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 filed 12/19/25 have been fully considered but they are moot due to new ground rejection below. Note that since Applicant did not challenge the official notice statements presented in previous OA and they are now considered as acknowledge prior art.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 12 and 20 are objected because they are not clear.
Claim 1 adds a new claim limitation “the EHT indication subfield and a high efficiency (HE) indication subfield are a same subfield in the control subfield”. This claim limitation clarity. FIG. 8 shows a subfield “HE/EHT indication”, which can be interpreted as an indication of HE indication or an EHT indication, NOT that the subfield indicates both HE indication and EHT indication that are different from each other.
Independent claims 12 and 20 are rejected because each of them has the same problem as that of claim 1.
To continue prosecution on merit, the claim will be interpreted as best understood.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 (CN 111096044 A) in view of D2 (NPL dated 10/08/24, “IEEE 802.11be Wi-Fi 7: …”, p31), further in view of NOH (US 20220030604 A1).
For claim 1, D1 discloses an extremely high throughput (EHT) link adaptation (LA) control information transmission (FIG. 8 and the associated text, such as “FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a frame structure used in an IEEE 802.11 system. The STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 8 may be the same or equivalent to the (HT/VHT/EHT) -STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 3 or FIG. 7 …” and “… the control message for the link adaptation …”) method, wherein the method comprising:
sending a first message (FIGs. 22-24 and the associated text, such as the message shown in FIG. 22), wherein
the first message comprises a control field (FIGs. 22-24 and the associated text, such as p 39, 2nd para “FIG. 22 illustrates an example of a control field proposed in accordance with an embodiment of the present specification”),
the control field comprises a control subfield (FIGs. 22-24 and the associated text, such as FIG. 22 shows a control field that comprises subfields),
the control subfield comprises:
an EHT indication subfield (FIGs. 8, 2 and 7 and the associated text, such as p15, 2nd para “FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a frame structure used in the IEEE 802.11 system. FIG. 8 The STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 8 may be the same or equivalent to the (HT/VHT/EHT)-STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 3 or FIG. 7 …”),
a number-o-spatial-streams subfield (FIGs. 22-24 and the associated text, such as p40, 3rd para, “… the NSS field 2212 may include information on the number of spatial streams preferred/recommended for UL MU communications. …”),
an EHT-modulation and coding scheme (MCS) subfield (FIG. 22, HE-MCS 2213), and
an MCS request sequence identifier (MSI) subfield (FIG. 22, MSI, B20-B22),
the EHT indication subfield indicates that the control subfield is a control field of EHT LA control information (FIGs. 8, 2 and 7 in view of “…The STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 8 may be the same or equivalent to the (HT/VHT/EHT)-STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 3 or FIG. 7 …”),
the number-of-spatial-streams subfield indicates a recommended number of spatial streams (FIGs. 22-24 and the associated text, such as p40, 3rd para, “… the NSS field 2212 may include information on the number of spatial streams preferred/recommended for UL MU communications. …”),
the MSI subfield indicates an MCS request sequence (FIG. 22, MSI, B20-B22).
D1 is silent but D2, in the same field of endeavor of WiFi communication, discloses EHT-MCS subfield indicates a recommended EHT-MCS (page 2142, Section D, 1st para “… Besides, EHT-MCSs should be respectively defined for both SU transmission and MU transmission.”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of D2 above to the control field by D2 to yield a predictable result of identifying a coding method of EHT-MCS according to MPEP 2143(D).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D1 and D2 for the benefit of identifying a coding method of EHT-MCS (page 2142, Section D, 1st para of D2).
