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 .
The Examiner thanks the Applicant for the well-prepared amendment. The Examiner appreciates the Applicant’s effort to carefully analyze the Office action, and make appropriate arguments and amendments.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-10 and 12 responded on May 05, 2026 are pending, claims 1-4, 10 and 12 are amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 10 and 12 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.
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 6, filed May 05, 2026, with respect to claims 3-4 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objection of claims 3-4 has been withdrawn.
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, 3-5, 7-10 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seok (US 9,712,297 B2, hereinafter "Seok") in view of Hart et al. (IEEE 802.11-21/0247r1, released on Feb 2021, hereinafter "Hart").
Regarding claim 1, Seok discloses a method comprising:
transmitting, by a first station (STA), a first Physical layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) including a trigger frame to at least one second STA (Seok, Col. 10 line 60-62 and Col. 12 line 24-26 A transmitter STA (i.e. first STA) may transmit a Request To Send (RTS) frame (i.e. trigger frame) to a destination STA (i.e. second STA) before transmitting an HEW PPDU; If an RTS/CTS frame is transmitted with the DSSS PPDU format, a channel bandwidth at which the RTS/CTS frame is transmitted); and
receiving, by the first STA, a second PPDU based on the trigger frame from at least one of the at least one second STA (Seok, Col. 10 line 64-67 and Col. 12 line 24-26 A transmission bandwidth of the HEW PPDU may be determined using a bandwidth signal through RTS/CTS exchange between the transmitter STA and the destination STA; If an RTS/CTS frame is transmitted with the DSSS PPDU format, a channel bandwidth at which the RTS/CTS frame is transmitted),
wherein the trigger frame includes information indicating presence of first bandwidth information and second bandwidth information (Seok, Col. 12 line 57-60 A flag value ‘DYN_BANDWIDTH_IN_NON_HT’ is included in B6 of the SERVICE field, and indicates whether a dynamic channel bandwidth signal is used through RTS/CTS),
wherein the first bandwidth information is included in a service field of a data field of the first PPDU (Seok, Col. 12 line 60-64 it implies that a DATA frame of an HEW PPDU can be transmitted with a channel bandwidth less than the full channel bandwidth of an RTS first transmitted by the transmitter STA), and
wherein the trigger frame is included in a physical layer service data unit (PSDU) of the data field of the first PPDU (Seok, Col. 11 line 53-57 a PSDU transmitted by the STA1, one PSDU is transmitted to the STA2 by using the lowermost 20 MHz channel, and at the same time, another PSDU is transmitted to an STA3 by using a 20 MHz channel thereon).
Seok discloses wherein the first bandwidth information indicates a bandwidth for the first PPDU but does not explicitly disclose the second bandwidth information indicates a bandwidth for the second PPDU.
Hart from the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the first bandwidth information indicates a bandwidth for the first PPDU and the second bandwidth information indicates a bandwidth for the second PPDU (Hart, Slide 3 Dynamic bandwidth (320 MHz bandwidth conveyed in RTS and CTS) and Dynamic bandwidth and/or dynamic preamble puncturing and slide 4 "RTS" and "CTS" must be able to convey 320 MHz bandwidth; and possibly puncturing info for 80/160M PPDUs).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified communication between AP and STA disclosed by Seok and dynamic bandwidth allocation disclosed by Hart with a motivation to make this modification in order to provide dynamic bandwidth (Hart, Slide 4).
Regarding claim 3, Seok does not explicitly disclose based on the first STA supporting a bandwidth equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value and the scrambling sequence and the service field including channel bandwidth information, a transmission vector (TXVECTOR) parameter, in the trigger frame, a transmitter address (TA) field of the trigger frame is configured as a bandwidth signaling TA,
the bandwidth signaling TA corresponds to the information indicating presence of the
first bandwidth information.
Hart from the same field of endeavor discloses based on the first STA supporting a bandwidth equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value and the scrambling sequence and the service field including channel bandwidth information, a transmission vector (TXVECTOR) parameter, in the trigger frame, a transmitter address (TA) field of the trigger frame is configured as a bandwidth signaling TA, the bandwidth signaling TA corresponds to the information indicating presence of the first bandwidth information (Hart, slide 2 In an RTS/PS-Poll/CF-End/NDPA frame transmitted by an EHT STA in a non-HT duplicate format with bandwidth greater than 160 MHz to another EHT ST A, the TBD field in the SERVICE field carries the TXVECTOR parameter CH_BANDWIDTH_IN_NON_HT as in Table 36-1 (TXVECTOR and RXVECTOR parameters) and the TA field is a bandwidth signaling TA).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified communication between AP and STA disclosed by Seok and dynamic bandwidth allocation disclosed by Hart with a motivation to make this modification in order to provide dynamic bandwidth (Hart, Slide 4).
Regarding claim 4, Seok does not explicitly disclose based on the first STA supporting a bandwidth less than a predetermined threshold value and the scrambling sequence including channel bandwidth information, a TXVECTOR parameter, in the trigger frame, a TA field of the trigger frame is configured as a bandwidth signaling TA,
the bandwidth signaling TA corresponds to the information indicating presence of the first bandwidth information.
