. The information elements may include channel operating constraints 664 (such as minimum channel separation, potential TX power levels, considerations regarding the concurrent use of two channels, or the like). The information elements may include channel selection error information 666 indicative of a channel that cannot be used by the AP (including an identifier of the unusable channel, error/reason code, alternative channels, or the like);
and transmit the data frame including the IE to the at least one of the neighboring AP or the client device (Paragraphs 0095-0097 disclose the AP may transmit multiple messages, or may transmit a single message having a collection of the above-described fields or information elements, to describe the multiple BSSs of the AP. A message for sharing channel condition information. For example, the message may be sent from one AP (including the root AP) to another AP).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Pathak to the system of Lo to provide the first AP to determine one or more service parameters associated with the first AP. The one or more service parameters may include at least one of a rate requirement and a received signal strength indicator tolerance. The instructions may cause the first AP to include the one or more service parameters in the channel preference report message prior to transmitting the channel preference report message to the Multi-AP Controller (paragraph 0010).
Regarding claim 2, Lo discloses the AP to determine the state of the operational interfaces of the AP further causes the AP to assess an operational state or (Fig. 3 discloses network device 500 comprises processor 406 and memory 512); determine states of operational interfaces of the AP (Fig. 4, paragraph 0111 disclose a first network device 500A detects an issue with sending telemetry data 130 to NMS 150 via a first network path (402). For example, a failure by network device 500 to send telemetry data 130 to NMS 500, or a failure by router 108B to send or receive a heartbeat message from NMS 500, may indicate that router 108B has lost connectivity with NMS 150 due to an error, such as a failed interface or path, etc. First network device 500A sends diagnostics data 140 to the second network device 500B via a second network path, such as path 112A of FIG. 1. Sending the diagnostics data to the second network device comprises: modifying a keepalive packet to include metadata specifying the diagnostics data; and sending the keepalive packet to the second network device).
Lo in combination with Pathak discloses condition of each of the operational interfaces of the AP (as disclosed above in Lo) in accordance with a hierarchy set forth in the IE (Fig. 6, paragraph 0095-0096 disclose the frame body 610 may be organized with a message format and may include a variety of fields or information elements 632, 636, and 638. The information elements may include channel operating constraints 664 (such as minimum channel separation, potential TX power levels, considerations regarding the concurrent use of two channels, or the like). The information elements may include channel selection error information 666 indicative of a channel that cannot be used by the AP (including an identifier of the unusable channel, error/reason code, alternative channels, or the like).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Pathak to the system of Lo to provide the first AP to determine one or more service parameters associated with the first AP. The one or more service parameters may include at least one of a rate requirement and a received signal strength indicator tolerance. The instructions may cause the first AP to include the one or more service parameters in the channel preference report message prior to transmitting the channel preference report message to the Multi-AP Controller (paragraph 0010).
Regarding claim 3, Lo in combination with Pathak discloses wherein the IE comprises a plurality of fields, each of the plurality of fields corresponding to one of the operational interfaces of the AP (Fig. 6, paragraph 0095-0096 discloses the frame body 610 may be organized with a message format and may include a variety of fields or information elements 632, 636, and 638. The information elements may include channel operating constraints 664 (such as minimum channel separation, potential TX power levels, considerations regarding the concurrent use of two channels, or the like). The information elements may include channel selection error information 666 indicative of a channel that cannot be used by the AP (including an identifier of the unusable channel, error/reason code, alternative channels, or the like. Lo discuss the mechanism of operational interfaces of the AP).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Pathak to the system of Lo to provide the first AP to determine one or more service parameters associated with the first AP. The one or more service parameters may include at least one of a rate requirement and a received signal strength indicator tolerance. The instructions may cause the first AP to include the one or more service parameters in the channel preference report message prior to transmitting the channel preference report message to the Multi-AP Controller (paragraph 0010).
Regarding claim 4, Lo in combination with Pathak discloses wherein each of the plurality of fields is populated with a number of bits, each of the bits being associated with a value characterizing the health of the operational interfaces (Paragraph 0095 discloses data frame 620. The data frame 620 may include a preamble 622, a frame header 624, a frame body 610, and a frame check sequence (FCS) 626. The preamble 622 may include one or more bits to establish synchronization. The frame header 624 may include source and destination network addresses (such as the network address of the sending AP and receiving AP, respectively), the length of data frame, or other frame control information. The frame body 610 may be organized with a message format and may include a variety of fields or information elements 632, 636, and 638. The information elements may include channel operating constraints 664 (such as minimum channel separation, potential TX power levels, considerations regarding the concurrent use of two channels, or the like). The information elements may include channel selection error information 666 indicative of a channel that cannot be used by the AP (including an identifier of the unusable channel, error/reason code, alternative channels, or the like). Fig. 7, paragraphs 0098-0104 disclose message formats are provided as non-limiting examples for the purpose of explaining different types of information that may be included in a channel selection information message.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Pathak to the system of Lo to provide the first AP to determine one or more service parameters associated with the first AP. The one or more service parameters may include at least one of a rate requirement and a received signal strength indicator tolerance. The instructions may cause the first AP to include the one or more service parameters in the channel preference report message prior to transmitting the channel preference report message to the Multi-AP Controller (paragraph 0010).
