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 .
Claim Status
This office action is in response to the communication(s) filed on 04/02/2026.
Claim(s) 1-21 is/are currently presenting for examination.
Claim(s) 1 and 11 is/are independent claim(s).
Claim(s) 1-4, 11-14, and 21 is/are rejected.
Claim(s) 5-10, and 15-20 is/are objected to.
This action has been made FINAL.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 04/02/2026 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 21 is 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.
As per claim 21, the claim contains the statement “wherein the active link includes a combination of links having a highest throughput from among link combinations supportable by the electronic device"; however, the statement is unclear and vague. Does this statement mean that the active link is included in the combination of links having a highest throughput from among link combinations supportable by the electronic device?
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-4, 11, 13-14, and 21 s/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US_20180206190_A1_Cherian in view of US_20220337338_A1_Homchaudhuri.
Regarding claim 1, Cherian discloses an electronic device comprising: at least one communication circuit supporting wireless local area network (LAN) communication; memory, comprising one or more storage media, storing instructions;, and at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one communication circuit and the memory (Cherian figure 8), wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to: set up multiple links to an external electronic device using the at least one communication circuit (Cherian figures 1-3); configure, at least one link among the multiple links to be an active link using the at least one communication circuit (Cherian paragraph 59, “…the AP 105-a may determine which wireless links 205 should be active or inactive based on channel conditions associated with the wireless links 205…”); configure at least one other link among the multiple links to be an inactive link using the at least one communication circuit (Cherian paragraph 59, “…the AP 105-a may determine which wireless links 205 should be active or inactive based on channel conditions associated with the wireless links 205…”, and paragraph 50, “Transceiver 835 may communicate bi-directionally, via one or more antennas, wired, or wireless links…”); perform communication with the external electronic device a-using the at least one communication circuit to which the active link is assigned (Cherian figure 13, element 1320, paragraph 136, and paragraph 50, “Transceiver 835 may communicate bi-directionally, via one or more antennas, wired, or wireless links…”); determine to perform link switching based on a radio signal state of the active link (Cherian figure 13, elements 1325-1330); switch the active link assigned to the at least one communication circuit to be in an inactive state (Cherian figure 13, elements 1330, paragraph 138, “…return the wireless link to the inactive state based at least in part on the identified channel conditions”); check a radio signal state of the inactive link (Cherian paragraph 59, “…the AP 105-a may determine which wireless links 205 should be active or inactive based on channel conditions associated with the wireless links 205…”); based on the radio signal states of the active link and the inactive link, reconfigure the active link and the inactive link (Cherian figure 13, elements 1325-1330); and perform communication with the external electronic device via the reconfigured active link (Cherian figures 2, 13, and paragraph 138, communication over the updated set of wireless links), but does not explicitly discloses switch the active link assigned to the at least one communication circuit to be in an inactive state; assign the inactive link to the at least one communication circuit; check the radio signal state of the inactive link using the at least one communication circuit to which the inactive link is assigned, perform communication with the external electronic device using the at least one communication circuit to which the reconfigured active link is assigned.
Homchaudhuri discloses assign the inactive link to the at least one communication circuit (Homchaudhuri figures 2 and 7, paragraph 50, “…If the STA 115-a is connected to the AP 105-a with a single link, the STA 115-a is operating in MLSR mode…”, paragraph 52, “…if the single link that is being used begins to fail to meet one or more of the requirements, the STA 115-a may probe the other link to determine if the STA 115-a should switch to that link…”. In MLSR mode, all associated links use the same transceiver); check the radio signal state of the inactive link using the at least one communication circuit to which the inactive link is assigned (Homchaudhuri figure 7, step 710-715, , paragraphs 52, 96, the condition of the active link will be monitored ), perform communication with the external electronic device using the at least one communication circuit to which the reconfigured active link is assigned (Homchaudhuri figure 2, paragraph 50).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Homchaudhuri’s the mobile station can operate in MLSR mode in Cherian’s system for balancing between power use and traffic latency (Homchaudhuri paragraph 66). This method for improving the system of Cherian was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Homchaudhuri. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Cherian and Homchaudhuri to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Regarding claim 3, Cherian and Homchaudhuri disclose the electronic device of claim 1, and Cherian further discloses wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, further cause the electronic device to: configure, to be the active link, at least one link among the multiple links, which is used for setting up the multiple links (Cherian figure 13, elements 1310, anchor wireless link); additionally configure, to be the active link, at least one random link among multiple links, which is not used for setting up the multiple links (Cherian figure 13, elements 1315-1320, the one or more wireless links will be activated for data transmission); and configure, to be the inactive link, at least one link among multiple links, which is not configured to be the active link from among the multiple links (Cherian figure 13, element 1330, some of the wireless links in active state will return to inactive state based on the identified channel conditions).
