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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 14-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 03/31/26.
Applicant's submission filed on 03/31/26, has been entered.
Claims 1, 4-6, and 21-26 are pending.
Claims 2-3 and 7-13 have been canceled.
Claims 14-20 have been withdrawn.
Claims 21-26 have been added.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 23 is 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the cited references fail to anticipate or render the claimed subject matter (combined with other limitations claimed in the claimed subject matter) obvious over any of the prior art of record, either alone or in combination. Therefore, when taken as a whole application, and incorporating all the respective limitations, none of the prior art discloses the features as claimed. For instance, Jang (US 20250193853 A1) discloses using correlations based on detected signal. However, Jang does not disclose the correlating based on L-STF/LTF/SIGs as recited in this claim. Consequently, this claim is allowable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Xia (US 20230199844 A1, see also 63265716).
Regarding claim 1, Xia discloses a method, comprising:
performing, by a processor of a station (STA), either of:
detecting preambles in a plurality of narrow bandwidths of a wide bandwidth (STA receives a preamble [par. 0056, ‘716 sld. 1 (p56/s1)], where the previous preamble carries the BW info [p42/s9] and the proposed preamble also carries the BW (e.g., 20Mz of wider BW) [p86/s11]); or
receiving a control frame, wherein a plurality of bits in a User Info field of the control frame are set to indicate a multiple resource unit (MRU) pattern regarding preamble puncturing (The preamble (i.e., control frame) carries MRU info [p56/s1], which includes puncturing channel info [p86/s12]); and
applying, by the processor, the MRU pattern for one or more transmissions or receptions in a transmission opportunity (TXOP) (Tx and Rx (i.e., settings applied) [p87-88/s1, 25]).
Regarding claim 21, Xia discloses everything claimed, as applied above.
Xia further discloses further comprising:
determining, by the processor, a multiple resource unit (MRU) pattern regarding preamble puncturing according to the detected preambles [par. 0086],
wherein each of the detected preambles comprises a legacy short training field (L-STF), a legacy long training field (L-LTF), and a legacy signal field (L-SIG) [par. 0085].
Regarding claim 22, Xia discloses everything claimed, as applied above.
Xia further discloses:
wherein the determining of the MRU pattern is performed by cyclic redundancy check (CRC) checks on the L-SIG fields of the detected preambles [par. 0086, 49-50, where one of ordinary skill in the art would know how to apply CRC checking to the data].
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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 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.
Claims 4-6 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xia as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Cao (US 20220408462 A1).
Regarding claim 4, Xia discloses everything claimed, as applied above.
Although Xia discloses wherein the plurality of bits in the User Info field of the control frame comprises a first bit of a resource unit (RU) Allocation subfield, as discussed above, Xia does not explicitly disclose a PS160 subfield. However, these concepts are well known as disclosed by Cao.
In the same field of endeavor, Cao discloses:
a PS160 subfield [par. 0033].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xia with Cao. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification given the benefit of using trigger frames to solicit transmission of distributed RUs [Cao par. 0002].
Regarding claim 5, Xia and Cao disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Cao further discloses further comprising:
determining, by the processor, the MRU pattern according to the PS160 subfield and the first bit of the RU Allocation subfield in an event that the STA is a non-access point (non-AP) high-efficiency (HE) STA, a non-AP extremely-high-throughput (EHT) STA, or a non-AP STA applied to other non-legacy protocols [par. 0003, 26, 33].
Regarding claim 6, Xia and Cao disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Cao further discloses:
wherein the first bit of the RU Allocation subfield is set to 0 to indicate primary 20 mega-hertz (MHz) channel, primary 40 MHz channel, or primary 80 MHz channel, or is set to 1 to indicate primary 160 MHz channel, two 80 MHz channels, or 320 MHz channel [par. 0033, where one of ordinary skill in the art would know how to indicate the channel based on bit setting].
Regarding claim 26, Xia and Cao disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Cao further discloses:
wherein the PS160 subfield is set to 1 to indicate a 320 mega-hertz (MHz) channel or set to 0 to indicate a primary 20 MHz channel, primary 40 MHz channel, primary 80 MHz channel, or primary 160 MHz channel [par. 0033, where one of ordinary skill in the art would know how to indicate the channel based on bit setting].
Claims 24-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xia as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Ko (US 20250203456 A1).
Regarding claim 24, Xia discloses everything claimed, as applied above.
Although Xia discloses receiving, by the processor, a control frame which comprises a multiple-user request-to-send (MU-RTS), as discussed above, Xia does not explicitly disclose further comprising: other trigger frames that solicit a non-High-Throughput (non-HT) duplicated physical-layer protocol data unit (PPDU) response. However, these concepts are well known as disclosed by Ko.
In the same field of endeavor, Ko discloses further comprising:
other trigger frames that solicit a non-High-Throughput (non-HT) duplicated physical-layer protocol data unit (PPDU) response [par. 0268].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xia with Ko. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification given the benefit of supporting new multimedia applications [Ko par. 0007].
Regarding claim 25, Xia discloses everything claimed, as applied above.
Although Xia discloses receiving or transmitting, by the processor, a management frame, wherein a capability field in a Medium Access Control (MAC) capability element of the management frame is set to indicate support of MRU puncturing for multiple-user request-to-send (MU-RTS), as discussed above, Xia does not explicitly disclose further comprising: other trigger frames that solicit a non-High-Throughput (non-HT) duplicated physical-layer protocol data unit (PPDU) response. However, these concepts are well known as disclosed by Ko.
In the same field of endeavor, Ko discloses further comprising:
other trigger frames that solicit a non-High-Throughput (non-HT) duplicated physical-layer protocol data unit (PPDU) response [par. 0268].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xia with Ko. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification given the benefit of supporting new multimedia applications [Ko par. 0007].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Walter J DiVito whose telephone number is (571)272-2556. The examiner can normally be reached M-R: 8 am - 6 pm (PST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Gary Mui can be reached at 571-270-1420. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WALTER J DIVITO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465
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