CTNF 18/722,429 CTNF 91509 DETAILED ACTION 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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 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. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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 of this title, 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 1-13 and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210100053 A1 (Park), in view of US 20210014784 A1 (Kneckt) and in further view of CN 101754479 B (Yang) . Regarding Claims 1 , 15-17: A method for adjusting an operation mode, comprising: determining a target link from multiple links established between an access point (AP) and a station (STA), wherein the access point (AP) is positioned in an AP multi-link device (MLD), the station (STA) is positioned in a non-access point (non-AP) MLD, and the target link has groupcast transmission delay; and determining a target station corresponding to the target link and set in a power save mode, and adjusting an operation mode of the target station from the power save mode to an active mode, so that all stations corresponding to the target link are in the active mode (Park: Figs. 1A-C, a system config of MLD apparatus that comprises multiple APs and non-AP STAs; Fig. 2, MLD AP uses a MLPS “Multi-link Power Save” frame to adjust STAs operation modes, e.g., in Figs. 3-7 based on link bitmap, where the trigger frame in this case is link 1 (anchor link); Power Manage “PM” bit in combination with the link bit map to indicate link(s) is/are in active or power save operation, e.g., pars 27-31 and Fig. 6 ). Park does not teach explicitly on determining target links. However, Kneckt teaches (Kneckt: Figs. 6-7, that STAs provides indicators by transmitting data to AP, consequently AP detects the STAs configuration and act accordingly; Fig. 14, AP may transmit TWT frame in an initiation link to check STA link availability; par. 69 and Fig. 4, one bit per link; par. 65 “a single congested link may be prevented from severely increasing transmission delays” and par. 70 and 78 that AP refrains from transmitting on unavailable links to prevent transmission delay). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Park with determining target links as further taught by Kneckt. The advantage of doing so is to coordinate activation and deactivation of multiple wireless links may present challenges to obtain benefits of increased throughput and latency reduction while also reducing power consumption (Kneckt: DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART). Park does not teach explicitly on groupcast. However, Yang teaches (Yang: Figs. 2-5, using multicast/broadcast or unicast ). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to modify Park with groupcast as further taught by Yang. The advantage of doing so is provide a wireless access point sends the multicast/broadcast message method and device to realize the wireless access point can quickly issue the multicast/broadcast message to the related working station (Yang: [0007]). Regarding Claim 2 , 18, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 1, wherein the determining a target link from multiple links established between an access point (AP) and a station (STA) comprises: acquiring operation modes of all stations on the multiple links established between the access point (AP) and the station (STA), wherein the operation modes comprise at least one of the active mode and the power save mode; determining at least one link having groupcast transmission delay from the multiple links according to the operation modes of all the stations; and determining the target link from the at least one link according to a preset selection criterion (Yang: Fig. 5). Regarding Claim 3, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 2, wherein the determining at least one link having groupcast transmission delay from the multiple links according to the operation modes of all the stations comprises: determining, in a case that a legacy STA associated with an AP corresponding to any one of the multiple links is determined, an operation mode of the legacy STA is the active mode, and an STA corresponding to any one of the multiple links and positioned in the non-AP MLD is in the power save mode, any one of the multiple links as at least one link having groupcast transmission delay (Yang: Figs. 4-5, some devices are in active mode, and other(s) is in sleep mode ; Kneckt: Figs. 6-7, that STAs provides indicators by transmitting data to AP, consequently AP detects the STAs configuration and act accordingly; Fig. 14, AP may transmit TWT frame in an initiation link to check STA link availability; par. 69 and Fig. 4, one bit per link; par. 65 “a single congested link may be prevented from severely increasing transmission delays” and par. 70 and 78 that AP refrains from transmitting on unavailable links to prevent transmission delay. It is further noted that a scenario of a legacy (single-link) STA in active mode coexisting with a power save mode non-AP MLD STA on the same link that causes the AP to buffer groupcast data is well-known in 802.11, and is the technical motivation for the multi-link power save problem addressed by Park, Kneckt and Yang, and it is inherent in any 802.11 based mulit-link system where both legacy and MLD-enabled STAs share a BSS) . Regarding Claim 4, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 2, wherein the determining at least one link having groupcast transmission delay from the multiple links according to the operation modes of all the stations comprises: determining, in a case that an operation mode of an STA in non-AP MLD 1 corresponding to any one of the multiple links is the active mode, and an operation mode of an STA in non-AP MLD 2 corresponding to any one of the multiple links is the power save mode, any one of the multiple links as at least one link having groupcast transmission delay (Park: Figs. 1A-C, a system config of MLD apparatus that comprises multiple APs and non-AP STAs; Fig. 2, MLD AP uses a MLPS “Multi-link Power Save” frame to adjust STAs operation modes, e.g., in Figs. 3-7 based on link bitmap, where the trigger frame in this case is link 1 (anchor link); Power Manage “PM” bit in combination with the link bit map to indicate link(s) is/are in active or power save operation, e.g., pars 27-31 and Fig. 6; Kneckt: Figs. 6-7, that STAs provides indicators by transmitting data to AP, consequently AP detects the STAs configuration and act accordingly; Fig. 14, AP may transmit TWT frame in an initiation link to check STA link availability; par. 69 and Fig. 4, one bit per