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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Examiner acknowledges Applicant's amendment filed on July 6, 2026. Claims 1, 8, and 16 are amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending consideration.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claim 1-20 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claims 1-10 and 12-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo et al (EP 4 152 799 A1) in view of Yin et al. (US 2012/0127869 A1).
1. Regarding claim 1, Guo teaches a system (Fig. 4A and 4B Paragraph [0063]-[0067]) comprising:
a first access point (AP) (Paragraph [0064] first access point) configured to transmit a null-data packet announcement (NDPA) frame to trigger a sounding process for a first set of one or more stations of the first AP (Paragraphs [0064] to [0066] announcement frame; NDPA frame), wherein the NDPA is configured to trigger a second AP to transmit sounding information (Paragraph [0066] trigger the second access point to send an NDP frame);
wherein both the first AP and the second AP are configured to transmit sounding
information to the first set of one or more stations of the first AP, each station of the first set of one or more stations of the first AP to measure the downlink (DL) channel from each of the first AP and the second AP based on the sounding information to form a composite channel (Paragraph [0066] and [0095] multi-AP coordinated transmission; joint transmission; measure channel state information of combined channel and generates a report corresponding to joint transmission);
wherein the sounding information comprises one of a joint-null-data packet (NDP) frame or sequential NDP frames (Paragraph [0016] simultaneously sending or sequential sending);
wherein the first AP is configured to transmit a beamforming report poll (BFRP) frame for the composite channel (Paragraph [0113] beamforming report poll frame); and
wherein the first AP is configured to receive, from the each station of the first set of the one or more stations receiving the BFRP frame, a trigger-based physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) to provide channel-state information (CSI) based on the respective composite channel of the each station of the first set of the one or more stations (Paragraph [0108] and [0113] beamforming report; trigger frame; measure channel state information of a combined channel).
Guo does not explicitly disclose to obtain individual DL channel measurements, the individual DL channel measurement comprising a first DL channel measurement from the first AP and a second DL channel measurement from the second AP, and to form a composite channel by concatenating the individual DL channel measurements in a predetermined order.
Yin teaches to obtain individual DL channel measurements, the individual DL channel measurement comprising a first DL channel measurement from the first AP and a second DL channel measurement from the second AP, and to form a composite channel by concatenating the individual DL channel measurements in a predetermined order (Fig. 5 Paragraph [0024] and [0095] concatenate multiple channel state information, CSI, reports; one composite channel).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide to obtain individual DL channel measurements, the individual DL channel measurement comprising a first DL channel measurement from the first AP and a second DL channel measurement from the second AP, and to form a composite channel by concatenating the individual DL channel measurements in a predetermined order as taught by Yin in the system of Guo for an aggregated CSI report see abstract of Yin.
2. Regarding claim 2, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein the first AP is configured to transmit a second NDPA frame to trigger a second sounding process for the first set of one or more stations of the first AP and to transmit a second BFRP frame responsive to the second sounding process (Guo, Paragraphs [0068] and [0069] second NDPA without involving the second AP), wherein the
second NDPA frame does not trigger the second AP to transmit sounding information, wherein the NDPA frame and the second NDPA frame are configured to include identical values for one or more medium access control (MAC) addresses and for one or more association identifiers (AIDs) corresponding to one or more stations of the first set of one or more stations of the first AP (Guo, Paragraphs [0068] and [0069] carry an association identifier), and wherein the BFRP frame and the second BFRP frame are configured to include identical values for one or more MAC addresses and one or more AIDs corresponding to one or more stations of the first set of one or more stations of the first AP (Guo, Paragraphs [0068] and [0069] carry an association identifier).
3. Regarding claim 3, Guo in view of Yin teaches, wherein the NDPA comprises information indicative of at least one of: a type of the sounding process, a type of a channel state information (CSI) requested or information on beamforming configuration, timing or duration (Guo, Paragraph [0067] CSI).
4. Regarding claim 4, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein the BFRP frame (Guo, Fig. 8) includes transmission parameters corresponding to one or more stations of the first set of one or more stations, wherein the transmission parameters are configured to allow the second AP to decode a channel state information (CSI) from the trigger-based PPDU, the data indicative of at least one of:
a modulation and coding scheme, a spatial stream allocation or a resource unit of the one or more stations and wherein each station of the first set of one or more stations transmits a trigger-based PPDU with the CSI according to the transmission parameters and the second AP is configured to receive the trigger-based PPDU from the first set of one or more stations to decode the CSI (Guo, Figure 8, Paragraph [0108] and [0114] MCS, spatial stream allocation, resource unit).
5. Regarding claim 5, Guo in view of Yin teaches, wherein the trigger-based PPDU transmitted by each station provides the CSI including at least one of: beamforming report addressed to the first AP using a medium access control (MAC) address of the first AP, a beamforming matrix index, a signal-to- noise ratio, or a metric of a performance of a modulation scheme (Guo, Paragraph [0096] beamforming matrix).
