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 statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 03/14/2024 was filed before the mailing date of this office action. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 1-4, 7-8 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by US-PGPUB No. 2024/0298173 A1 to Asterjadhi et al. (hereinafter “Asterjadhi”)
Regarding claim 1:
Asterjadhi discloses:
A communications device (p-45: “a wireless AP 102”) comprising:
a controller configured to generate a frame (¶07: “The wireless communication device includes … one or more processors configured … to: generate a frame comprising an identifier (ID) of a security key, a packet number (PN), and an integrity check, ”) including a Media Access Control (MAC) header (¶139: “wherein generating the frame includes: encrypting one or more bits included in a medium access control (MAC) header of the frame,”) and a security encapsulation for MAC header protection (see Fig. 15, Header Protection 1502), wherein the security encapsulation comprises packet number (PN) information (¶82: “The HDR PRO field may include an indication of the packet number (PN) associated with the MAC header.”, see Fig. 15, “PN”), key identification (ID) information (¶82: “The HDR PRO may also include an indication of the key ID of the key used for encrypting the encrypted portions of the MAC header.”, see Fig. 15, “Key ID”), and message integrity check (MIC) information (¶82: “The HDR PRO may also include an indication of a MIC for the MAC header.”, see Fig. 15, “MIC”); and
a transceiver (see Fig. 19, TMTR/RCVR 1922) configured to transmit the frame (¶178: “… generation includes computing the integrity check based at least on the security key; and transmit, via the at least one transceiver, the frame.”) to a second communications device (see Fig. 19, STA 104).
Regarding claim 2:
Asterjadhi discloses:
The communications device of claim 1, wherein the frame is one of a unicast data frame and a unicast management frame (¶25: “an individually addressed quality of service (QoS) data frame or management frame.”).
Regarding claim 3:
Asterjadhi discloses:
The communications device of claim 2, wherein the communications device comprises a wireless multi-link device (MLD) (¶45: “AP 102 shown in FIG. 1 can represent … multi-link APs.”), wherein the second communications device comprises a second wireless MLD (see Fig. 19, STA 104m, and ¶93: “Wireless STA 104m is equipped with N.sub.sta,m antennas 1952ma through 1952mu, …”), and wherein the transceiver comprises a wireless transceiver configured to transmit the frame to the second wireless MLD through a wireless link between the wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD (see Fig. 19, Wireless Transceiver 1922a and Wireless Transceiver 1952ma).
Regarding claim 4:
Asterjadhi discloses:
The communications device of claim 2, wherein the controller is further configured to generate the frame including the MAC header (see Fig. 11, MAC Header), the security encapsulation for MAC header protection (see Fig. 11, MIC), a frame body (see Fig. 11, Frame Body), and a frame check sequence (FCS) field (see Fig. 11, FCS).
Regarding claim 7:
Asterjadhi discloses:
The communications device of claim 4, wherein the security encapsulation is located after a Galois/Counter Mode Protection (GCMP) header of the frame (¶82: “a HDR PRO field 1502 may be included before or after a Galois/counter mode protocol (GCMP) header 1504 of the MPDU.”).
Regarding claim 8:
Asterjadhi discloses:
The communications device of claim 4, wherein the security encapsulation is located right after the MAC header (see Fig. 15, HDR PRO 1502 comes right after “MAC Header”).