Claims 6-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lo et al. (US 2024/0223439 A1) in view of Pathak et al. (US 2018/0310279 A1) and further in view of Singhal et al. (US 2018/0338244 A1).
Regarding claim 6, Lo in combination with Pathak does not discloses wherein the data frame comprises a beacon frame.
In an analogous art, Singhal discloses wherein the data frame comprises a beacon frame (Paragraph 0054, 0093 disclose data frame comprises a beacon frame).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Singhal to the modified system of Lo and Pathak to provide Information Element (IE) 400 that may be included in a beacon frame transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN) (paragraph 0093).
Regarding claim 7, Lo in combination with Pathak does not discloses the AP to advertise a wireless local area network (WLAN) using the beacon frame when the AP is as-of-yet, un-provisioned in a network.
In an analogous art, Singhal discloses the AP to advertise a wireless local area network (WLAN) using the beacon frame when the AP is as-of-yet, un-provisioned in a network. (Paragraphs 0093-0094 disclose data frame comprises a beacon frame, a Country Information Element (IE) 400 that may be included in a beacon frame transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN). The Country IE 400 may include an Element ID field 401, a Length field 402, a Country String field 403, a First Channel field 404, a Number of Channels field 405, a Maximum Transmit Power Level field 406, and an optional Pad field 407. Paragraph 0054 discloses The WLAN subsystem 320 includes at least a WLAN controller 321 and a WLAN radio 322. The WLAN radio 322 can transmit and receive WLAN signals (such as Wi-Fi signals) to and from other devices. An AP located in the country in which the wireless device 200 is operating may transmit country codes to the wireless device in beacon frames. In some aspects, the country codes may be contained in a Country Information Element (IE) included in the beacon frames).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Singhal to the modified system of Lo and Pathak to provide Information Element (IE) 400 that may be included in a beacon frame transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN) (paragraph 0093).
Regarding claim 8, Lo in combination with Pathak does not discloses the AP to advertise a wireless local area network (WLAN) using the beacon frame when the AP is already provisioned in an existing, but disabled WLAN.
In an analogous art, Singhal discloses the AP to advertise a wireless local area network (WLAN) using the beacon frame when the AP is already provisioned in an existing, but disabled WLAN (Paragraphs 0093-0094 disclose data frame comprises a beacon frame, a Country Information Element (IE) 400 that may be included in a beacon frame transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN). The Country IE 400 may include an Element ID field 401, a Length field 402, a Country String field 403, a First Channel field 404, a Number of Channels field 405, a Maximum Transmit Power Level field 406, and an optional Pad field 407. Paragraph 0054 discloses The WLAN subsystem 320 includes at least a WLAN controller 321 and a WLAN radio 322. The WLAN radio 322 can transmit and receive WLAN signals (such as Wi-Fi signals) to and from other devices. An AP located in the country in which the wireless device 200 is operating may transmit country codes to the wireless device in beacon frames. In some aspects, the country codes may be contained in a Country Information Element (IE) included in the beacon frames).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Singhal to the modified system of Lo and Pathak to provide Information Element (IE) 400 that may be included in a beacon frame transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN) (paragraph 0093).
Regarding claim 9, Lo in combination with Pathak does not discloses the AP to transmit the beacon frame in an existing WLAN when the AP is already provisioned in the existing WLAN.