Regarding claim 4, Cherian and Homchaudhuri disclose the electronic device of claim 3, and Cherian further discloses wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, further cause the electronic device to: based on completion of the setting up of the multiple links, check the radio signal states of the active link and the inactive link (Cherian figure 13, element 1325, and paragraph 59, “…the AP 105-a may determine which wireless links 205 should be active or inactive based on channel conditions associated with the wireless links 205…”); and based on the radio signal states of the active link and the inactive link, configure, to be the active link, at least one link among the multiple links (Cherian, figure 13, elements 1315-1320, the one or more wireless links will be activated for data transmission, and paragraph 59, “…the AP 105-a may determine which wireless links 205 should be active or inactive based on channel conditions associated with the wireless links 205…”), and configure at least one other link to be the inactive link (Cherian figure 13, element 1330, some of the wireless links in active state will return to inactive state based on the identified channel conditions).
Regarding claim 11, Cherian and Homchaudhuri disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 1.
Regarding claim 13, Cherian and Homchaudhuri disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 3.
Regarding claim 14, Cherian and Homchaudhuri disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 4.
Regarding claim 21, Cherian and Homchaudhuri disclose the electronic device of claim 1, and Cherian further discloses wherein the active link includes a combination of links having a highest throughput from among link combinations supportable by the electronic device (Cherian paragraph 53, “Such multi-link aggregation may provide multiple benefits to WLAN 200. For example, multi-link aggregation may improve user-perceived throughput (UPT) ( e.g., by quickly flushing per-user transmit queues). Similarly, multilink aggregation may improve throughput for WLAN 200 by improving utilization of available channels ( e.g., by increasing trunking gains). That is, multi-link aggregation may increase spectral utilization and may increase the bandwidth-time product…”).
Claim(s) 2 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US_20180206190_A1_Cherian in view of US_20220337338_A1_Homchaudhuri and US_20170054490_A1_Zeng.
Regarding claim 2, Cherian and Homchaudhuri disclose the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, further cause the electronic device to: configure, to be the active link, at least one link among the multiple links (Cherian figure 13 element 1330, paragraph 138, “At 1330 the first wireless device may determine whether to maintain the wireless link in the active state or return the wireless link to the inactive state based at least in part on the identified channel conditions”); and configure, to be the inactive link, at least one link among multiple links (Cherian figure 13 element 1330, paragraph 138, “At 1330 the first wireless device may determine whether to maintain the wireless link in the active state or return the wireless link to the inactive state based at least in part on the identified channel conditions”), which is not configured as the active link, but does not disclose configure the active link based on a number of communication circuits.
Zeng discloses configure the active link based on a number of communication circuits (Zeng paragraph 76, “…the number of parallel links based on… the number of transceivers available…”).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Zeng’s the number of parallel links based on the number of transceivers available in Cherian and Homchaudhuri’s system to perform multi-link communication according to the device’s capability. This method for improving the system of Cherian and Homchaudhuri was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Zeng. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Cherian, Homchaudhuri and Zeng to obtain the invention as specified in claim 2.
Regarding claim 12, Cherian, Homchaudhuri and Zeng disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 2.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-10, and 15-20 is/are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The reference US_20220322145_A1_MONAJEMI, teaches based on the collected traffic load data, an active link alternation from the first to the second link by the MLD client responsive to receiving the report may be detected. One or more methods for BSS load report management may then be applied to mitigate future active link alternation (MONAJEMI figures 2 and 3).
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.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached at (571)272-8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/W.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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