Hart from the same field of endeavor discloses based on the first STA supporting a bandwidth less than a predetermined threshold value and the scrambling sequence including channel bandwidth information, a TXVECTOR parameter, in the trigger frame, a TA field of the trigger frame is configured as a bandwidth signaling TA, the bandwidth signaling TA corresponds to the information indicating presence of the first bandwidth information (Hart, slide 2 In an RTS/PS-Poll/CF-End/NDPA frame transmitted by an EHT STA in a non-HT duplicate format with bandwidth greater than 160 MHz to another EHT STA, the TBD field in the SERVICE field carries the TXVECTOR parameter CH_BANDWIDTH_IN_NON_HT as in Table 36-1 (TXVECTOR and RXVECTOR parameters) and the TA field is a bandwidth signaling TA and Slide 3 indicating Dynamic preamble puncturing and dynamic bandwidth (Signal the preamble puncturing mode in RTS and CTS)).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified communication between AP and STA disclosed by Seok and dynamic bandwidth allocation disclosed by Hart with a motivation to make this modification in order to provide dynamic bandwidth (Hart, Slide 4).
Regarding claim 5, Seok discloses the first PPDU is based on a non-high throughput (non-HT) format or a non-HT duplicate format (Seok, Col. 7 line 53-55 L-STF, L-LTF, L-SIG, and HEW-SIGA are generated using 64 FFT and are transmitted in a duplicated manner two times in the 40 MHz channel).
Regarding claim 7, Seok discloses a frequency position of the second bandwidth is included in a frequency position of the first bandwidth (Seok, claim 6 the radio frequency module to transmit, when a second type of acknowledgement is requested, a block acknowledgement over the operating bandwidth).
Regarding claim 8, Seok discloses a size of the second bandwidth is equal to or less than a size of the first bandwidth (Seok, Col. 11 line 7-12 the RTS frame through the 40 MHz channel but receives the CTS frame as a response only in the
20 MHz channel, a transmission bandwidth of an HEW PPDU may be less than or equal to a channel bandwidth in which a response is received using the CTS frame).
Regarding claim 9, Seok discloses the first STA is an access point (AP),
each of the at least one second STA is a non-AP STA (Seok, Col. 3 line 13-14 The HEW system may include an HEW Station (STA) and an HEW Access Point (AP)).
Regarding claims 10 and 12, these claims recite "a first station (STA) device" and "a second station (STA) device" that disclose similar steps as recited by the method of claims 1, thus are rejected with the same rationale applied against claims 1 as presented above.
Claim 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seok (US 9,712,297 B2, hereinafter "Seok") in view of Hart et al. (IEEE 802.11-21/0247r1, released on Feb 2021, hereinafter "Hart") as applied to claim above, and further in view of Liu et al. (US 12,395,385 A1, hereinafter "Liu").
Regarding claim 2, Seok does not explicitly disclose the first bandwidth information is indicated based on first 7 bits of a scrambling sequence of the first PPDU or first 7 bits of the scrambling sequence and B7 of the service field, and the first 7 bits of the scrambling sequence corresponds to first 7 bits, B0 to B6, of the service field.
Liu from the same field of endeavor discloses the first bandwidth information is indicated based on first 7 bits of a scrambling sequence of the first PPDU or first 7 bits of the scrambling sequence and B7 of the service field, and the first 7 bits of the scrambling sequence corresponds to first 7 bits, B0 to B6, of the service field (Liu, Col. 20 line 47-54 The first bit sequence is shown as B0 to B6 in the service field in Table 2. The first bit sequence is set to 0 before the data is scrambled. 9 bits in the service field other than the first 7 bits are set as parity check bits in the signal field. Specifically, for uplink transmission, the 9 bits may be set as parity check bits of the U-SIG, and for downlink transmission, the 9 bits may be set as parity check bits of the SIG-B).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have to include the teachings of Liu’s sequence into Seok’s communication between AP and STA process as modified by Hart with a motivation to make this modification in order to increase peak throughput and improve the network throughput without increasing the overhead of the service field (Liu, Col. 4 line 39-40).
Claim 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seok (US 9,712,297 B2, hereinafter "Seok") in view of Hart et al. (IEEE 802.11-21/0247r1, released on Feb 2021, hereinafter "Hart") as applied to claim above, and further in view of Lou et al. (US 2025/0048428 A1, Provisional application No. 63/168,035, filed on Mar.30, 2021 hereinafter "Lou").
Regarding claim 6, Seok in view of Hart does not explicitly disclose the second bandwidth information is indicated based on an uplink bandwidth (UL BW) subfield of a common information field of the trigger frame, or the UL BW subfield and an uplink bandwidth extension (UL Bandwidth Extension) subfield of a special user information field of the trigger frame.
Lou from the same field of endeavor discloses the second bandwidth information is indicated based on an uplink bandwidth (UL BW) subfield of a common information field of the trigger frame, or the UL BW subfield and an uplink bandwidth extension (UL Bandwidth Extension) subfield of a special user information field of the trigger frame (Lou, [0146-0147] several equations characterizing the non-AP STAs behavior to the NFRP trigger frame are functions of the UL bandwidth indication in the common information field; The UL bandwidth subfield may only signal a bandwidth of up to 160 MHz and a bandwidth extension subfield is proposed in the special User information field to signal 320 MHz).
It would have been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have to include the teachings of Lou’s system for triggering frame into Seok’s communication between AP and STA process as modified by Hart with a motivation to make this modification in order to increase peak throughput and improve efficiency of the IEEE 802.11 networks (Lou, [0088]).
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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/LUNA WEISSBERGER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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