In an analogous art, Singhal discloses the AP to transmit the beacon frame in an existing WLAN when the AP is already provisioned in the existing WLAN (Paragraphs 0093-0094 disclose data frame comprises a beacon frame, a Country Information Element (IE) 400 that may be included in a beacon frame transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN). The Country IE 400 may include an Element ID field 401, a Length field 402, a Country String field 403, a First Channel field 404, a Number of Channels field 405, a Maximum Transmit Power Level field 406, and an optional Pad field 407. Paragraph 0054 discloses The WLAN subsystem 320 includes at least a WLAN controller 321 and a WLAN radio 322. The WLAN radio 322 can transmit and receive WLAN signals (such as Wi-Fi signals) to and from other devices. An AP located in the country in which the wireless device 200 is operating may transmit country codes to the wireless device in beacon frames. In some aspects, the country codes may be contained in a Country Information Element (IE) included in the beacon frames).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Singhal to the modified system of Lo and Pathak to provide Information Element (IE) 400 that may be included in a beacon frame transmitted in a wireless local area network (WLAN) (paragraph 0093).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lo et al. (US 2024/0223439 A1) in view of Pathak et al. (US 2018/0310279 A1) and further in view of Yamaura (US 2017/0078969 A1).
Regarding claim 10, Lo in combination with Pathak does not discloses wherein the data frame comprises a beacon frame.
In an analogous art, Yamaura discloses wherein the data frame comprises a probe response (Paragraph 0074 discloses data frame comprises a probe response, control messages include notification information such as beacons, received responses to beacons, Probe requests, and Probe responses).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Lo to the modified system of Lo and Pathak to provide wireless communication devices that exchange various kinds of information by using wireless communications, an information processing device, and a communication method (Paragraph 0002).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lo et al. (US 2024/0223439 A1) in view of Pathak et al. (US 2018/0310279 A1) and further in view of Wang et al. (US 2023/0053044 A1)
Regarding claim 11, Lo in combination with Pathak does not discloses the AP to take correction action in response to a determination by a network management service (NMS) that received the data frame.
In an analogous art, Wang discloses the AP to take correction action in response to a determination by a network management service (NMS) that received the data frame (Paragraph 0096-0101 disclose determine a root cause of SLE degradation based on any one or more of a time to connect metric, a throughput metric, a coverage metric, a capacity metric, a roaming metric, a successful connects metric, and/or an AP health metric. In addition or alternatively, this may include determining root cause of SLE deterioration based on a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and/or a signal-to-noise (SNR) of the wireless signal received from a current AP to which the client device is associated. The network management system can determine if the root cause is associated with an AP (908). For example, the one or more processor(s) may determine that there has been an issue with a specific AP that caused degradation in SLE metrics for the UEs. If the root cause is associated with an AP (“YES” branch of 908), then the one or more processors may determine a classification of the AP (910). For example, the classification may be based on betweenness centrality of the AP, or heuristics such as connection times of client devices of the AP, bandwidth utilization of the AP, or any of the techniques described herein. Further details on techniques for determining whether an AP is an edge AP are discussed below with respect to FIG. 11).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Lo to the modified system of Lo and Pathak to provide automated techniques for performing network management actions based on a classification of an access point. (Paragraph 0001).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Goswami et al. (US 11,159,965 B2) discloses the process 400 can further include providing the display in real-time or near real-time to troubleshoot or debug operations of the Wi-Fi network. The process 400 can further include providing the display in a historical graph to identify problems over time in the Wi-Fi network. The process 400 can further include providing an alarm or an alert responsive to any device having a QoE measurement at or below a threshold (See Col. 16, Lines 20-35).
Venugopal et al. (US 2021/0194545 A1) discloses Configurations of UEs and base stations are described herein that support various feedback metrics for resource grouping in association with transmission and reception operation modes and/or channel states, such as MIMO schemes, SINRs, channel properties, and the like. Base stations may dynamically indicate metrics to be reported by UEs so that simultaneous transmission and reception may be sufficiently supported (Abstract, Venugopal).
Srivatsan et al. (US 10,924,372 B2) discloses the PSC cooperating with the PoP servers to determine first network health metrics for connections between the PoP servers and the network branches, determine second network health metrics for connections between the PoP servers and the SaaS host servers, select a respective PoP server for each network branch to be connected with for providing the at least one SaaS application based upon the first and second network health metrics, and update the first and second network health metrics over time and change the selected PoP servers for the network branches based upon the updated first and second network health metrics (Fig. 6, steps 92-95).
Kumaran et al. (US 2019/0312876 A1) discloses the behavioral profile for the client may quantify the successful and failed connections experienced by the client over time. For example, the behavioral profile may include information such as the connection failure rate of the client and/or its percentile compared to other clients, the number of days the client experienced at least one failure and/or its percentile compared to other clients, a contiguous failure ratio (e.g., the number of days the client successfully connected at least once, divided by the total number of days seen by the network), combinations thereof, the APs to which the client connected or attempted to connect, or any other statistics/behavioral metrics that can be used to quantify the failures and connections of the client. In some cases, these statistics/metrics may further be broken down by the APs to which the client attempted a connection (paragraph 0099).
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/ROMANI OHRI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413