link; par. 65 “a single congested link may be prevented from severely increasing transmission delays” and par. 70 and 78 that AP refrains from transmitting on unavailable links to prevent transmission delay) . Regarding Claim 5, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 4, further comprising: determining, in a case that any one of the multiple links has the groupcast transmission delay, the non-AP MLD corresponding to the multiple links as having groupcast transmission delay (Kneckt: e.g., par. 110, “ In some embodiments, the UE may be configured to determine that a first link of the plurality of links has switched from being indicated as being in the active mode to being indicated as being in the power save mode, or vice versa. In response to this determination, the UE may switch the indication for all links as being in the power save mode or the active mode, respectively”, which implies that the power state of any single link with the multi-link association is treated as a property of the tire MLD; when any link changes mode, entire MLD’s mode indication is updated, which directly teaches that if any link of the non-AP MLD has groupcast delay, the non-AP MLD as a whole is treated as having a delay ). Regarding Claim 6, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 2, wherein the determining the target link from the at least one link according to a preset selection criterion comprises: acquiring a link scenario of the at least one link; determining, in a case that the link scenario encompasses a legacy STA and the non-AP MLD, a link where the legacy STA is positioned as the target link; and/or determining, in a case that the link scenario encompasses multiple non-AP MLDs, a link where a non-AP MLD whose operation mode is the active mode is positioned as the target link (Kneckt: e.g., Fig. 6 and par. 78, “ At 708, the STA utilizes a Link Availability Control (LAC) subfield set equal to “101” to signal that it is available in links 1 and 3 but is not available in link 2. At 710, when the AP detects that the STA is not available in link 2, it may refrain from initiating new transmission opportunities (TXOPs) to transmit DL frames to the STA over link 2”, where the AP slects the link where the STA (legacy or non-AP MLD) is in active mode as the target link for DL transmission that is equivalent of the target link selection rule in the claim; the second alternative, multiple non-AP MLDs – s;ecting the link where an active-mode MLD is positioned, is the logical and obvious extension of Kneckt;s per-link availability signaling to a multi-MLD case). . Regarding Claim 7, Park as modified further teaches: The UE of claim 6, wherein the UE is further configured to: determine that the first link of the plurality of links has switched from the active mode to the power save mode, and wherein indicating whether the UE is in the active mode or the power save mode for the respective link further comprises indicating that each link of the plurality of links is in the power save mode based at least in part on determining that the first link of the plurality of links has switched from the active mode to the power save mode (Kneckt: e.g., Fig. 7, AP detects link operation mode at 706, 710, and 714, where links may switch from active mode to power save mode or vise visa ). Regarding Claim 8, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 7, wherein the determining the target link from the at least one link according to the parameter information comprises: determining an operation mode of the at least one link as the active mode in a case that the parameter information is the power consumption information; and switching the link through a link switch function to maintain an operation mode of only one of the at least one link as the active mode, and taking the one link whose operation mode is the active mode as the target link (Kneckt: e.g., par. 66, “ For example, selected links may be quickly activated to improve throughput capacity according to the quality of service (QoS) needs of an application currently running on the STA. Further, in some embodiments it may be desirable for some or all available links to be quickly deactivated, to enter a “doze” or low power state when utilization of multiple links is no longer necessary”; par. 83, where PM switches from 0 to 1, the STA applies PM=1 on all remaining frames, effectively collapsing multiple active links to a reduced set based on associated link map ), Regarding Claim 9, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 7, wherein the determining the target link from the at least one link according to the parameter information comprises: determining, in a case that the parameter information is the interference information, one link having minimum interference from the at least one link according to the interference information; and determining the one link having minimum interference as the target link (Kneckt: e.g., par. 93, “Use of multiple links in individual TWT implementations may offer more deterministic delay performance, as a single busy channel may not add transmission delay or prevent frames transmission in a TWT SP, since other channels may be utilized to avoid potential delays”, where selecting least congested/least interference link from a set of available links to minimize delay is a well-known principle in wireless communication ). Regarding Claim 10, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 7, wherein the determining the target link from the at least one link according to the parameter information comprises: determining, in a case that the parameter information is the load information, one link having a minimum load from the at least one link according to the load information; and determining the one link having a minimum load as the target link (Kneckt: e.g., par. 66, “ For example, selected links may be quickly activated to improve throughput capacity according to the quality of service (QoS) needs of an application currently running on the STA”, and par. 93 “a single busy channel may not add transmission delay or prevent frames transmission in a TWT SP, since other channels may be utilized to avoid potential delays”) . Regarding Claim 11, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 7, wherein the determining the target link from the at least one link according to the parameter information comprises: determining, in a case that the parameter information is the STA compatibility information, one link allowed to be compatible with the STA from the at least one link according to the STA compatibility information; and determining the one link allowed to be compatible with the STA as the