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 .
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.
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) 1-4, 6-9, 11-15, 17-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHITRAKAR et al (US 2023/0283439) in view of KU et al (US 2009/0290551)
Regarding claim 1, 12, 20, CHITRAKAR et al (US 2023/0283439) method performed by a wireless device, comprising:
wirelessly transmitting a legacy physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) before wirelessly transmitting a wake-up receiver PPDU to protect the wake-up receiver PPDU (CHITRAKAR: ¶50-51, Fig. 5, a WUR PPDU/packet is protected by transmitting a legacy PPDU before the WUR PPDU/packet), wherein the legacy PPDU includes a preamble and a legacy frame (CHITRAKAR: ¶49, Fig. 5, the legacy PPDU includes a preamble and a payload/frame)
CHITRAKAR remains silent regarding wherein the legacy frame includes a power management field that indicates that the wireless device is transitioning to a doze state to cause other wireless devices to refrain from transmitting to the wireless device.
However, KU et al (US 2009/0290551) discloses wherein the legacy frame includes a power management field that indicates that the wireless device is transitioning to a doze state to cause other wireless devices to refrain from transmitting to the wireless device (KU: ¶47-48, ¶42 a power management/setting information in a legacy 802.11 frame is transmitted to indicate that the switching node is going into a doze (power saving) mode; the neighboring (other) nodes do not transmit (refrain from transmitting) to the node).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of CHITRAKAR would have been motivated to use the teachings of KU as it provides lower the probability of packet loss and connection interruptions and reduce waste of channel time while using as few transceivers as possible (¶7). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of CHITRAKAR with teachings of KU in order to improve power consumption and lower probability of packet loss.
Regarding claim 2, 13, 21, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 1, further comprising:
wirelessly transmitting a data frame after wirelessly transmitting the wake-up receiver PPDU (CHITRAKAR: ¶43, ¶72, fig. 6, the WUR frame is transmitted after which a legacy frame is transmitted after an interval), wherein the data frame includes a power management field that indicates that the wireless device has transitioned to an awake state to allow the other wireless devices to transmit to the wireless device (KU: ¶42 a power management/setting information in a legacy 802.11 frame is transmitted to indicate that the switching node is going back to the awake mode from a doze state (power saving mode); the neighboring (other) nodes transmit to the node after being indicated by the node).
Regarding claim 3, 14, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 2, wherein the data frame is transmitted following a transition delay and an interframe space (IFS) interval after transmitting the wake-up receiver PPDU (CHITRAKAR: ¶43, ¶80, IFS between the WUR frame and the transmission of the legacy frame including data).
Regarding claim 4, 15, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 1, further comprising: wirelessly transmitting a service field after transmitting the preamble but before transmitting the legacy frame, wherein the service field indicates that transmission of the wake-up receiver PPDU is forthcoming (CHITRAKAR: ¶51, the MAC header includes a field equivalent to service field indicating that a transmission of WUR packet is coming up).
Regarding claim 6, 17, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 1, wherein the legacy frame includes a media access control (MAC) header, wherein the MAC header includes a field that indicates that transmission of the wake-up receiver PPDU is forthcoming (CHITRAKAR: ¶51, the MAC header includes a field equivalent to service field indicating that a transmission of WUR packet is coming up).
Regarding claim 7, 18, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 1, wherein the power management field is included in a frame control field of the legacy frame (CHITRAKAR: ¶50, beacon frames that are legacy beacon frames; KU: ¶42, a beacon (a control frame) with at least one field including the PM bit, equivalent to frame control field).
Regarding claim 8, 19, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 7, wherein the power management field includes only a single bit, wherein the single bit is set to binary ‘1’ to indicate that that the wireless device is transitioning to the doze state (KU: ¶47-48, ¶42 a power management/setting information in a legacy 802.11 frame is transmitted to indicate that the switching node is going into a doze (power saving) mode by setting the PM bit to 1).