D1 in view of D2 is silent but NOH, in the same field of endeavor of data communication with Ethernet, discloses the EHT indication subfield and a high efficiency (HE) indication subfield are a same subfield in the control subfield (“[0147] In one embodiment, two types of EHT NDP announcement frames can be indicated in these announcement frames, as shown in the table of FIG. 24. In particular, a first EHT NDP announcement (NDPA) frame contains the same fields (or subfields) defined for an HE NDP announcement frame, such that the frame can be transparent/interpreted by HE STAs based on a value of B1 regardless of a value of B0. …”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of NOH above to the control field by D1 in view of D2 to yield a predictable result of interpreting the frame by HE STAs based on a given value.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D1 in view of D2 with NOH for the benefit of interpreting the frame by HE STAs based on a given value ([0147] of NOH).
Claim 12 is rejected because it is a claim of generic apparatus that performs the method of claim 1 and has the same subject matter as claim 1.
Claim 20 is rejected because it is a claim of the non-transitory computer-readable medium stores program code that performs the method of claim 1 and has the same subject matter as claim 1.
As to claims 2 and 13, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claims 1 and 12, D2 further discloses: wherein an MCS indicated by the EHT-MCS subfield comprises one or more of the following: 4096-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) (p2137, col. 1, 3rd para “… 4096-QAM has been recommended for EHT to enable a modulated symbol to carry 12 bits.”), binary phase shift keying (BPSK)-dual carrier modulation (DCM) (p2141, 2nd col.,2nd para “… the first symbol after L-SIG should be BPSK modulated in an EHT PPDU”; and p2142, 2nd col., Section D, 2nd para “… EHT may still support dual-carrier modulation (DCM), which enables the same information to be modulated over a pair of subcarriers. …”), and BPSK-DCM-duplication DUP.
As to claims 3 and 14, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claims 1 and 12, D1 further discloses: wherein the method further comprises:
receiving a second message (FIG. 2 (one of response messages) and the associated text), wherein the second message comprises a control field, the control field in the second message comprises a control subfield (the second/response message may have the similar format as the first/request message), the control subfield in the second message comprises one or more of the following fields: an EHT indication subfield (FIG. 8 and the associated text, such as p15, 2nd para “FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a frame structure used in an IEEE 802.11 system. The STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 8 may be the same or equivalent to the (HT/VHT/EHT) -STF, LTF and SIG fields illustrated in FIG. 3 or FIG. 7 …”), a bandwidth indication subfield (p13, 1st para “Specifically, the HE-SIG-A 730 can include information about the following: 1) the DL/UL indicator, field of remaining time BSS colour field 2) indicates a BSS identifier, 3) indicative of the current TXOP period, 4) indications 20, 40. at least one of the bandwidth field 80,160, and 80 in + 80MHz …”), and a resource unit allocation indication subfield (p18, 3rd para from the bottom “RU allocation field 1120 may be included in each user information field”), the bandwidth indication subfield indicates a bandwidth applicable to the recommended EHT-MCS (p13, 1st para “… 5) field to indicate a MCS technique applied to HE-SIG-B, 6) about whether to modulate the indication field of the HE-SIG-B through a double-sub-carrier modulation technique for MCS. …”), and the resource unit allocation indication subfield indicates a resource unit (RU) applicable to the recommended EHT-MCS (p18, 3rd para from the bottom “RU allocation field 1120 may be included in each user information field”); and
the bandwidth indicated by the bandwidth indication subfield is 320 megahertz, and/or the resource unit indicated by the resource unit allocation indication subfield comprises one or more of the following resource units: an MRU comprising a 52-tone RU and a 26-tone RU, an MRU comprising a 106-tone RU and a 26-tone RU, an MRU comprising a 484-tone RU and a 242-tone RU, an MRU comprising a 996-tone RU and a 484-tone RU, an MRU comprising two 996-tone RUs and a 484-tone RU, an MRU comprising three 996-tone RUs, an MRU comprising three 996-tone RUs and a 484-tone RU, and an RU comprising four 996-tone Rus (the parameters selecting is just a design choice according to MPEP 2143(F), Examiner takes an official notice on this statement. For example, US 20220353025 A1 discloses it by disclosing “320 M bandwidth” [0273], “The IEEE 802.11ax protocol specifies that a spectral bandwidth may be divided into a plurality of types of RUs for 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and 160 MHz that include a 26-tone RU, a 52-tone RU, a 106-tone RU, a 242-tone RU (a largest RU in a 20 MHz bandwidth), a 484-tone RU (a largest RU in a 40 MHz bandwidth), a 996-tone RU (a largest RU in an 80 MHz bandwidth), and a 2*996-tone RU (a largest RU in a 160 MHz bandwidth)” [0052]).