Regarding claim 14:
Asterjadhi discloses:
A wireless multi-link device (MLD) comprising:
a controller configured to generate a frame (¶07: “The wireless communication device includes … one or more processors configured … to: generate a frame comprising an identifier (ID) of a security key, a packet number (PN), and an integrity check, ”) including a Media Access Control (MAC) header (¶139: “wherein generating the frame includes: encrypting one or more bits included in a medium access control (MAC) header of the frame,”) and a security encapsulation for MAC header protection (see Fig. 15, Header Protection 1502), wherein the security encapsulation comprises packet number (PN) information (¶82: “The HDR PRO field may include an indication of the packet number (PN) associated with the MAC header.”, see Fig. 15, “PN”), key identification (ID) information (¶82: “The HDR PRO may also include an indication of the key ID of the key used for encrypting the encrypted portions of the MAC header.”, see Fig. 15, “Key ID”), and message integrity check (MIC) information (¶82: “The HDR PRO may also include an indication of a MIC for the MAC header.”, see Fig. 15, “MIC”); and
a wireless transceiver (see Fig. 19, TMTR/RCVR 1922) configured to transmit the frame to a second wireless MLD (see Fig. 19, STA 104, ¶178: “… generation includes computing the integrity check based at least on the security key; and transmit, via the at least one transceiver, the frame.”) through a wireless link between the wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD, wherein the wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD are compatible with an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 protocol (¶45: “… the WLAN 100 can be a network implementing at least one of the IEEE 802.11 family of wireless communication protocol standards ... The WLAN 100 may include numerous wireless communication devices such as a wireless AP 102 and multiple wireless STAs 104.”).
Regarding claim 15:
Asterjadhi discloses:
The wireless MLD of claim 14, wherein the wireless MLD comprises a wireless access point (AP) MLD (see Fig. 19, Wireless AP 102) or a non-AP station (STA) MLD.
Regarding claims 16-19:
Claims 16-18 and 19 recite substantially the same limitations as claims 1-3 and 7, respectively, in the form of a method performing the respective limitations. Therefore, they are rejected by the same rationale.
Regarding claim 20:
Asterjadhi discloses:
The method of claim 16, wherein the first communications device or the second communications device is compatible with an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 protocol (¶45: “… the WLAN 100 can be a network implementing at least one of the IEEE 802.11 family of wireless communication protocol standards ... The WLAN 100 may include numerous wireless communication devices such as a wireless AP 102 and multiple wireless STAs 104.”).
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 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi, and further in view of US-PGPUB No. 2019/0319738 A1 to Ahn et al. (hereinafter “Ahn”)
Regarding claim 5:
Asterjadhi discloses the communications device of claim 4, but does not explicitly teach the following limitation taught by Ahn:
wherein the frame is included in an Aggregate MAC Protocol Data Unit (A-MPDU) subframe with a MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU) delimiter (Ahn, ¶91: “… the A-MPDU subframe containing the MPDU delimiter … consists of … an Action frame …”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Asterjadhi to incorporate the functionality of the wireless communication method to include an action frame in an A-MPDU subframe containing a MPDU delimiter, as disclosed by Ahn, such modification provides robustness, allowing a receiver to parse, synchronize, and recover individual MPDUs even if other parts of the aggregated frame are corrupted.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi, Ahn, and further in view of US-PGPUB No. 2016/0374081 A1 to Asterjadhi et al. (hereinafter “Asterjadhi-2016”)
Regarding claim 6:
The combination of Asterjadhi and Ahn discloses the communications device of claim 5, but does not explicitly teach the following limitation taught by Asterjadhi-2016:
wherein the MPDU delimiter indicates whether the frame has security encapsulation for header protection or not (Asterjadhi-2016, ¶80: “… indicators in the MPDU delimiter may be used to indicate presence or absence of one or more fields in each of the MPDU that follow the MPDU delimiter.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of the combination of Asterjadhi and Ahn to incorporate the functionality of the method to implement indicators in the MPDU delimiter to indicate presence or absence of one or more fields in the MPDU that follow the MPDU delimiter, as disclosed by Asterjadhi-2016, such modification provides several key advantages, primarily focused on improving efficiency, reducing overhead, and enhancing robustness in wireless networks.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi, and further in view of US-PGPUB No. 2016/0337783 A1 to Seok
