DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 8 December 2025 has been entered.
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 .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Claim Objections
Claim 11 is objected to because of the following informality:
Claim 11 recites the clause with the optional language "implementable in" in line 1. In order to present the claims in a better form and to describe a positive, or require steps/functions to be performed (i.e. using the claim language that does not suggest or make optionally but required steps to be performed), applicant is suggested to revise the claim language “implementable in” to have the limiting effect, such that the steps/functions to be performed which follow the language “implementable in” are required (not optional). (MPEP 2111.04)
Appropriate correction is required.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 4-9, 11, and 14-19 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
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-9, 11, and 14-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jeon et al. US 2022/0158696 A1 (hereinafter referred to as “Jeon”) in view of Silverman et al. US 9,325,410 B1 (hereinafter referred to as “Silverman”). NOTE: Jeon was cited by the applicant in the IDS received 19 September 2024.
As to claim 1, Jeon teaches a method, comprising:
triggering, by a processor of an apparatus as an access point (AP), each of one or more stations (STAs) to transmit a respective feedback (¶50; figures 3-5: BFRE trigger frame triggers STAs to transmit feedback);
estimating, by the processor, a respective steering matrix with respect to each of the one or more STAs based on the respective feedback (¶¶51 and 67; figures 3-5: estimate beam steering matrix based on the feedback); and
transmitting, by the processor, a respective steered data to each of the one or more STAs based on the respective steering matrix (¶¶67-68; figure 5: transmit respective PPDU including feedback frame to STA(s) according to the beamforming feedback matrix),
wherein the triggering comprises controlling a number of space-time streams (Nsts) and an uplink bandwidth (UL BW) of a respective trigger-based physical-layer protocol data unit (TB-PPDU) transmitted by each of the one or more STAs as the respective feedback (¶74; figure 6: TB-PPDU trigger frame includes fields indicating UL BW and Nsts controlled and transmitted by respective AP(s)), and
wherein the controlling of the number of Nsts and the UL BW of the respective TB-PPDU comprises indicating the number of Nsts and the UL BW in a user information field of a respective trigger frame transmitted to each of the one or more STAs (¶74; figure 6: Common Info, Special User Info, and User Info fields off the trigger frame set and uplink bandwidth, allocate an RU, and indicate SS Allocation/RA-RU Information (Nsts) (additionally see figure 13A for Special User Info including UL Bandwidth Extension)).
Although Jeon teaches “A method…respective steering matrix, wherein the triggering…or more STAs,” Jeon does not explicitly disclose “by applying…or more STAs”.
However, Silverman teaches transmitting, by the processor, a respective steered data to each of the one or more STAs based on the respective steering matrix by applying an implicit beamforming steering matrix responsive to a maximum number of spatial streams of the AP is greater than a number of sounding dimension of each of the one or more STAs (cols 2-3 and 6; figures 1 and 3: AP transmits downlink transmissions to stations according to steering matrix for beamforming according to implicit beamforming when the AP’s maximum number of spatial streams, N, is greater than the number of sounding dimensions for the stations’ uplink packets, e.g. 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to improve upon the method described in Jeon by including “by applying…or more STAs” as taught by Silverman because it provides Jeon’s method with the enhanced capability of reducing airtime overhead (Silverman, cols 2-3 and 6; figures 1 and 3).
As to claim 4, Jeon in view of Silverman teaches the method of Claim 1. Jeon further teaches wherein the respective trigger frame comprises a basic trigger frame, a buffer status report poll (BSRP), a beamforming report poll (BFRP), a bandwidth query report poll (BQRP), or a null data packet (NDP) feedback report poll (NFRP) (¶¶50, 78-79, 85-86, and 92-93; figures 3, 7, 9, and 11).
As to claim 5, Jeon in view of Silverman teaches the method of Claim 1. Jeon further teaches wherein the estimating of the respective steering matrix comprises calculating a full characterization of a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel in which the respective feedback is transmitted based on the respective TB-PPDU (¶¶50-51, 67, 78-79, 85-86, and 92-93; figures 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11).
As to claim 6, Jeon in view of Silverman teaches the method of Claim 1. Jeon further teaches wherein the triggering of each of the one or more STAs comprises transmitting to each of the one or more STAs:
a null data packet announcement (NDPA);
a null data packet (NDP); and
a respective trigger frame (¶¶50, 78-79, 85-86, and 92-93; figures 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11).
As to claim 7, Jeon in view of Silverman teaches the method of Claim 6. Jeon further teaches wherein:
responsive to the one or more STAs comprising multiple STAs, the NDPA comprises a respective association identifier (AID) of each of the multiple STAs, and
responsive to the one or more STAs comprising a single STA, the NDPA comprises a first AID of the single STA and a second AID from one or more reserved AIDs (¶¶50, 75, 78-79, 85-86, and 92-93; figures 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11).
As to claim 8, Jeon in view of Silverman teaches the method of Claim 1. Jeon further teaches wherein a communication between the apparatus and the one or more STAs involves either a single-link operation (SLO) or a multi-link operation (MLO) (¶¶50-51, 67, 78-79, 85-86, and 92-93; figures 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11).
As to claim 9, Jeon in view of Silverman teaches the method of Claim 1. Jeon further teaches wherein the one or more STAs comprise one or more STAs compliant with Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 8, or another Wi-Fi standard based on an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 specification beyond Wi-Fi 8 (¶37).
As to claim 11, claim 11 is rejected the same way as claim 1.
As to claim 14, claim 14 is rejected the same way as claim 4.
As to claim 15, claim 15 is rejected the same way as claim 5.
As to claim 16, claim 16 is rejected the same way as claim 6.
As to claim 17, claim 17 is rejected the same way as claim 7.
As to claim 18, claim 18 is rejected the same way as claim 8.
As to claim 19, claim 19 is rejected the same way as claim 9.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Ram et al., US 2019/0373569 A1 – Distributed MIMO Based on Access Point Collaboration
Balakrishnan et al., US 2024/0251442 A1 – Multi-AP Transmission with Interference Alignment
Moon et al., US 10/992,359 B2 – Uplink Sounding for WLAN System
Shany et al., US 2012/0214404 A1 – Multi-Mode PHY-Level Wireless Security
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUSTIN T VAN ROIE whose telephone number is (571)270-0308. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00am - 4:30pm.
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/JUSTIN T VAN ROIE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469