DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to the application and preliminary amendment filed on 12 March 2024.
Claims 11-17, 28-35 are cancelled.
Claims 1-10, 18-27 are presented for examination.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-10, 18-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hekstra et al. US 2016/0234684 A1, and in view of MIN et al. US 2021/0377728 A1.
As to claim 1, Hekstra discloses substantially the invention as claimed, including a method for transmission of one or more packets ([27], “Further, such noise may be added to a limited portion of a waveform or radio packets, such as ranging portions or preamble portions of a message, while transmitting other portions of a waveform such as those involving configuration portions of a header (e.g., defining a packet length or CRC data) without such added noise”; [48], In case of transmit power regulations, the power that goes into the added noise must be subtracted from the power budget that is available for the payload signal) being associated with a potential received signal-to-noise ratio, SNR (it appears to define a normal operation of the transmission with appropriate transmit power settings), when the transmit power setting is used, the method comprising:
processing ([27], “Further, such noise may be added to a limited portion of a waveform or radio packets, such as ranging portions or preamble portions of a message, while transmitting other portions of a waveform such as those involving configuration portions of a header (e.g., defining a packet length or CRC data) without such added noise”) the first part of the one or more packets before transmission, the processing comprising enforcing ([27], “Further, such noise may be added to a limited portion of a waveform or radio packets, such as ranging portions or preamble portions of a message, while transmitting other portions of a waveform such as those involving configuration portions of a header (e.g., defining a packet length or CRC data) without such added noise” in that this adding of noise reduces the SNR of the preamble. Moreover, [29] indicates such lower than potential received SNR when stating “This way, the advantage in SNR that the attacker could achieve over a legitimate receiver (e.g., in an automobile or payment system) that is at a distance of interest to range detection, can be bounded.”. In other words, the lower SNR reduces the distance in which an attacker can receive and decode the preamble) a reduced received SNR for the first part, which is lower than the potential received SNR.
However, Hekstra does not explicitly disclose the claimed subject matter in claim 1 that, “the packers transmission is performed in an unlicensed band”.
MIN discloses in (paragraphs [14], [18], [21], [115], [116] that provide a solution to the same problem but with a different solution to an IEEE 802.11ax network, in particular to “certain part of the PHY preamble (e.g., HE-SIG-A)” in “PPDU” to prevent non-legitimate STAs (or malicious devices) from correctly decoding the PHY preamble and detecting the frame type (e.g., TF)” in a “new wireless frequency band (e.g., 6-7 GHz) for unlicensed WIFI operation”).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the secure packet transmission art before the effective filing date of the claimed to have modified MIN’s teachings of the different solution to certain part of PHY preamble with the teachings of Hekstra’s, for the purpose of preventing non-legitimate STAs (or malicious devices) from correctly decoding the PHY preamble and detecting the frame type (e.g., TF) to improve security in wireless positioning and wireless sensing in indicated in instant [8].
As to claim 2, Hekstra-MIN discloses, wherein enforcing the reduced received SNR for the first part comprises adding noise to the first part (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 3, Hekstra-MIN discloses, wherein the noise is added orthogonally to a signal of the first part in an in-phase/quadrature space (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 4, Hekstra-MIN discloses, further comprising dividing an available transmission power of the transmit power setting in first and second portions, allocating the first portion as signal transmission power for the first part, and allocating the second portion as noise transmission power for the first part (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 5, Hekstra-MIN discloses, wherein the transmit power setting is equal for the first and second parts (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 6, Hekstra-MIN discloses, wherein enforcing the reduced received SNR for the first part comprises applying a decreased transmit power setting for the first part (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 7, Hekstra-MIN discloses, wherein a first required minimum received SNR associated with the first part when the transmit power setting is used is lower than a second required minimum received SNR associated with the second part when the transmit power setting is used (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 8, Hekstra-MIN discloses, wherein a difference between the potential received SNR and the first required minimum received SNR is larger than a difference between the reduced received SNR and the first required minimum received SNR (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 9, Hekstra-MIN discloses, further comprising determining a value of a difference between the potential received SNR and the reduced received SNR (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
As to claim 10, Hekstra-MIN discloses, wherein the value of the difference between the potential received SNR and the reduced received SNR is determined based on one or more of: a modulation and coding scheme for the second part, one or more parameters of a channel to an intended receiver, and a desired received SNR at the intended receiver (Hekstra, Figures 1-4, 5-12 and associated paragraphs, [27], [29], [48], [60]).
Claims 18-27 correspond to the apparatus claims of the method claims 1-10; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale as in the method claims 1-10 shown above.
The prior art cited in this Office action are: Hekstra et al. US 2016/0234684 A1; MIN et al. US 2021/0377728 A1.
Conclusion
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/HAI V NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649