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/Amendments
Applicant's arguments filed 5/05/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
For claim 1, Applicant argues that D2 does not teach receiving random access-related information on the first link and performing random access on a different second link (p6, 2nd para from the bottom), and Xu teaches random access selection parameter which is different from the information for performing random access on the second link (p6, last para).
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees. D2 teaches receiving a frame from the first link ([0206] “… The first device 1502 transmits the frame on the first communication link to the second device 1504 …”); the frame includes a profile for each of secondary links ([0206] “… a frame including ... one or more per-link profile elements each indicating discovery information for a corresponding secondary communication link …”), and the profile may include random access parameters ([0137] “In some implementations, the capability information may indicate one or more of … uplink (UL) orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) random access (UORA) parameters, …”). Furthermore, Xu teaches that random access parameters may include wireless channel quality threshold, random access load factor and special random access reason value (p17, 2nd para “… the random access selection parameter comprises at least one of wireless channel quality threshold, random access load factor and special random access reason value.”). The combination of D2 and Xu discloses all the claim limitation of claim 1, including the cited claim limitation. Therefore, Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Applicant’s other arguments are not persuasive because they are based on the arguments of claims.
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 1-2, 4-5, 7-9, 11-14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D2 (US 20210014776) in view of Xu (CN 112738904 A).
For claim 1, D2 discloses a method (FIG. 1 or 15) comprising:
receiving, by a first device (FIGs. 1-18, such as FIG. 1, UE 14 or FIG. 15, UE 1504), random access-related information including information related to at least one candidate link, on a first link among a plurality of links (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0205] FIG. 15 shows a sequence diagram depicting an example multi-link (ML) communication 1500 …, the first device 1502 may be one of the APs 102 and 602 described above with reference to FIGS. 1 and 6A, … The second device 1504 may be one of the STAs 104 and 604 described above with reference to FIGS. 1 and 6B, respectively, and may be part of a STA MLD. … [0206] The first device 1502 generates a frame including ... one or more per-link profile elements each indicating discovery information for a corresponding secondary communication link, and an MLD common element indicating common attributes of the one or more secondary communication links. The first device 1502 transmits the frame on the first communication link to the second device 1504. [0207] The second device 1504 receives the frame, and transmits a ML association request to the first device 1502 …“ and “[0137] In some implementations, the capability information may indicate one or more of … uplink (UL) orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) random access (UORA) parameters, …”); and
based on the random access-related information, performing, by the first device, random access on a second link among the at least one candidate link (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0214] In some implementations, each per-link profile element 1606 further includes one or more operating parameters of a corresponding secondary AP of the one or more secondary APs of the AP MLD. The one or more operating parameters may include at least one of high-throughput (HT) operation, very high-throughput (VHT) operation, high efficiency (HE) operation, or extremely high-throughput (EHT) operation, enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) parameters, multi-user (MU) EDCA parameters, uplink (UL) orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) random access (UORA) parameters, target wait time (TWT) parameters, fast initial link setup (FILS) parameters, or spatial reuse (SR) parameters.”),
D2 is silent but Xu, in the same filed of endeavor of wireless communication, discloses: wherein the information related to the at least one candidate link includes at least one of information indicating the at least one candidate link, load information in the at least one candidate link, access allowability information on the at least one candidate link or an access parameter for the at least one candidate link (p17, 2nd para “… the random access selection parameter comprises at least one of wireless channel quality threshold, random access load factor and special random access reason value.”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of Xu above to the random access-related information to yield a predictable result of performing traffic control.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D2 with Xu for the benefit of performing traffic control (p17, 2nd para of Xu).
Claim 14 is rejected because it is a claim of a generic device that performs the method of claim 1 as the first device and has the same subject matter.
Claim 16 is rejected because it is a claim of a generic device that performs the method of claim 1 as the second device and has the same subject matter.
As to claim 2, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses: the first link corresponds to a primary link before performing random access of the first device (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0215] … each link identifier of the first link identifier and the one or more second link identifier associates one or more traffic identifiers (TIDs) with a respective communication link of the first communication link and the one or more secondary communication links for a block acknowledgement (BA) session between the AP MLD and the STA MLD.”).
As to claim 4, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses: the random access-related information is received from a second device (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0214] In some implementations, each per-link profile element 1606 further includes one or more operating parameters of a corresponding secondary AP of the one or more secondary APs of the AP MLD. The one or more operating parameters may include at least one of high-throughput (HT) operation, very high-throughput (VHT) operation, high efficiency (HE) operation, or extremely high-throughput (EHT) operation, enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) parameters, multi-user (MU) EDCA parameters, uplink (UL) orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) random access (UORA) parameters, target wait time (TWT) parameters, fast initial link setup (FILS) parameters, or spatial reuse (SR) parameters.”).
As to claim 5, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 4, D2 further discloses: the first device is a non-access point multi-link device (non-AP MLD), the second device is an AP MLD (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as FIG. 14B, flowchart 1410 in view of [0199], AP MLD and STA MLD, with STA MLD being non-AP MLD).
