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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 02/23/2024 and 05/09/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements have been considered by the examiner.
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 1-13 are 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, it is unclear as to what device or component is performing the recited method, rendering the scope of the claim indefinite. To be more specific, it is unclear as to what device or component is performing the recited steps of “estimating a compute time…”, “transmitting over a wireless channel…”, “setting a deadline…”, and “applying one or more schemes…”
Regarding claims 2-13, the claims are rejected for depending on claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-13 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Claims 14-25 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Applicant’s independent claims recite setting a deadline by which a resource allocation schedule is to be computed (based on an estimated compute time to compute a resource allocation schedule) for one or more follower wireless access points; and while the resource allocation schedule is being computed, applying one or more schemes over the wireless channel to keep the wireless channel reserved from other uses until the deadline is reached (as disclosed in Paragraphs [0018]-[0023], [0025], and [0027]-[0028] of applicant’s specification, filed 02/23/2024), which is neither taught nor suggested by the prior art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
He et al. (US 2014/0201753 A1) discloses master and slave computing nodes, and allocating computing resources according to processing time.
Chang et al. (US 2017/0070765 A1) discloses master/slave radio nodes and calculating the scheduling time of allocating radio resources.
Aijaz et al. (US 2019/0349986 A1) discloses a wireless controller controlling a primary access point and a secondary access point for computing a schedule.
Yu et al. (US 2021/0410048 A1) discloses a slave AP accepting or declining cooperation request depending on queue status.
Salahuddeen et al. (US 2023/0083390 A1) discloses CPU requirement for MAC scheduler to meet real-time constraints, and master/slave nodes.
Park et al. (US 2023/0328622 A1) discloses a master AP requesting buffer status from a slave AP.
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/BAILOR C HSU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461