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 7/08/26 have been fully considered but they are not moot due to new ground rejection shown below.
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 9-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LOU (US 20260075464 A1) in view of SEVIN (US 20250047453 A1).
For claim 9, LOU discloses access Point (AP) apparatus (The system shown in FIG. 1C, including eNBs 160(a)-(c), UEs 120(a)-(c)) comprising:
a transmitter configured to transmit a frame for Multi-AP coordination (FIGs 1-27 and the associated text, such as “[0037] … Each of the base stations 114a, 114b may be any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at least one of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, e.g., to facilitate access to one or more communication networks, …” and claim 1 “A method performed by an access point (AP), the method comprising: generating a physical-layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU) for multi-AP coordinated (MAPC) operations in which the AP is a coordinating AP in communication with at least one coordinated AP, …”; note that PPDU is a frame), wherein: the frame includes:
operation mode information including information of Coordinated Beam Forming (BF), and
Coordinated Spatial Reuse (SR) (claim 1, “… wherein the generated PPDU at least in part includes a preamble, comprising: at least one signaling (SIG) field, wherein the at least one SIG field comprises information indicating: (i) … (ix) a capability indication supported by the AP for MAPC transmissions, the capability indication comprising at least one of coordinated beamforming (Co-BF) and coordinated spatial reuse (Co-SR) …”, claim 9 “The method of claim 1, wherein the capability indication comprises a first capability bit that indicates support for Co-BF and a second capability bit that indicates support for Co-SR”), and
an AP Identifier (ID) identifying a second AP apparatus, and the AP apparatus performs the Multi-AP coordination with the second AP apparatus (“[0147] The E-SIG present (sub) field 1003 may indicate that (or whether) the PPDU 900 includes an E-SIG field 1040. The BSS color subfield 1005 may indicate a BSS color and/or ID, such as, for example, a BSS color and/or an ID for a sharing AP. … [0149] … BSS colors and/or BSS IDs for shared APs and/or individual APs not involved in the C-MAP transmission”; note that one APs not involved in the C-MAP is a second AP apparatus).
LOU also discloses Coordinated Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) (“[0116] C-MAP transmissions may refer to concurrent transmissions between multiple APs and multiple STAs. … C-MAP transmissions may include one or more of the following types of transmissions: coordinated OFDMA transmission, coordinated sub-channel transmission, coordinated TDMA transmission and coordinated beamforming and nulling.”), but does not specifically state the C-TDMA information is included in a frame. SEVIN teaches a frame included C-TDMA information (claim 9 “wherein a predetermined value indicating a coordinated time division multiple access is performed is included in a Trigger Type subfield of the Common Info field of the trigger frame.”). OOSA would have been motivated to apply the teaching of SEVIN above to the C-TDMA frame of LOU to yield a predictable result of indicating operation mode.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine LOU and SEVIN for the benefit of indicating operation mode of Multi-AP ([0116] of LOU).
Independent claim 12 is rejected because it is a claim of a method that performed by the AP) apparatus of claim 9 and has the same subject matter.
As to claim 9, LOU in view of SEVIN discloses claim 9, LOU further disclose wherein the frame is transmitted by wireless communication or non-wireless communication ([0034] The methods, apparatuses and systems provided herein are well-suited for communications involving both wired and wireless networks. Wired networks are well-known. …).
Claims 11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LOU (US 20260075464 A1) in view of SEVIN (US 20250047453 A1), further in view of Clause (US 20160173805 A1).
As to claims 11 and 13, LOU in view of SEVIN discloses claims 9 and 12, wherein the station apparatus is configured to receive the frame from the second AP apparatus, and to transmit another frame including a Channel Quality Indication (CQI) (“[0041] As described above, the process 100 enables the system 200 to adapt the QoS parameters for wireless transmission of image frames based on changes in the CQI parameters in the channel 250. …”). OOSA would have been motivated to add CQI parameter of Clause above to the channel parameters included in the frame specified by LOU in view SEVIN to yield a predicable result of providing at least an acceptable level of channel quality.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to OOSA before the effective filing date of the application to combine Clause with LOU and SEVIN for the benefit of providing at least an acceptable level of channel quality ([0036] of Clause).
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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/JIANYE WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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