6. Regarding claim 6, Guo in view of Yin teaches, wherein the NDPA frame includes a station information field with an association identifier (AID) value and wherein the second AP is configured to transmit sounding information responsive to the AID value (Guo, Paragraph [0072] implementation 3, AID used to identify second AP).
7. Regarding claim 7, Guo in view of Yin teaches, wherein the second AP synchronizes with the first AP, based on the NDPA and at least one of: a timing and parameters of the sounding process, a carrier-frequency offset (CFO) or a sampling-frequency offset (SFO) of the second AP with respect to the first AP (Guo, Paragraph [0079]).
8. Regarding claim 8, Guo teaches a system (Fig 4A and 4B) comprising:
a second AP configured to transmit a null-data packet announcement (NDPA) frame to a second set of one or more stations within a basic service set (BSS) of the second AP (Paragraphs [0055] and [0064] announcement frame; coordinated beamforming), the NDPA comprising a field to trigger a first AP to transmit a null-data packet (NDP) frame (Paragraph [0066] EHT NDPA frame triggers the second access point to send an NDP frame);
wherein the first AP and the second AP are configured to transmit sounding information
to the second set of one or more stations of the second AP through at least one of a joint-NDP frame or sequential NDP frames (Paragraph [0095] coordinated beamforming CF transmission; channel measurement according to the received NDP frame; measure channel stat information and generates a beamforming report); and
wherein the second AP is configured to transmit one or more beamforming report poll
(BFRP) frames to trigger feedback comprising channel-state information (CSI) from the second set of one or more stations (Paragraph [0113] first access point; trigger frame; beamforming report pool trigger), based on a channel (Paragraph [0100] coordinated beamforming transmission; BFR carries information representing CSI).
Guo does not explicitly disclose wherein the second set of one or more stations is configured to obtain individual DL channel measurement from the sounding information, the individual DL channel measurements comprising respective DL channel measurements from the first AP and the second AP , and to form a composite channel by concatenating the individual DL channel measurements in a predetermined order.
Yin teaches wherein the second set of one or more stations is configured to obtain individual DL channel measurement from the sounding information, the individual DL channel measurements comprising respective DL channel measurements from the first AP and the second AP, and to form a composite channel by concatenating the individual DL channel measurements in a predetermined order. (Fig. 5 Paragraph [0024] and [0095] concatenate multiple channel state information, CSI, reports; one composite channel).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide wherein the second set of one or more stations is configured to obtain individual DL channel measurement from the sounding information, the individual DL channel measurements comprising respective DL channel measurements from the first AP and the second AP , and to form a composite channel by concatenating the individual DL channel measurements in a predetermined order. as taught by Yin in the system of Guo for an aggregated CSI report see abstract of Yin.
9. Regarding claim 9, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein the field of the NDPA frame comprises an association identifier (AID) having a predetermined value to trigger the first AP to prepare for transmission of the NDP frame (Guo, Paragraph [0072] implementation 3, AID used to identify second AP).
10. Regarding claim 10, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein the NDPA frame transmitted by the second AP is configured to indicate to the second set of one or more stations the type of CSI to feedback, wherein the one or more BFRP frames are configured to specify for each station of the second set of one or more stations transmission parameters to transmit a trigger-based physical layer protocol data unit (TB-PPDU) comprising the CSI (Guo, Paragraphs [0067] and [0114] type of CSI feedback; indicate transmission parameters).
11. Regarding claim 12, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein the second AP is configured to receive from each station of the second set of one or more stations receiving the one or more BFRP frames a trigger-based physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) to provide channel-state information (CSI) based on the downlink channel and wherein the second set of one or more stations of the second AP transmit (Guo, Paragraph [0100] coordinated beamforming transmission; BFR carries information representing CSI),
in response to the one or more BFRP frames including one or more parameters, the trigger-based PPDU comprising a compressed beamforming report (CBR) including one or more measurements of the downlink channel, wherein the trigger-based PPDU is transmitted according to the transmission parameters specified in the BFRP (Paragraphs [0067] and [0114] type of CSI feedback; indicate transmission parameters).
12. Regarding claim 13, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein the NDPA frame and the one or more BFRP frames each include a first medium access control (MAC) address and a first association identifier (AID) to address one or more stations of the second set of one or more stations and wherein the second AP is configured to include the first MAC address and the first AID in each of a second NDPA frame and a second BFRP frame to address the one or more stations of the second set of one or more stations (Guo, Paragraphs [0068] and [0069] carry an association identifier);
wherein the second NDPA frame does not trigger the first AP to transmit a second NDP frame (Guo, Paragraphs [0068] and [0069] carry an association identifier).
13. Regarding claim 14, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein transmission parameters specified in the BFRP for the TB PPDU are configured for the first AP to decode transmissions from the second set of one or more stations; and wherein the first AP is configured to receive a trigger-based physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) from each station of the second set of one or more stations according to the transmission parameters specified in the BFRP (Guo, Figure 8, Paragraph [0108] and [0114] MCS, spatial stream allocation, resource unit).
