CTNF 18/732,509 CTNF 88804 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 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. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 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 (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. 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 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 – 07-12-aia AIA (a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. 07-14-fti 07-14 (g)(1) during the course of an interference conducted under section 135 or section 291, another inventor involved therein establishes, to the extent permitted in section 104, that before such person’s invention thereof the invention was made by such other inventor and not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed, or (2) before such person’s invention thereof, the invention was made in this country by another inventor who had not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed it. In determining priority of invention under this subsection, there shall be considered not only the respective dates of conception and reduction to practice of the invention, but also the reasonable diligence of one who was first to conceive and last to reduce to practice, from a time prior to conception by the other. 07-15-03-aia AIA Claim s 1-7, 10-17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by AJAMI; Abdel Karim et al. US PGPUB 20240381418 A1 . Regarding claim 1. Ajami teaches A station (STA) in a wireless network, the STA comprising: a memory; a processor coupled to the memory, ([0004] One innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure may be implemented as a method for wireless communications at a first wireless node. The apparatus includes a processor; memory coupled with the processor; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor to cause the first wireless node to:) )the processor configured to: obtain a transmission opportunity (TXOP) for transmission of a frame on a link; ([0050] an AP may contend for access to a wireless medium to obtain control of the medium for a TXOP. The AP that wins the contention (hereinafter also referred to as a “sharing AP”) may select one or more other APs (hereinafter also referred to as “shared APs”) to share resources of the TXOP.) allocate a portion of the TXOP ([0050] To share its time or frequency resources, the sharing AP may partition the TXOP into multiple time segments or frequency segments each including respective time or frequency resources representing a portion of the TXOP,)to a plurality of STAs; (see above, Shared Aps) transmit a trigger frame to the plurality of STAs indicating allocation of the portion of TXOP; ([0070] FIG. 6 shows an example of TXOP sharing. As illustrated, after successfully contending for access to the wireless medium and obtaining a TXOP, the AP may transmit a frame 602 to trigger sharing of the TXOP. Frame 602 may be what is referred to as a multi-user (MU) request to send (RTS) for TXOP sharing (TXS). Frame 602 may include a receive address (RA) set to a MAC address of STA S1, a transmit address (TA) set to a MAC address the AP and a duration field set to a value d1 to span to TXOP.) and receive a response frame from at least one STA acknowledging the allocation of the portion of the TXOP. ([0071] STA S1 may acknowledge the trigger frame 602 with a clear to send (CTS) frame 604, with an RA set to the MAC address of the AP.) Regarding claim 2. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 1, wherein the plurality of STAs comprises at least one access point (AP) and at least one non-AP STA. (Fig. 9B, shared with AP2 and STA S3) Regarding claim 3. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 1, wherein the trigger frame specifies a first time duration on the portion of the TXOP that is allocated to a first STA and a second time duration on the portion of the TXOP that is allocated to a second STA. ([0050] To share its time or frequency resources, the sharing AP may partition the TXOP into multiple time segments or frequency segments each including respective time or frequency resources representing a portion of the TXOP, The sharing AP may allocate the time or frequency segments to itself or to one or more of the shared APs.) Regarding claim 4. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 1, wherein the trigger frame specifies a first subchannel that a first STA in the plurality of STAs is allowed to use and a second subchannel that a second STA in the plurality of STAs is allowed to use. ([0050] To share its time or frequency resources, the sharing AP may partition the TXOP into multiple time segments or frequency segments each including respective time or frequency resources representing a portion of the TXOP, The sharing AP may allocate the time or frequency segments to itself or to one or more of the shared APs.) Regarding claim 5. Jami teaches The STA of claim 1, wherein the trigger frame specifies a first time duration allocated to a first STA and a first subchannel that the first STA is allowed to use and a second time duration allocated to a second STA and a second subchannel that the second STA is allowed to use. ([0050] To share its time or frequency resources, the sharing AP may partition the TXOP into multiple time segments or frequency segments each including respective time or frequency resources representing a portion of the TXOP, The sharing AP may allocate the time or frequency segments to itself or to one or more of the shared APs. See also [0051] for TDMA and [0052] for OFDMA techniques) Regarding claim 6. