DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-20 are pending for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/30/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claims Objections
Claim 1, 10, and 19 are objected due to following informalities:
- In claims 1 and 10 (line 1), the term “TB” should be spelled out at their first occurrences.
- In claim 19 (line 4), the term “by the STA from to” should be changed to – by the STA to.
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.
Claims 6 and 15 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
In claim 6 (line 2) and claim 15 (line 4), it is unclear how the first NDP is received with respect to SIFS ?
Claim Rejections - 35 USC §102
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3, 6, 10-12, 15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yu (US 2016/0204960 A1), hereafter referred as Yu.
Regarding claim 1:
Yu discloses a method of non-TB sounding, the method comprising:
sending, by a first access point (AP) to a station (STA), a null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame (transmitting, by transmitting device Tx, a null NDPA, to receiving devices RX1 [0107]) including a first indication indicating a multi-user (MU) channel state information (CSI) feedback (FB) type (including feedback type information, e.g., first indication, in a sounding method for multi-user transmission [0008-0009], wherein feedback information includes average signal-to-noise ratio {SNR} of each subchannel [0109]);
sending, by the first AP to the STA, a first null data packet (NDP) (transmitting, by transmitting device Tx, NDP frame [0107]; and
receiving, by the first AP from the STA, a CSI report frame based on the MU CSI FB (receiving, by transmitting device TX, a channel feedback {CFB} frame [0107] including feedback information according a feedback type indicated by feedback type information [0009]).
Regarding claim 2:
Yu discloses all limitations of claim 1.
Yu further discloses the first indication is indicated via one or more subfields in a STA info field of the NDPA frame (feedback type information in “STA INFO 1” field of NDPA frame, Fig.15).
Regarding claim 3:
Yu discloses all limitations of claim 2.
Yu further discloses the one or more subfields include a Feedback Type And Ng subfield and a Codebook Size subfield (more subfields include “Feedback Type and Ng” and “CODEBOOK information”, which indicates size of codebook entries, Fig.15 and [0136]).
Regarding claim 6:
Yu discloses all limitations of claim 1.
Yu further discloses the first NDP is a sent short interframe space (SIFS) time unit after sending the NDPA frame (feedback type information in “STA INFO 1” field of NDPA frame, Fig.15).
Regarding claim 10:
Claim 10 is rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claim 1 above, except that claim 10] is recited in a method claim from a station.
Regarding claims 11, 12, and 15:
Claims 11, 12, 15 are rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claims 2, 3, 6 above, respectively, except that claims 11, 12, and 15 are recited in a method claim from a station.
Regarding claim 20:Claim 20 is rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claim 1 above, except that claim 10 is in a device claim format, wherein Yu [in claim 20] discloses an apparatus (wireless device, element 1 in Fig1) comprising: at least one processor (baseband processor, element 10 in Fig1); and at least one non-transitory machine-readable medium storing executable instructions (memory, element 40 in Fig1) which when executed by the at least one processor configure the apparatus to perform claimed functionalities.
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 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 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 non-obviousness.
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 4-5 and 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yu, as applied to claims 3 and 10, respectively, and further in view of Lim et al. (US 2024/0306199 A1), hereafter referred as Lim.
Regarding claim 4:
Yu discloses all limitations of claim 3.
Yu further discloses subfield is associated with the number of bits [0136].
However, Yu does not further disclose the first indication is indicated via a bit combination of the one or more subfields.
Lim, from the same field of endeavor, teaches the first indication is indicated via a bit combination of the one or more subfields (2 bits of Feedback Type and Ng and 1 bit of Code Book, Fig. 14(d)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time before the claimed invention was filed to indicate subfields via a bit combination of subfields; thus enabling a flexible sounding process by using different bit combinations.
Regarding claim 5:
Yu in view of Lim discloses all limitations of claim 4.