14. Regarding claim 15, Guo in view of Yin teaches wherein the second AP is configured to:
wherein the second AP forwards the CSI from at least one station of the second set of one or more stations to the first AP (Guo, Paragraph [0066] and [0095] multi-AP coordinated transmission; joint transmission; measure channel state information of combined channel and generates a report corresponding to joint transmission).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo et al (EP 4 152 799 A1) in view of Yin et al. (US 2012/0127869 A1) in further view of Li et al. (US 2020/0403680).
15. Regarding claim 11, Guo in view of Yin does not explicitly disclose wherein the NDP frame transmitted by the first AP indicates a BSS color in a preamble corresponding to the BSS of the second AP.
Li teaches wherein the NDP frame transmitted by the first AP indicates a BSS color in a preamble corresponding to the BSS of the second AP (Paragraph [0116] BSS color).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide wherein the NDP frame transmitted by the first AP indicates a BSS color in a preamble corresponding to the BSS of the second AP as taught by Li in the system of Guo in view of Yin for coordinated beamforming see paragraph [0116] of Li.
Claims 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo et al (EP 4 152 799 A1) in view of Yin et al. (US 2012/0127869 A1) in view of Pan et al. (US 2023/0090009 A1).
16. Regarding claim 16, Guo teaches a system comprising:
a first access point (AP) configured to transmit an null-data packet
announcement (NDPA) frame to solicit an uplink triggered NDP (T-NDP) frame from a first set of one or more stations of the first AP, the NDPA frame comprising a field to indicate to a second AP to prepare for receiving transmission of the T-NDP frame, the NDPA frame identifying one or more parameters for the transmission of the T-NDP frame (Paragraph [0066] and [0095] multi-AP coordinated transmission; joint transmission; measure channel state information of combined channel and generates a report corresponding to joint transmission);
wherein the first AP and the second AP are configured to receive the T-NDP frame from the first set of one or more stations of the first AP; and wherein the first AP and the second AP are configured to estimate respective uplink channels based at least on the T-NDP frame (Paragraph [0066] and [0095] multi-AP coordinated transmission; joint transmission; measure channel state information of combined channel and generates a report corresponding to joint transmission);
wherein the first AP and the second AP are configured to transmit sounding information
to the second set of one or more stations of the second AP through at least one of a joint-NDP frame or sequential NDP frames (Paragraph [0095] coordinated beamforming CF transmission; channel measurement according to the received NDP frame; measure channel stat information and generates a beamforming report).
Guo does not explicitly disclose each station of the first set of one or more stations to measure a respective downlink (DL) channel from each of the first AP and the second AP based on the sounding information, and to form a composite channel by concatenating individual DL channel measurements in predetermined order.
Yin teaches each station of the first set of one or more stations to measure a respective downlink (DL) channel from each of the first AP and the second AP based on the sounding information, and to form a composite channel by concatenating individual DL channel measurements in predetermined order (Fig. 5 Paragraph [0024] and [0095] concatenate multiple channel state information, CSI, reports; one composite channel).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide each station of the first set of one or more stations to measure a respective downlink (DL) channel from each of the first AP and the second AP based on the sounding information, and to form a composite channel by concatenating individual DL channel measurements in predetermined order as taught by Yin in the system of Guo for an aggregated CSI report see abstract of Yin.
Guo in view of Yin does not explicitly disclose implicit channel sounding on a NDP frame.
Pan teaches implicit channel sounding (Pan, Paragraph [0130]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide implicit channel sounding as taught by Pan in the system of Guo in view of Yin for following the 802.11 standard see Paragraph [0130] of Pan.
17. Regarding claim 17, Guo in view of Yin in view of Pan teaches wherein the implicit-NDPA frame further comprises parameters for the T-NDP, the parameters including at least one of: a bandwidth, a number of long training fields (LTFs), a length of an LTF, a guard interval, a spatial-stream position, a number of spatial streams or an allocation of resource units (Guo, Figure 8).
18. Regarding claim 18, Guo in view of Yin in view of Pan teaches wherein the first set of one or more stations estimate their respective carrier frequency offsets (CFOs) and sampling frequency offsets (SFOs) relative to the first AP based at least on the data on the first AP from the implicit-NDPA frame (Guo, Paragraph [0079]).
19. Regarding claim 19, Guo in view of Yin in view of Pan teaches wherein the first AP and the second AP exchange their respective estimates of uplink channels along with a coefficient to map the respective estimates of uplink channels to one or more downlink channels (Guo, Paragraph [0100] coordinated beamforming transmission; BFR carries information representing CSI).
20. Regarding claim 20, Guo in view of Yin in view of Pan teaches, wherein one or more medium access control (MAC) addresses and one or more association identifiers (AIDs) used by the first AP in the implicit-NDPA frame to address the first set of one or more stations are identical to one or more MAC addresses and one or more AIDs used by the first AP in a second NDPA frame to address the first set of one or more stations, wherein the second NDPA frame does not address the second AP (Guo, Paragraphs [0068] and [0069] second NDPA without involving the second AP).
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 DIANE LEE LO whose telephone number is (571)270-1952. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 am - 5 pm.
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/DIANE L LO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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