As to claims 4 and 15, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claims 3 and 14, D1 further discloses: wherein the control subfield in the first message and the control subfield in the second message each further comprise an unsolicited MCS feedback subfield, and the unsolicited MCS feedback subfield indicates that a message carrying the unsolicited MCS feedback subfield is a solicited feedback message (p39, 4th para “field may be between MCS feedback (MFB) requesting party and MFB responder using FIG. 22. MFB requester can be request comprises MCS of each piece of information feedback of the STA …”);
the first message further comprises an MCS request subfield, and the MCS request subfield indicates that the first message is a message for responding to EHT LA feedback (p39, 4th para “field may be between MCS feedback (MFB) requesting party and MFB responder using FIG. 22. MFB requester can be request comprises MCS of each piece of information feedback of the STA …”); and
the second message further comprises an MCS request subfield, and the MCS request subfield in the second message indicates that the second message is a message for requesting the EHT LA feedback (p39, 4th para “field may be between MCS feedback (MFB) requesting party and MFB responder using FIG. 22. MFB requester can be request comprises MCS of each piece of information feedback of the STA …”).
As to claims 5 and 16, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claims 1 and 12, D1 further discloses: wherein the EHT LA control subfield further comprises one or more of: a bandwidth indication subfield, a resource unit (RU) allocation indication subfield, or a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) parameter subfield, wherein the bandwidth indication subfield indicates a bandwidth applicable to the recommended EHT-MCS, the resource unit allocation indication subfield indicates a resource unit RU applicable to the recommended EHT-MCS, and the PPDU parameter subfield indicates a type of a PPDU for parameter estimation (p18, 3rd para from the bottom “RU allocation field 1120 may be included in each user information field”); or p12, 5th para from the bottom “technical characteristics of HE PPDU illustrated in FIG. 7 may also be applied to EHT PPDU to be newly proposed. For example, technical characteristics for application to HE-SIG may also be applied to EHT-SIG, and technical characteristics of the HE-STF/LTF may also be applied to EHT-SFT/LTF.” in view of the parent claims); and
one or more of the bandwidth indication subfield (p13, 1st para “Specifically, the HE-SIG-A 730 can include information about the following: 1) the DL/UL indicator, field of remaining time BSS colour field 2) indicates a BSS identifier, 3) indicative of the current TXOP period, 4) indications 20, 40. at least one of the bandwidth field 80,160, and 80 in + 80MHz …”), the resource unit allocation indication subfield (p18, 3rd para from the bottom “RU allocation field 1120 may be included in each user information field”), and the PPDU parameter subfield meet the following conditions:
the bandwidth indicated by the bandwidth indication subfield is 320 megahertz (selecting a bandwidth of 320MHz is well known in the art and Examiner takes an official notice on this statement), and the PPDU indicated by the PPDU parameter subfield comprises one or more of the following: an EHT multi-user (MU) PPDU (p13, 2nd para “As described above, may include only the HE-SIG-B 740 in the case for a PPDU of multi-user (MU). Basically, the HE-SIG-A 750 or HE-SIG-B 760 may include at least one receiving STA of resource allocation information”) and an EHT trigger-based (TB) PPDU (FIGs. 9, 10 and 20 and the associated text, such as p6, “FIG. 9 illustrates an example of a trigger frame”); and
the resource unit indicated by the resource unit allocation indication subfield comprises one or more of the following resource units: an MRU comprising a 52-tone RU and a 26-tone RU, an MRU comprising a 106-tone RU and a 26-tone RU, an MRU comprising a 484-tone RU and a 242-tone RU, an MRU comprising a 996-tone RU and a 484-tone RU, an MRU comprising two 996-tone RUs and a 484-tone RU, an MRU comprising three 996-tone RUs, an MRU comprising three 996-tone RUs and a 484-tone RU, and an RU comprising four 996-tone RUs (the parameters selecting is just a design choice according to MPEP 2143(F), Examiner takes an official notice on this statement. For example, US 20220353025 A1 discloses it by disclosing “320 M bandwidth” [0273], “The IEEE 802.11ax protocol specifies that a spectral bandwidth may be divided into a plurality of types of RUs for 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and 160 MHz that include a 26-tone RU, a 52-tone RU, a 106-tone RU, a 242-tone RU (a largest RU in a 20 MHz bandwidth), a 484-tone RU (a largest RU in a 40 MHz bandwidth), a 996-tone RU (a largest RU in an 80 MHz bandwidth), and a 2*996-tone RU (a largest RU in a 160 MHz bandwidth)” [0052]).
