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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see p. 7, filed 5/20/26, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of a newly cited prior art reference to Verma et al.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 8, 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vermani et al. “Further Ideas on EHT Preamble Design”* in view of Lim et al. U.S. Patent No. 12,284,631 and Verma et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2019/0380117.
Regarding claims 1 and 8, Vermani discloses a communication method and apparatus, the apparatus comprising: circuitry, which, in operation, generates an Extremely High Throughput Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (EHT PPDU) comprising an Universal Signal (U-SIG) field and an EHT signal field (see Slide 5, EHT PPDU: Pre-SIG, EHT-SIG Common), the EHT-SIG field contains a Common field and a User Specific field being together referred to as an EHT-SIG content channel (see Slide 5: EHT-SIG-common and EHT-SIG-per-user), where both the U-SIG field and the EHT-SIG field are present in the EHT PPDU transmitted to a single station (STA) or multiples STAs (see Slides 5-6).
Vermani does not expressly show that the U-SIG field contains U-SIG field 1 and U-SIG field 2, each comprising an equal number of data bits, the U-SIG field 1 includes version independent fields including a physical layer (PHY) Version Identity field, an uplink/downlink (UL/DL) Flag field, a basic service set (BSS) Color field, a transmission opportunity (TXOP) Duration field, and a bandwidth field, the U-SIG field 2 includes an EHT-SIG modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field, a number of EHT-SIG Symbols, a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) field, and tail bits.
Lim discloses a U-SIG field that is split into two U-SIG symbols of equal number of data bits (col. 21, ll. 16-20), the first symbol includes version independent fields including a PHY Version Identity field (PHY version identifier – col. 21, ll. 55-67), a UL/DL flag (col. 22, ll. 10-14); a BSS Color field and a TXOP Duration field (col. 22, ll. 15-18; col. 46, ll. 64-65), and also discloses that a first field of the U-SIG may include a bandwidth field (col. 22, ll. 64-65); and Lim further discloses that the second symbol of the A-bit information may include a CRC field and a tail field (col. 21, ll. 46-47), as well as information related to an MCS (col. 22, ll. 27-29), and a number of EHT-SIG symbols (col. 22, ll. 31-32). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to employ the U-SIG scheme of Lim, in the apparatus of Vermani, as it is a combining of prior art elements according to known methods, and would yield predictable results (see MPEP § 2143 I.A.).
Vermani also does not expressly, in a case when the EHT PPDU is transmitted to the single STA, the User Specific field comprises a single User field, and the EHT PPDU contains a single EHT content channel regardless of a bandwidth of the EHT PPDU, the single EHT content channel duplicated for each 20 MHz frequency segment.
Verma discloses that when a PPDU is used for a single user, a single-user user-specific field may be duplicated in the HE-SIG-B field (¶ [0076]), where multiple 20 MHz channels may be used (¶¶ [0044]-[00450], [0074]), also providing support for backward compatibility for stations that do not support per-station punctured transmissions (¶ [0049]), thus providing a single EHT content channel regardless of a bandwidth of the EHT PPDU, the single EHT content channel being duplicated for each 20 MHz frequency segment. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to duplicate SIG fields of content channel as suggested by Verma, in the communication method/apparatus of Vermani, to provide a single PPDU for both single and multiple users, and provide for redundancy in the transmission through the field duplication.
Regarding claims 15 and 16, in the proposed combination, in the case the EHT PPDU is transmitted to multiple STAs, the User Specific field comprises multiple User fields (i.e. Fig. 6: User1, User2), and the EHT PPDU contains multiple content channels (see Verma, Figs. 2, 6).
Claims 2, 4-7, 9 and 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vermani et al. in view of Lim et al. and Verma et al., as applied to claims 1 and 8 above, and further in view of Noh et al. U.S. Pat. No. 10,959,121.
Regarding claims 2 and 9, Vermani in combination with Lim and Verma disclose a communication apparatus and method, as described above, but do not disclose that the U-SIG field has a single format in non-trigger-based communications with one or more STAs.
Noh discloses that a SIG field can have set format for a non-trigger-based PPDU (col. 14, ll. 31-37). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to provide a signal field with a single format for non-trigger-based communications, as suggested by Noh, in the apparatus/method of Vermani, Lim and Verma, as it is a combination of prior art elements according to known methods, and would yield predictable results (see MPEP § 2143.I.A.).
Regarding claims 4 and 11, Vermani in combination with Lim and Verma disclose a communication apparatus and method, as described above, and Vermani further discloses that the EHT-SIG field comprises part of version dependent bits (see slides 5-6), but do not expressly disclose non-trigger-based communications.
Noh discloses a SIG field for a non-trigger-based PPDU (col. 14, ll. 31-37). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to provide non-trigger communications, as suggested by Noh, in the apparatus/method of Vermani, Lim and Verma, as it is a combination of prior art elements according to known methods, and would yield predictable results (see MPEP § 2143.I.A.).
Regarding claims 5 and 12, in the proposed combination, Vermani further discloses the use of PPDU BW and puncturing information (Slide 3, bullet point 2), where such information would be present in the EHT SU PPDU SIG structure (i.e. of slide 6).
Regarding claims 6 and 13, Vermani further discloses that the puncturing bitmap is determined based on PPDU BW (Slide 3, bullet point 2).
Regarding claims 7 and 14, Vermani suggests that the U-SIG field comprises information for interpreting the EHT-SIG field, as it includes version identifier, PPDU BW and puncturing information associated with the SIG field (Slide 3).
Claims 3 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vermani et al. in view of Lim et al. and Verma et al., as applied to claims 1 and 8 above, and further in view of Park et al. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2020/0136884.
Regarding claims 3 and 10 Vermani in combination with Lim and Verma disclose a communication apparatus and method, as described above, but do not disclose that the Common field contains a Common field 1 and a Common field 2, which are separately encoded in the content channel.
Park discloses a EHT PPDU where a Common-SIG 810 has two portions 822, 824, which may be separately encoded (¶ [0105]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to provide separately encoded Common Signal fields, as suggested by Park, in the apparatus/method of Vermani, Lim and Verma, as it is a combination of prior art elements according to known methods, and would yield predictable results (see MPEP § 2143.I.A.).
Conclusion
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/DAVID B LUGO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631 8/18/2026
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