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 .
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 1-5, 17-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Cariou et al. (US 2017/0331734).
Regarding claim 1, Cariou teaches an apparatus comprising processing circuitry configured to: detect a reception opportunity of a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) scheduled to be transmitted by a transmitter, wherein the PPDU comprises a preamble and one or more media access control (MAC) PDUs (MPDUs) (i.e., At operation 405 of the method 400, the STA 103 may receive a trigger frame (TF). In some embodiments, the TF may be received from an AP 102, although the scope of embodiments is not limited in this respect. In a non-limiting example, the TF may indicate information to be used by the STA 103 to exchange one or more frames and/or signals with the AP 102 during a transmission opportunity (TXOP). Example frames may include, but are not limited to, MPDUs, PPDUs and/or BA frames [0042], [0111]); decode the preamble of the PPDU (i.e., the STA 103, may decode the received MPDU(s) and/or PPDU(s) [0046], [0111]); detect that reception of the one or more MPDUs has failed (i.e., At operation 410, the STA 103 may receive one or more MAC PDUs (MPDUs) and/or PLCP PDUs (PPDUs), the MPDUs and/or PPDUs encoded in accordance with a first modulation and coding scheme (MCS). At operation 415, the STA 103, may decode the received MPDU(s) and/or PPDU(s) [0046]-[0047]); If the FCS and the decoded FCS do not match, the integrity check may indicate a decoding failure for the MPDU [0059]); and in response to the detecting, prepare a Negative Acknowledgment (NACK) message for transmission to the transmitter (i.e., If the FCS and the decoded FCS match, the integrity check may indicate successful decoding of the MPDU. If the FCS and the decoded FCS do not match, the integrity check may indicate a decoding failure for the MPDU). (see also [0056], [0060], [0072]-[0074], [0083]-[0087], [0104], [0107]).
Regarding claim 3, Cariou further teaches the reason comprises at least one of (i) an aggressive Modulation Coding Scheme (MCS)/Number of Spatial Streams (NSS), (ii) a bursty interference from a conflicted PPDU, incumbent users of the channel or other internal radios, or (iii) a radio not being available (i.e., When the MCS reception margin parameter indicates a first value in which the number of detected bit errors is below the threshold, the AP 102 may select the second MCS as one of the MCSs of the candidate group that is higher than the first MCS [0089]).
Regarding claim 4, Cariou further teaches the NACK message comprises information indicative of existence of the apparatus ([0070]-[0071], [0083]).
Regarding claim 5, Cariou further teaches to decode the preamble of the PPDU comprises: successfully decoding the preamble for a PPDU duration and a station ID (i.e., the STA 103 may perform the one or more of the receive/decode operations to decode one or more MPDUs and/or PPDUs. Embodiments are not limited to performance of the one or more receive/decode operations by the STA 103, however. The AP 102 may use one of more of the receive/decode operations decode PPDUs treceived in the uplink [0056]).
Regarding claim 17, Cariou further teaches wherein the apparatus is a user equipment or one or more processors (i.e., The STA may also include processing circuitry 306 and memory 308 arranged to perform the operations [0030]).
Regarding claim 18, Cariou teaches a method comprising: detecting a reception opportunity of a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) scheduled to be transmitted by a transmitter, wherein the PPDU comprises a preamble and one or more media access control (MAC) PDUs (MPDUs) (i.e., At operation 405 of the method 400, the STA 103 may receive a trigger frame (TF). In some embodiments, the TF may be received from an AP 102, although the scope of embodiments is not limited in this respect. In a non-limiting example, the TF may indicate information to be used by the STA 103 to exchange one or more frames and/or signals with the AP 102 during a transmission opportunity (TXOP). Example frames may include, but are not limited to, MPDUs, PPDUs and/or BA frames [0042], [0111]); decoding the preamble of the PPDU (i.e., the STA 103, may decode the received MPDU(s) and/or PPDU(s) [0046], [0111]); detecting that reception of the one or more MPDUs has failed (i.e., At operation 410, the STA 103 may receive one or more MAC PDUs (MPDUs) and/or PLCP PDUs (PPDUs), the MPDUs and/or PPDUs encoded in accordance with a first modulation and coding scheme (MCS). At operation 415, the STA 103, may decode the received MPDU(s) and/or PPDU(s) [0046]-[0047]); If the FCS and the decoded FCS do not match, the integrity check may indicate a decoding failure for the MPDU [0059]); and in response to the detecting, prepare a Negative Acknowledgment (NACK) message for transmission to the transmitter (i.e., If the FCS and the decoded FCS match, the integrity check may indicate successful decoding of the MPDU. If the FCS and the decoded FCS do not match, the integrity check may indicate a decoding failure for the MPDU). (see also [0056], [0060], [0072]-[0074], [0083]-[0087], [0104], [0107]).