As to claim 7, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses: the at least one candidate link includes at least one link other than the first link (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as FIGs. 14A-14D in view of “[0201] … the process 1430 is performed after associating the STA MLD with the AP MLD in block 1424 of FIG. 14C. At block 1432, the STA MLD establishes a common security context between a first medium access control service access point (MAC-SAP) endpoint of the AP MLD and a second MAC-SAP endpoint of the STA MLD, wherein each of the first and second MAC-SAP endpoints is used to communicate over the first communication link and the one or more secondary communication links”. It would have been an “obvious to try” to select one of secondary communication links as a secondary link according to MPEP 2143(E)).
As to claim 8, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses: the random access includes at least one of:
probe request frame transmission from the first device to a second device (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0006] …, the directed probe request may request one or more of discovery information, operating parameters, capabilities, or an operating class for each AP of the AP MLD. … );
trigger frame reception from the second device (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0006] …, the directed probe request may request one or more of discovery information, operating parameters, capabilities, or an operating class for each AP of the AP MLD. … “; note that “probe request” is a “trigger frame”);
trigger based physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) transmission (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0041] FIG. 4 shows an example physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) protocol data unit (PPDU) usable for communications between an AP and a number of STAs.”); or
short packet transmission from the first device to the second device (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as “[0006] …, the directed probe request may request one or more of discovery information, operating parameters, capabilities, or an operating class for each AP of the AP MLD. …”’ note that “probe request” is a “short packet”).
As to claim 9, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses: the random access is performed based on one spatial stream selected among a plurality of spatial streams on the second link (FIGs. 1-26 and the associated text, such as FIGs. 14A-14D in view of “[0201] … the process 1430 is performed after associating the STA MLD with the AP MLD in block 1424 of FIG. 14C. At block 1432, the STA MLD establishes a common security context between a first medium access control service access point (MAC-SAP) endpoint of the AP MLD and a second MAC-SAP endpoint of the STA MLD, wherein each of the first and second MAC-SAP endpoints is used to communicate over the first communication link and the one or more secondary communication links”).
As to claim 11 D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, further discloses: after the random access, the second link is configured as a primary link (configuring the second link as a primary is a design incentive/choice and would have been obvious to OOSA according to MPEP 2143(F)).
As to claim 12, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, D2 further discloses: each of the plurality of links corresponds to a frequency unit in a predetermined size, all or part of the plurality of links are included in one same frequency band or are included in different frequency bands (selecting a frequency unit in a predetermined size for the second link in different ways for different links is a design incentive/choice and would have been obvious to OOSA according to MPEP 2143(F)).
As to claim 13, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, Xu further discloses: a number of the at least one candidate link is determined based on at least one of a number of stations (STA); a number of STAs associated during a predetermined time; or a parameter for a traffic amount for at least one of at least one link supporting random access or at least one link not supporting random access (p17, 2nd para “… the random access selection parameter comprises at least one of wireless channel quality threshold, random access load factor and special random access reason value.” and selecting one link supporting random access or not supporting random access is a design incentive/choice and would have been obvious to OOSA according to MPEP 2143(F)).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D2 (US 20210014776) in view of Xu (CN 112738904 A), further in view of Patilab (US 20210321243 A1).
As to claim 3, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, and is silent but Patilab, in the same field of wireless communication, discloses: the random access-related information is received through at least one of a beacon frame, a probe response frame or an unsolicited broadcast probe response frame (UBPRF) (FIGs. 1, 10-34 and associated text, such as FIG. 10C and “[0150] At block 1022, the first AP receives an indication of a critical update for the respective secondary communication link from the respective secondary AP of the AP MLD associated with the respective secondary communication link. At block 1024, the first AP transmits an unsolicited broadcast probe response frame carrying a complete set of operating parameters for the respective secondary communication link. ….). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of Patilab above to the multi-links by D2 in view of Xu to yield a predictable result of obtaining “critical update” for the secondary communication link.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D2 in view Xu with Patilabe for the benefit of obtaining “critical update” for the secondary communication link ([0150] of Patilabe).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D2 (US 20210014776) in view of Xu (CN 112738904 A), further in view of Viger (US 20220322426 A1).
As to claim 10, D2 in view of Xu discloses claim 1, and is silent but Viger, in the same filed of endeavor of wireless communication, discloses: the random access includes at least one of null data packet frame request poll (NFRP) reception on the second link or transmission of a frame responding to the NFRP on the second link (“[0065] when it is determined a random access to the RU tone sets, obtaining a scale factor from a range scaling field in the NFRP trigger frame” and selecting NFRP reception on the second link or transmission of a frame responding to the NFRP on the second link is a design incentive/choice and would have been obvious to OOSA according to MPEP 2143(F)). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of Viger above to the random access by D2 in view of Xu to yield a predictable result of “obtaining a scale factor”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine D2 in view Xu with Viger for the benefit of obtaining ““obtaining a scale factor” ([0065] of Viger).
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
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