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 .
The preliminary amendment filed 2/16/24 has been entered.
Claims 1-10 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS statements filed to date have been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kwon et al., US 2015/0358904, (“Kwon”).
Independent Claims
Regarding claim 1, Kwon teaches “A wireless apparatus (Fig. 1, WLAN device 1 (aka STA1)) comprising:
circuitry (see, e.g., baseband processor 10) configured to:
determine a threshold used for determining a usage state of a frequency channel, the determining the threshold comprising setting the threshold to a first value when a first priority that is a priority of a frame to be transmitted is a first priority level and setting the threshold to a second value higher than the first value when the first priority is a second priority level higher than the first priority level (Fig. 11, steps S1100, S1110; paragraph nos. 0109, 0110; paragraph no. 0109, “when the first station STA1 intends to transmit a frame, the first station STA1 may identify the characteristic of the data included in the frame (S1100) and may set the CCA threshold on the basis of the characteristic of the data (S1110) … As shown in the following Table 2, the first station STA1 may classify the characteristic of the data into delay sensitive data (e.g., VoIP data, data associated with a video conference, data associated with wireless docking, etc.) and delay insensitive data (e.g., data associated with a background, data transmitted in a best effort scheme, etc.)”; paragraph no. 0110, “When the characteristic of the data included in the frame is the delay sensitive data, the first station STA1 may set the CCA threshold to a value greater than the default value of the CCA threshold. On the contrary, when the characteristic of the data included in the frame is the delay insensitive data, the first station STA1 may set the CCA threshold to a value less than or equal to the default value of the CCA threshold”; the claimed “a first priority level” reads on a lower priority level associated with the delay insensitive data and the claimed “a second priority level” reads on a higher priority level associated with the delay sensitive data); and
determine the usage state of the frequency channel based on a comparison between reception power of a frame detected on the frequency channel by carrier sense and the threshold” (Fig. 11, step S1120; paragraph no. 0112, “The first station STA1 may perform a CCA operation based on the set CCA threshold. When a channel is determined to be in an idle state by the CCA operation, the first station STA1 may transmit a frame (S1120)”; see also, paragraph no. 0083 which describes the particulars of the CCA operation, “a first station STA1 may determine an occupancy status (that is, a busy state or an idle state) of a channel on the basis of a clear channel assessment (CCA) operation. The first station STA1 may determine the channel to be in a busy state upon receiving a frame having a signal strength greater than a CCA threshold and may determine the channel to be in an idle state upon receiving a frame having a signal strength less than or equal to the CCA threshold”).
Regarding independent claim 10, this independent claim is a corresponding method claim of the apparatus claim 1 and recites similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 1 applies with equal force to this independent claim.
Dependent Claims
Regarding claim 9, Kwon teaches “wherein the circuitry is further configured to set transmission power for transmitting the frame to be transmitted to a power level corresponding to the determined threshold” (paragraph no. 0095, e.g., first three lines).
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon in view of Yasukawa et al., US 2019/0200375, (“Yasukawa”).
Kwon teaches “wherein the circuitry is further configured to set transmission power for transmitting the frame to be transmitted to a first power level” (see Fig. 7, step S700) but not “when the first priority is the first priority level, and set the transmission power to a second power level higher than the first power level when the first priority is the second priority level” as recited in claim 8.
Yasukawa teaches that a UE transmits a frame with a higher priority (priority Y) with higher power versus a frame with a lower priority (priority X). The lower priority frame is transmitted at a lower power, see Fig. 6 and paragraph nos. 0079-0081. Note that in Fig. 6, power scaling of the lower priority frame (priority X) may be performed such that the power level C is used for the low priority frame in order that the combined power level (A+C) of the higher and lower priority frames does not exceed the maximum transmission power of the UE.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Kwon by incorporating the teachings of Yasukawa to enable the UE to perform improved transmission power control in which transmission of data with high priority is preferentially performed when simultaneous transmission with carriers different from each other occurs, as suggested by Yasukawa in paragraph no. 0078. In addition, the modification would increase the reliability of the data transmission of the transmitting UE since higher transmission power of the higher priority data is used, thereby making it more likely that the receiving UE would receive the higher priority data transmission.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding claim 2, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein the detected frame includes identification information that identifies a basic service set (BSS), the wireless apparatus belongs to a first BSS, and the determining the threshold comprises:
setting the threshold to a third value less than the first value when the identification information indicates the first BSS,
setting the threshold to the first value when the identification information indicates a second BSS different from the first BSS and the first priority is the first priority level, and
setting the threshold to the second value when the identification information indicates the second BSS and the first priority is the second priority level.” Dependent claims 3-4 depend from claim 2.
Regarding claim 5, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “wherein the circuitry is further configured to determine whether a network allocation vector (NAV) is set for the frequency channel and determines whether the NAV is set by a wireless station belonging to a basic service set (BSS) to which the wireless apparatus belongs when the NAV is set, and the determining the threshold comprises:
setting the threshold to a third value less than the first value when the NAV is set by a wireless station belonging to the BSS,
setting the threshold to the first value when the NAV is not set by a wireless station belonging to the BSS and the first priority is the first priority level, and
setting the threshold to the second value when the NAV is not set by a wireless station belonging to the BSS and the first priority is the second priority level.” Dependent claims 6-7 depend from claim 5.
Conclusion
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/WON TAE C KIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2414