Regarding claim 19, Cariou further teaches the NACK message comprises an indication of a reason of the failed reception (i.e., When the MCS reception margin parameter indicates a third value in which the number of detected bit errors is above the threshold and the integrity check indicates an unsuccessful decoding of the MPDU, the AP 102 may select the second MCS as one of the MCSs of the candidate group that is lower than the first MCS [0089], [0097], [0114]).
Regarding claim 20, Cariou teaches one or more processors configured to perform: detecting a reception opportunity of a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) scheduled to be transmitted by a transmitter, wherein the PPDU comprises a preamble and one or more media access control (MAC) PDUs (MPDUs) (i.e., At operation 405 of the method 400, the STA 103 may receive a trigger frame (TF). In some embodiments, the TF may be received from an AP 102, although the scope of embodiments is not limited in this respect. In a non-limiting example, the TF may indicate information to be used by the STA 103 to exchange one or more frames and/or signals with the AP 102 during a transmission opportunity (TXOP). Example frames may include, but are not limited to, MPDUs, PPDUs and/or BA frames [0042], [0111]); decoding the preamble of the PPDU (i.e., the STA 103, may decode the received MPDU(s) and/or PPDU(s) [0046], [0111]); detecting that reception of the one or more MPDUs has failed (i.e., At operation 410, the STA 103 may receive one or more MAC PDUs (MPDUs) and/or PLCP PDUs (PPDUs), the MPDUs and/or PPDUs encoded in accordance with a first modulation and coding scheme (MCS). At operation 415, the STA 103, may decode the received MPDU(s) and/or PPDU(s) [0046]-[0047]); If the FCS and the decoded FCS do not match, the integrity check may indicate a decoding failure for the MPDU [0059]); and in response to the detecting, prepare a Negative Acknowledgment (NACK) message for transmission to the transmitter (i.e., If the FCS and the decoded FCS match, the integrity check may indicate successful decoding of the MPDU. If the FCS and the decoded FCS do not match, the integrity check may indicate a decoding failure for the MPDU). (see also [0056], [0060], [0072]-[0074], [0083]-[0087], [0104], [0107]).
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 2, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cariou et al. (US 2017/0331734) in view of Ameixieira et al. (US 2018/0184261).
Regarding claim 2, Cariou further teaches all the limitations above except the NACK message comprises an indication of a reason of the failed reception.
However, the preceding limitation is known in the art of communications. Ameixieira teaches After failing to send a message ‘retry’ times, the CMC 730 sends a NACK to the CME entity, indicating the message could not be sent ([0184]), the central entity (e.g., the CMC 730) may act upon an unavailable technology situation in the same manner as entities handling the messages within the mobile APs (e.g., the CME entity), e.g., as described above with respect to the process illustrated in FIG. 8—e.g., dropping the message copy from its queue, sending a NACK to the CME that originated the request, etc. .. For example, a field (or related message) may be incorporated into the NACK messages to indicate the reason for failure to handle the message (e.g., set to “Unreachable (Tech)” to indicate that no technology is available or it could not reach the node for various reasons, including congestion on the selected technology; “Invalid destination” when the destination node is deemed invalid, such as due to error in addressing information, etc.) ([0187]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to have implemented the technique of Ameixieira within the system of Cariou in order to improve reliability of critical and location-aware messages by using multiple technologies and/or multiple networks in a communication network.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cariou et al. (US 2017/0331734) in view of Asterjadhi et al. (US 2024/0154636).
Regarding claim 6, Cariou teaches all the limitations above except wherein the PPDU duration is in a legacy signal (LSIG) field and the station ID is in an ultra-high reliability signal (UHR-SIG) field.