Yu does not, while Lim further teaches the bit combination comprises any one of:
setting bit 25 (B25) and bit 26 (B26) of the Feedback Type And Ng subfield subfields respectively to: 0,1 (setting B25 and B26 of Feedback Type And Ng subfields to “0, Reserved” [0206]);
setting B25 and the B26 of the Feedback Type And Ng subfield and bit 28 (B28) of the Codebook Size subfield respectively to: 0, 1, 1 (setting B25 and B26 of Feedback Type And Ng subfields, and B28 of Codebook Size to subfields to “0, Reserved, Reserved” [0206];
setting the B25, the B26 and the B28 respectively to: 0, 0, 1;
setting the B25, the B26 and the B28 respectively to: 1, 0, 0; and
setting the B25, the B26 and the B28 respectively to: 1, 0, 1 (setting B25 and B26 of Feedback Type And Ng subfield subfields to “1, 1, 0” [0206].
It is known in the art that the reserved bit can be assigned with a value of “0” or “1” to determine different meanings or indications. As a result, Lim does teach all bits settings listed above.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time before the claimed invention was filed to set bits of Feedback Type And Ng subfield, and bit of Codebook Size subfield, to different bit combinations including “0” and “1”; thus enabling the determination of different transmission modes {SU or MU} or channel quality information {CQI} – Lim [0208]
Regarding claims 13-14:
Claim 13-14 are rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claims 4-5 above, respectively, except that claims 13-14 are recited in a method claim from a station.
Claims 7-9 and 16-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yu, as applied to claims 1 and 10 above, and further in view of Jiang et al. (US2021/0044333 A1), hereafter referred as Jiang.
Regarding claim 7:
Yu discloses all limitations of claim 1.
Yu does not further disclose the NDPA frame includes a second indication indicating a joint sounding among the first AP and a second AP, wherein the joint sounding indicates that a second NDP from the second AP is to be transmitted to the STA concurrently with the first NDP.
Jiang, from the same field of endeavor, teaches the NDPA frame includes a second indication indicating a joint sounding among the first AP and a second AP (NDPA frame indicates Joint Transmission {JT} between two APs for channel sounding [0016]) wherein the joint sounding indicates that a second NDP from the second AP is to be transmitted to the STA concurrently with the first NDP (NDP1 is to be transmitted concurrently with a second null data packet (NDP2) from the AP2 [0019]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time before the claimed invention was filed to indicate a joint sounding among the first AP and a second AP in a non-TB sounding method; thus allowing APs to design beamforming vectors for the station after the sounding process – Jiang [0011]
Regarding claim 8:
Yu in view of Jiang discloses all limitations of claim 7.
Yu does not, while Jiang further discloses the second indication is indicated via at least one bit in the NDPA frame (STAT info field in NDPA frame with defined bit [0016]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time before the claimed invention was filed to indicate a subfield via a bit; thus defining data structure for transmission and reception.
Regarding claim 9:
Yu in view of Jiang discloses all limitations of claim 7.
Yu does not, while Jiang further teaches the second indication is indicated in a common info field of the NDPA frame (JT indicated in common info field of NDPA frame [0016]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time before the claimed invention was filed to indicate the second indication in a common field; thus ensuring effective and reliable transmission of data across APs.
Regarding claims 16-18:
Claims 16-18 are rejected for substantially same reason as applied to claims 7-9 above, respectively, except that claims 16-18 are recited in a device claim format.
Regarding claim 19:
Yu in view of Jiang discloses all limitations of claim 17.
Yu does not, while Jiang further teaches receiving, by the STAT form the second AP, the second NDP concurrently with the first NDP (receiving, by STAT, from AP2, NDP2, which is transmitted concurrently with NDP1 [0019]); and
sending, by the STAT, to the second AP, the CSI report frame (both of master AP and slave AP may obtain a CSI report from STA, e.g., corresponding to STAT sends to slave AP CSI report frame [0011]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time before the claimed invention was filed to send a CSI report included in a frame to AP2; thus facilitating AP2 to also determine effective and reliable transmission of data across APs.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lim’92 (US-20250184092-A1 [0184, 0191]), and
Guo (US-20190081748-A1 [0061, 0075, 0086]),
are all cited to show that receiving a CSI report frame based on the MU CSI FB in a non-trigger based sounding including the transmissions of NDPA and NDP frames – would allow APs to design beamforming vectors for the station – similar to the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CAMQUYEN THAI whose telephone number is (571)270-7245. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:30pm.
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/C.Q.T./
/AYMAN A ABAZA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465
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