Regarding claim 9, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 1, wherein the legacy PPDU is transmitted using an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission scheme and the wake-up receiver PPDU is transmitted using an on-off keying (OOK) transmission scheme (CHITRAKAR: ¶62, ¶46-47, OFDM signals for Legacy PPDU and OOK for WUR signals).
Regarding claim 11, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 1, wherein the legacy PPDU and the wake-up receiver PPDU are transmitted with a time gap in between them (CHITRAKAR: Fig. 6, a gap between 802.11 legacy PDU and wake-up receiver packet).
Claim(s) 5, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHITRAKAR modified by KU as applied to claim 4/15 above, further in view of SAHIN et al (US 2024/0349185)
Regarding claim 5, 16, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 4/15, wherein a bit of the service field is used to indicate that the transmission of the wake-up receiver PPDU is forthcoming (CHITRAKAR: ¶51, the MAC header includes a field equivalent to service field indicating that a transmission of WUR packet is coming up).
CHITRAKAR modified by KU remains silent, however, SAHIN et al (US 2024/0349185) discloses the bit being the last bit (SAHIN: ¶200, last bit of a b bit value is set to indicate to the receiver that the packet with the legacy preamble and payload includes a WUR packet including new preamble).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of CHITRAKAR modified by KU would have been motivated to use the teachings of SAHIN as it provides a way to implement a format of legacy preamble that improves reception accuracy of WUR preamble. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify invention of CHITRAKAR modified by KU with teachings of SAHIN in order to improve control signaling accuracy.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHITRAKAR modified by KU as applied to claim 1 above, further in view of SAMPATH et al (US 2017/0064625)
Regarding claim 10, CHITRAKAR modified by KU discloses method of claim 1,
CHITRAKAR modified by KU remains silent, however, SAMPATH et al (US 2017/0064625) wherein the legacy frame is a sub-1 GHz (S1G) beacon frame. (SAMPATH: ¶62, beacon is transmitted using Sub-1 GHZ frequency).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of CHITRAKAR modified by KU would have been motivated to use the teachings of SAMPATH as it provides a longer range and better coverage more effectively. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify invention of CHITRAKAR modified by KU with teachings of SAMPATH in order to improve beacon communication and coverage.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
See PTO 892
Document U discloses that the first 802.11ax draft versions, namely, D1.0 and D2.0, were released at the end of 2016 and 2017. Focusing on a more mature version D3.0, in this tutorial paper, we help the reader to smoothly enter into the several major 802.11ax breakthroughs, including a brand new orthogonal frequency-division multiple access-based random access approach as well as novel spatial frequency reuse techniques. In addition, this tutorial will highlight selected significant improvements (including physical layer enhancements, multi-user multiple input multiple output extensions, power saving advances, and so on) which make this standard a very significant step forward with respect to its predecessor 802.11ac.
Document V discloses that as a consequence, the deployment of the Internet of Things is slowed by fragmentation. However, Cross-Technology Communication (CTC) has appeared as a solution capable of bridging the compatibility gap between non-interoperable devices. In this way, we propose using Wake-up Radio (WuR) to achieve high rate bidirectional CTC, introducing WuR assisted CTC (WuR-CTC). Although WuR was originally proposed to reduce radio power consumption, it provides a secondary communications channel that can be used for high-speed and bidirectional CTC. With WuR-CTC, we demonstrate that WuR can lead to interoperability between non-compatible wireless devices, therefore, providing a compelling reason for the harmonization of the nascent WuR specifications. This article presents a WuR-CTC solution implemented on an heterogeneous testbed with IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4 devices. The resulting testbed achieves reliable CTC with an effective throughput of 26.7 kbps. Moreover, the addition of WuR to the testbed devices provides energy savings, and, in a clear advantage over traditional duty-cycled solutions, allows devices to asynchronously maintain communications.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OMER S MIAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7524. The examiner can normally be reached M,T,W,Th: 10a-7p, Fri, 9a-12p.
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OMER S. MIAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2461
/OMER S MIAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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