However, the preceding limitation is known in the art of communications. Asterjadhi teaches the preamble 202 may include a legacy portion that itself includes a legacy short training field (L-STF) 206, which may consist of two symbols, a legacy long training field (L-LTF) 208, which may consist of two symbols, and a legacy signal field (L-SIG) 210, which may consist of two symbols ([0072], [0076]). The L-SIG generally enables a receiving device to determine (for example, obtain, select, identify, detect, ascertain, calculate, or compute) a duration of the PDU and to use the determined duration to avoid transmitting on top of the PDU ([0073]). Padding of the initial PPDU may be required if the transition delay is greater than SIFS and the PPDU solicits an immediate response since the immediate response will be generated by the main radio 512. This example may require the peer wireless device 502 to be capable of appending padding to MPDUs contained in the initial PPDU and the wireless device 504 may be an ultra-high reliability (UHR) device as non-UHR devices may not be aware of this requirement of the STA. An AP may not use the AUX-Rx mode if the BSS serves non-UHR STAs as well, while a non-AP STA may use the AUX-Rx mode if the associated UHR AP supports it ([0108]-[0109], [0117]-[0118]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to have implemented the technique of Asterjadhi within the system Cariou in order to serve complementary purposes to balance backward compatibility with advanced performance, particularly in challenging, high-density, or long-range environments.
Claims 7-11, 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cariou et al. (US 2017/0331734) in view of Cherian et al. (US 2020/0014576) in view of Asterjadhi et al. (US 2024/0154636)
Regarding claim 7, Cariou teaches all the limitations above except wherein to prepare a Negative Acknowledgment (NACK) message for transmission to the transmitter comprises: determining, based on the PPDU duration, a timing for sending the NACK message to the transmitter.
However, the preceding limitation is known in the art of communications. Cherian teaches The transmitting STA may receive the NACK message 930, may identify the lost frames, and may queue the lost frames for retransmission during the on-going transmission opportunity (TxOp) or during a subsequent TxOp. Because receiving the NACK message 930, identifying the lost frames, and queueing the lost frames may occur during the on-going data PPDU 915-b transmission, these transmitting STA may prepare the frames for retransmission with very low latency and without delaying the data transmissions. In some examples, the transmitting STA may transmit the retransmission 935 in a subsequent data PPDU 915 transmission to the receiving STA… The receiving STA may contend (i.e., perform a contention procedure) on the control channel 910-c to send an ACK/NACK message. If the ACK/NACK message is not transmitted within a threshold time period (e.g., before a pre-determined or dynamically determined feedback threshold 945) after the start of the data PPDU 915-c transmission on the data channel 905-c, the receiving STA may instead transmit the feedback information on the data channel 905-c ([0119]-[0121]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to have implemented the technique of Cherian within the system of Cariou in order to improve communication throughput while reducing feedback latency in the system, and communicate different information simultaneously via multiple links.
Regarding claim 8, Cariou teaches all the limitations above except wherein to prepare a Negative Acknowledgment (NACK) message for transmission to the transmitter comprises: determining that the station ID matches an ID of the apparatus.
However, the preceding limitation is known in the art of communications. Cherian teaches feedback information may be a positive or negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) message based on whether that receiving STA successfully received information in the corresponding DMS 705,… AP 105-f may transmit indications of one or more STA IDs with the feedback request. As described, the STA IDs may correspond to STAs receiving one or more DMSs 705 in the same MU PPDU as the feedback request… If the first STA failed to successfully receive and decode the DMS 705-a successfully, the first STA may transmit a NACK message to AP 105-f ([0106]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to have implemented the technique of Cherian within the system of Cariou in order to improve communication throughput while reducing feedback latency in the system, and communicate different information simultaneously via multiple links.
Regarding claim 9, Cariou teaches all the limitations above except the NACK message comprises at least one of: one or more reasons for the reception failure of the one or more MPDUs; an interference power; an interference start/end time; a mutual information average signal-to-noisc ratio (SNR); a recommended Modulation Coding Scheme (MCS)/Number of Spatial Streams (NSS); a resounding request; or a presence/stay alive indication.