As to claims 6 and 17, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claims 5 and 16, D1 further discloses: wherein the control subfield in the first message further comprises an unsolicited MCS feedback subfield, and the unsolicited MCS feedback subfield indicates that a message carrying the unsolicited MCS feedback subfield is an unsolicited feedback message (p39, 4th para “field may be between MCS feedback (MFB) requesting party and MFB responder using FIG. 22. MFB requester can be request comprises MCS of each piece of information feedback of the STA …”).
As to claims 7 and 18, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claims 5 and 16, D1 further discloses: wherein the PPDU parameter subfield further indicates a coding type (p18, 2nd para from the bottom“FIG. 11, the sub field can include a coding type field 1130”), the type of the PPDU (p10, last para “The example shown in FIG. 3, in the IEEE a/g/n/ac standard using the PHY protocol data unit of various types (PPDU). …”) occupies 1 bit, and the coding type occupies 1 bit (using a bit to express a type is a design choice according to MPEP 2143(F)).
As to claims 8 and 19, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claims 7 and 18, D1 further discloses: wherein the PPDU parameter subfield and the MSI subfield are a same subfield in the control subfield (as disclosed by the parent claims).
As to claim 9, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claim 1, D1 further discloses: wherein a number of bits occupied by the number-of-spatial-streams subfield is 3 (p40, 3rd para “… FIG. 22 may also include a field for the NSS spatial streams the user recommended by the STA 2212 …”), and the number-of-spatial-streams indicated by the number of spatial streams subfield is any one of 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, and another reserved number of spatial streams (this is a design choice according to MPEP 2143(F)).
As to claim 10, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claim 1, D1 further discloses: wherein a number of bits occupied by the number-of-spatial-streams subfield is 4, and the number-of-spatial-streams indicated by the number of spatial streams subfield is any one of 1 to 16 (FIG. 22 and the associated text, such as p40, 3rd para “… FIG. 22 may also include a field for the NSS spatial streams the user recommended by the STA 2212 …”; note FIG. 22 shows NSS is a 3 bit subfield, and selecting 4 bit for this subfield is just a design choice according to MPEP 2143(F)).
As to claim 11, D1 in view of D2 and NOH discloses claim 1, D1 further discloses: wherein the control subfield further comprises a differentiation indication subfield, and the differentiation indication subfield indicates that the same subfield is the EHT indication subfield or the HE indication subfield (p12, “… FIG. 7 may also be applied to EHT PPDU to be newly proposed. For example, technical characteristics for application to HE-SIG may also be applied to EHT-SIG, and technical characteristics of the HE-STF/LTF may also be applied to EHT-SFT/LTF.”).
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIANYE WU whose telephone number is (571)270-1665. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 8am-6pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yemane Mesfin can be reached at (571) 272-3927. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JIANYE WU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462