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 (IDS)
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12 March 2024 is being considered by the examiner.
Claims 1-9 are pending.
Figures 4 and 5 of the application illustrate the claimed invention.
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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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2021/0266931 A1) in view of Asterjadhi et al. (US 2021/0007168 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 6-9, Kwon et al. discloses a non-transitory storage medium, a method and a communication device capable of establishing a plurality of links in parallel with another communication device, the communication device comprising:
a transmitting unit configured to transmit a request for a TID Traffic identifier) and link assignment ([0017]: “the first-device is a logical non-AP-MLD with which a set of physical non-AP-STAs (stations) are affiliated; the second device is a logical AP-MLD with which a set of physical APs are affiliated and having a set of communications links; the first-device is configured to have a current multi-link association with the second-device; at least one of the non-AP-STAs is configured to transmit a first management frame to the second-device requesting a new single-link association with one of the physical APs affiliated with the second-device; and the first management frame, including a unique identifier identifying an address of the second-device with which the non-AP-STA is currently linked to”) and, the TID indicating a priority of data ([0088]: “Traffic Identifier (TIDs) in IEEE 802.11 specify a set of data traffic categories (e.g. priority port, voice, video, etc.) which can be used to prioritize and/or reduce latency of category specific frames transported within a communications channel over a communication link. For example, frames labeled as high priority and/or low latency can be sent over a communication link with a greater bandwidth and/or less delay.”); and
a control unit configured to, in a case where a first request is accepted (([0078]: “From the AP-MLD’s 102 perspective, if there’s only one communications link that matches with the non-AP-MLD 104-1, then the AP-MLD 102 may respond to the first frame (the request frame) by sending back a second frame. The second frame can be an Association Response frame, in which case a non-AP-STA (e.g. 120-1) that is affiliated with the non-AP-MLD 104-1 on the link is now successfully associated with an AP (e.g., 110-1) that is affiliated with the AP-MLD 102.”); ([0061]: “Success” and “successful” are herein broadly defined to include at least the following: acceptance of any association or reassociation request; permission for frames to be transmitted and received over one or more communications links, affiliation of one or more non-AP or AP devices (e.g. within a logical non-AP-MLD affiliation or logical AP-MLD affiliation), and one or more single-link or multi-link setups between any non-AP device and AP device.”). See figures 1 and 2.
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Kwon et al. fails to teach a control unit configured to, in a case where a first request is accepted and a second request is unaccepted among request transmitted by the transmitting unit, start communication using a first link corresponding to the first request before an assignment of a second link corresponding to the second request is completed.
Asterjadhi et al. in the same field of invention, discloses this feature.
Asterjadhi et al. discloses methods and apparatus, for signaling between an access point (AP) multi-link device (MLD)and a non-AP MLD that support multi-link communication in a wireless local area network (WLAN). A multi-link association may include a first link (referred to as auxiliary links). The signaling may include control information to activate or deactivate auxiliary links dynamically based on communication load, throughput requirements, or quality of service (QoS). The signaling also may include requests, acknowledgements, or negotiation regarding multi-link connections. Furthermore, signaling and timing information may be used to coordinate when auxiliary links are used for communication or when to promote an auxiliary link to another link.” See Abstract and figure 2A.
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For the above reason, it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Asterjadhi et al. with Kwon et al. so for dynamically controlling link connection between the first and second device based the links condition.
Regarding claim 3, Kwon et al. further teaches wherein, in a case where none of the requests transmitted by the transmitting unit is accepted, the control unit does not start communication on any of the plurality of links. ([0085]: “The second frame indicates (e.g. using a statuscode field) that the AP-MLD 102 does not accept the multi-link association request. The AP-MLD 102 may include an indication that the AP-MLD 102 does not accept the multi-link for the non-AP-MLD 104-1.”)
It can be understood that because the request for mapping link is not accepted, the control unit inherently does not start communication on any of the link.
Regarding claim 4, Kwon et al. teaches wherein the request transmitted by the transmitting unit is an Association Request. ([0025]: “wherein the request frame was configured to request an association with the first AP-MLD”).
Regarding claim 5, Kwon et al. teaches wherein the Association Request includes a TID-To-Link Mapping element indicating a TID and link assignment. ([0020]: “the first-device is further configured to, receive a request frame from a third-device that requests a specific Traffic Identifier (TID)-to-link mapping; and transmit a response frame to the third-device to indicate that the requested TID-to-link mapping is accepted.”).
Claim(s) 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US 2021/0266931 A1) in view of Asterjadhi et al. (US 2021/0007168 A1) further in view of WANG et al. (US 2021/0409979 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Kwon et al. in view of Asterjadhi et al. fails to explicitly teach wherein the transmitting unit re-transmits a request for an assignment of the second link after communication using the first link started.
WANG et al. in the same field of invention, teaches ([0003]: “A first station can communicate data with a second station using a transceiver over a communication link. If the first link becomes unavailable, the first and second stations need to wait for the communication link to become available again before the first and second stations can continue. Additionally, or alternatively, the first and second station need to go long association procedures to reestablish their communication.”). See figures 1 and 2.
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It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to re-establish communication link.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant disclosure:
Cariou et al. (US 12,160,830 B2) discloses methods and devices related to initiate power state. A device may identify a request frame received from a non-AP MLD on a first link of a plurality of links, wherein the non-AP MLD comprises a plurality of station devices (STAs) , and wherein the first link is associated with a first STA of the plurality of station device (STAs). The device may cause to send a response frame to the non-AP-MLD on the first link to establish the plurality of links between the device and the non-AP-MLD. The device may determine, based on the request frame, a power save mode associated with each of the STAs of the non-AP-MLD. The device may communicate with the non-AP MLD based on the power save mode.”
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Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRENDA H PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-3135. The examiner can normally be reached 571-272-3135.
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BRENDA H. PHAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2412
/BRENDA H PHAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412