However, the preceding limitation is known in the art of communications. Cherian teaches If the first STA failed to successfully receive and decode the DMS 705-a successfully, the first STA may transmit a NACK [0106]). This NACK message 930 may indicate any frames that were not successfully decoded by the receiving STA (i.e., lost frames) ([0118]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to have implemented the technique of Cherian within the system of Cariou in order to improve communication throughput while reducing feedback latency in the system, and communicate different information simultaneously via multiple links.
Regarding claim 10, Cariou teaches all the limitations above except wherein the NACK message is a MAC frame type or a physical layer (PHY) header.
However, the preceding limitation is known in the art of communications. Cherian teaches If the first STA failed to successfully receive and decode the DMS 705-a successfully, the first STA may transmit a NACK [0106]). This NACK message 930 may indicate any frames that were not successfully decoded by the receiving STA (i.e., lost frames) ([0094], [0118]-[0119], [0123]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to have implemented the technique of Cherian within the system of Cariou in order to improve communication throughput while reducing feedback latency in the system, and communicate different information simultaneously via multiple links.
Regarding claim 11, Cariou in view of Cherian teaches all the limitations above. Cherian further teaches wherein the PHY header comprises a universal signal (U-SIG) field that is indicative of the NACK message ([0118]-[0119]).
Regarding claim 15, Cariou in view of Cherian teaches all the limitations above. Cherian further teaches the MAC frame type comprises a reserved control frame subtype for NACK (i.e., If the first STA failed to successfully receive and decode the DMS 705-a successfully, the first STA may transmit a NACK [0106]). This NACK message 930 may indicate any frames that were not successfully decoded by the receiving STA (i.e., lost frames) ([0094], [0118]-[0119], [0123])).
Regarding claim 16, Cariou in view of Cherian teaches all the limitations above. Cherian further teaches wherein the MAC frame type comprises a reserved value in control frame extension (i.e., If the first STA failed to successfully receive and decode the DMS 705-a successfully, the first STA may transmit a NACK [0106]). This NACK message 930 may indicate any frames that were not successfully decoded by the receiving STA (i.e., lost frames) ([0094], [0118]-[0119], [0123])).
Claims 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cariou et al. (US 2017/0331734) in view of Cherian et al. (US 2020/0014576) further in view of Asterjadhi et al. (US 2024/0154636).
Regarding claim 12, Cariou in view of Cherian teaches all the limitations above. except the PHY header comprises an ultrahigh reliability signal (UHR-SIG) symbol that includes at least one of: an ID of a receiver; a PPDU fail reason; Signal to Interference Noise Ratio (SINR) report; MCS/NSS recommendations; interference power.
However, the preceding limitation is known in the art of communications. Asterjadhi teaches Each STA 104 may identify, determine, ascertain, or select an AP 102 with which to associate in accordance with the scanning information obtained through the passive or active scans, and to perform authentication and association operations to establish a communication link 106 with the selected AP 102. The AP 102 assigns an association identifier (AID) to the STA 104 at the culmination of the association operations, which the AP 102 uses to track the STA 104 ([0066]). Padding of the initial PPDU may be required if the transition delay is greater than SIFS and the PPDU solicits an immediate response since the immediate response will be generated by the main radio 512. This example may require the peer wireless device 502 to be capable of appending padding to MPDUs contained in the initial PPDU and the wireless device 504 may be an ultra-high reliability (UHR) device as non-UHR devices may not be aware of this requirement of the STA. An AP may not use the AUX-Rx mode if the BSS serves non-UHR STAs as well, while a non-AP STA may use the AUX-Rx mode if the associated UHR AP supports it ([0108]-[0109], [0117]-[0118]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to have implemented the technique of Asterjadhi within the system Cariou and Cherian in order to serve complementary purposes to balance backward compatibility with advanced performance, particularly in challenging, high-density, or long-range environments.
Regarding claim 13, Cariou in view of Cherian further view of Asterjadhi teaches all the limitations above. Cariou further teaches the PPDU fail reason comprises at least one of a general feedback subfield, a fail reason subfield, or a fail reason specific feedback subfield ([0090]).
Regarding claim 14, Cariou in view of Cherian further view of Asterjadhi teaches all the limitations above. Cariou further teaches wherein the fail reason subfield is defined as a bitmap to signal multiple fail reasons ([0090]).
Conclusion
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/JEAN A GELIN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643