target link (Kneckt: e.g., par. 73-74, “ the STA may signal its availability for each link in which the STA operates by using the Operating Mode Indication field A-Control field. The operating mode indication may include the link number and the operating bandwidth field may have the option for a zero MHz channel width. In these embodiments, the link may be set to a zero MHz operating channel width to indicate that the link is not available”; “The number of spatial streams (NSSs), BW and other parameters of a given link may be changed at the same time when the link is indicated as available”, which indicates that STA compatibility parameters (NSS, B/W) as part of link selection ). Regarding Claim 12, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 7, wherein the determining the target link from the at least one link according to the parameter information comprises: determining, in a case that the parameter information is the priority information, one link whose priority information is a first priority from the at least one link according to the priority information, wherein the first priority is configured to denote a priority of a legacy STA; and determining the one link whose priority information is the first priority as the target link (Kneckt: e.g., par. 85, “ In some embodiments, the links may have precedence order for PM value selection. For instance, if links 1 and 3 are having simultaneously ongoing transmissions, then the PM bit value in link 1 may be used to define whether the STA is in active mode or in power save mode”, which implies assigning a 1 st -priority status to a particular link and using the priority ordering to determine which link’s power mode indication takes precedence, which is functional equivalent of the 1 st -priority link selection criterion for legacy STA priority ). Regarding Claim 13, Park as modified further teaches: The method for adjusting an operation mode according to claim 1, wherein the adjusting an operation mode of the target station from the power save mode to an active mode comprises: carrying a multi-link power management (MLPM) bitmap field in a beacon frame, wherein a first value in the MLPM bitmap field is configured to indicate the active mode, and a second value in the MLPM bitmap field is configured to indicate the power save mode; and transmitting the beacon frame carrying the MLPM bitmap field to a non-AP MLD where the target station is positioned, and instructing the non-AP MLD where the target workstation is positioned to adjust the operation mode of the target station from the power save mode to the active mode according to the beacon frame carrying the MLPM bitmap field (Park: e.g., par. 62, “ The Link Bitmap field indicates the bitmap of the link identifiers. Each link between the AP and STA MLDs is assigned with a link ID and each bit position of the bitmap corresponds to the link ID. When a bit position n is set to 1, the PM bit, trigger frame, or the EOSP bit applies to the link that is assigned with the link ID=n ”; Yang: par. 60, “ AP Station sends the beacon message to the Sleep Sleep Station wake up. AP using the wake up source MAC address of Station packaging multicast/broadcast message cache. the message head of the beacon message shown in Table I ”; Kneckt: Fig. 4 and par. 69, a per-link availability bit field in frame (A-Control subfield) where each bit designates one link ). Regarding Claim 19, Park as modified further teaches: The electronic apparatus according to claim 18, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer program to: determine, in a case that a legacy STA associated with an AP corresponding to any one of the multiple links is determined, an operation mode of the legacy STA is the active mode, and an STA corresponding to any one of the multiple links and positioned in the non-AP MLD is in the power save mode, any one of the multiple links as at least one link having groupcast transmission delay (Kneckt: par. 67-71, “ In some embodiments, a STA uses a Power Management field in the media access control (MAC) headers to indicate whether it is in active mode or power save mode” and “while the STA is in active mode, the STA may be in the awake state in all links in which the STA is available. While the STA is in the power save mode, the STA may be in either the awake or doze state in all links in which the STA is available”. It is further noted that that determination that a link where a legacy STA is active but a non-AP MLD STA is in power save mode has groupcast delay is inherent in the 802,11 groupcast/DTIM protocol ). Regarding Claim 20, Park as modified further teaches: The electronic apparatus according to claim 18, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the computer program to: determine, in a case that an operation mode of an STA in non-AP MLD 1 corresponding to any one of the multiple links is the active mode, and an operation mode of an STA in non-AP MLD 2 corresponding to any one of the multiple links is the power save mode, any one of the multiple links as at least one link having groupcast transmission delay (Park: Figs 1-7, each STA independently has its own power state across both non-Ap MLD-affiliated STAs and other devices sharing the same link ; Kneckt: par.75, per-link, per-STA independent PM bit values, which implies that such a link has groupcast delay is the direct an obvious application of 802.11 DTIM/groupcast buffering rule ). Allowable Subject Matter 07-43 The Claim 14 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but are potentially allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHITONG CHEN whose telephone number is (571) 270-1936. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30am - 5pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yuwen Pan can be reached on 571-272-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /ZHITONG CHEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 2 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 3 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 4 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 5 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 6 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 7 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 8 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 9 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 10 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 11 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 12 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 13 Art Unit: 2649 Application/Control Number: 18/722,429 Page 14 Art Unit: 2649
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