Regarding claim 9:
Asterjadhi discloses the communications device of claim 4, but does not explicitly teach the following limitation taught by Seok:
wherein a transmitter address (TA) of the frame is used to configure a Nonce for calculating the MIC information (Seok, ¶222: “MIC (Message Integrity Code) may be formed using … Nonce,”, ¶248: “… the Nonce illustrated in FIG. 21 may be configured according to the Address 2 field of a short MAC header.”, ¶204: “… TA address field (i.e., Address 2 field) …”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Asterjadhi to incorporate the functionality of the method to form MIC using a Nonce configured according to a TA address field, as disclosed by Seok, such modification provides the advantage of ensuring uniqueness of the MAC across different senders and sessions, which prevents replay attacks and protects against key-stream reuse vulnerabilities in wireless networks.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi, and further in view of US-PGPUB No. 2020/0213933 A1 to Patil et al. (hereinafter “Patil”)
Regarding claim 10:
Asterjadhi discloses the communications device of claim 2, but does not explicitly teach the following limitation taught by Patil:
wherein the MAC header comprises a redefined reserved bit for indicating that the security encapsulation is carried in the frame (Patil, ¶193: “… the AP may repurpose a first reserved bit to indicate that the PPDU carries a beacon frame, … the AP may include an indication within the type/subtype field of the MAC header ...”, see Fig. 8, the beacon frame comprises “Timestamp” and “Sequence #” which is a security encapsulation).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Asterjadhi to incorporate the functionality of the method to repurpose a first reserved bit and include an indication within the type/subtype field of the MAC header to indicate the PPDU carries a beacon frame, which comprises a timestamp and sequence number, as disclosed by Patil, such modification allows receiving devices to immediately distinguish beacon frames from data frames without fully parsing the packet, reducing the processing overhead on the receiver.
Claims 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi, and further in view of US-PGPUB No. 2020/0245137 A1 to Chitrakar et al. (hereinafter “Chitrakar”)
Regarding claim 11:
Asterjadhi discloses the communications device of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach the following limitation taught by Chitrakar:
wherein a header-protection transient pairwise key (HTPK) is negotiated for all setup links between the communications device and the second communications device (Chitrakar, ¶171: “… the STA creates a hash value of its WID by using the Temporal Key (TK′) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK … negotiated between the AP and the STA.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Asterjadhi to incorporate the functionality of the method to negotiate a pairwise temporal (transient) key between the AP and the STA, as disclosed by Chitrakar, such modification provides secure, individualized encryption for unicast traffic by creating a unique, temporary session key for every client connection, preventing one user from decrypting another's data.
Regarding claim 12:
The combination of Asterjadhi and Chitrakar discloses:
The communications device of claim 11, wherein separate PN spaces are used for different setup links between the communications device and the second communications device (Chitrakar, ¶176: “The AP maintains a unique PN for every secret Key that it negotiates for transmission of secure WUR PPDUs and makes sure that for a given secret Key, the PN is never repeated during the transmission of WUR PPDUs.”).
The same motivation which is applied to claim 11 with respect to Chitrakar applies to claim 12.
Regarding claim 13:
The combination of Asterjadhi and Chirakar discloses:
The communications device of claim 11, wherein the HPTK is used as the pairwise transient key for controlling frame protection (Chitrakar, ¶166-169: “a hash value is created for each of the RA of the addressed STAs by using the Temporal Key (TK) portion of the pairwise secret Key PTK or W-PTK negotiated between the AP and each STA. … Each of the RA field of the unsecure multicast WUR frame is replaced with the corresponding computed hash values 2414, 2422 . . . 2424, and the security bit within the Frame Control field 2412 is set to 1.”)
The same motivation which is applied to claim 11 with respect to Chitrakar applies to claim 13.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Aio et al. (US-PGPUB No. 2025/0056316 A1)- disclosed a wireless communication device comprising communication control circuitry configured to control transmission, to a second another wireless communication device.
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/MATTHIAS HABTEGEORGIS/Examiner, Art Unit 2491