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 1, wherein an access point (AP) and a non-AP are allocated to a same portion of the TXOP. ([0050) For example, each shared AP may utilize a partial TXOP assigned by the sharing AP for its uplink or downlink communications with its associated STAs.) Regarding claim 7. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 1, wherein the plurality of STAs include at least one access point (AP) that is allocated to the TXOP on a first channel, a first STA in the plurality of STAs is allocated to the second channel of the TXOP for a time duration and a second STA in the plurality of STAS is allocated to the second channel of the TXOP for a subsequent time duration. (([0050] To share its time or frequency resources, the sharing AP may partition the TXOP into multiple time segments or frequency segments each including respective time or frequency resources representing a portion of the TXOP, The sharing AP may allocate the time or frequency segments to itself or to one or more of the shared APs. See also [0051] for TDMA and [0052] for OFDMA techniques)) Regarding claim 10. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured to: determine that a first STA in the plurality of STAs has latency-sensitive traffic and a second STA in the plurality of STAs has latency tolerant traffic; and allocate more portions of the TXOP to the first STA than the second STA. ([0069] In certain wireless communications standards (e.g., 802.11be), such traffic may be referred to as latency sensitive traffic. In scenarios involving latency sensitive traffic, a triggered transmission opportunity (TXOP) sharing mechanism may be used to serve low latency traffic (e.g., XR traffic). For example, a mechanism called a triggered TXOP sharing procedure may be used for such scenarios, allowing an AP to allocate a portion of the time within an obtained TXOP to only one non-AP STA for transmitting one or more non trigger-based (non-TB) PPDUs.) Regarding claim 11-17 and 20. Ajami teaches An access point (AP) in a wireless network, the AP comprising: a memory; a processor coupled to the memory, ([0004] One innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure may be implemented as a method for wireless communications at a first wireless node. The apparatus includes a processor; memory coupled with the processor; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor to cause the first wireless node to:) the processor configured to perform the method recited in claim 1-7 and 10. They are rejected for the same reasons . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 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 (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. 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, 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. 07-23-aia AIA 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. 07-20-02-aia AIA 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. 07-22-aia AIA Claim s 8-9 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ajami as applied to claim 1 and 11 above, and further in view of Xia; Qing et al. US PGPUB 20210315009 A1 . Regarding claim 8. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 1, but it does not teach wherein the processor is configured to allocate different portions of the TXOP to different STAs based on a buffer status of the plurality of STAs. However, Xia teaches wherein the processor is configured to allocate different portions of the TXOP to different STAs based on a buffer status of the plurality of STAs. ([0175] However, in 802.11ax, the AP is the only device that can initiate the UL data transmission. The AP usually sends a trigger frame (e.g., Buffer Status Report Poll (BSRP)) to the non-AP STAs to inquire on their buffer status and their traffic priorities. Upon receiving a response frame (e.g., Buffer Status Report (BSR)) from those non-AP STAs. The AP sends another trigger frame (e.g., Basic Trigger) with the resource allocation information to those non-AP STAs for them to use for sending the UL data sequence.) in order to improve efficiency and lower latency transmission in the wireless LAN network ([0011]) Ajami and Xia are analogous art in the same field of endeavor of wireless communication. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person with ordinary skill in the art to modify the method in Regarding claim 9. Ajami teaches The STA of claim 1, and it does not teach wherein the processor is configured to allocate different portions of the TXOP to different STAs in the plurality of STAs based on quality of service (QOS) requirements, traffic priority, or device priority levels of the plurality of STAs. However, Xia teaches wherein the processor is configured to allocate different portions of the TXOP to different STAs in the plurality of STAs based on quality of service (QOS) requirements, traffic priority, or device priority levels of the plurality of STAs. ([0394] FIG. 74 illustrates an example embodiment 1710 of a Share Offer/Request information field. A Priority field indicates the priority of the traffic stored in the buffer of the STA, which can be used by the TXOP holder for the TXOP access scheduler.) in order to improve efficiency and lower latency transmission in the wireless LAN network ([0011]) Ajami and Xia are analogous art in the same field of endeavor of wireless communication. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person with ordinary skill in the art to modify the method in Regarding claim 18-19, Ajami and Xia teaches The AP of claim 11, performing the method recited in claims 8-9. They are rejected for the same reasons. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHAOHUI YANG whose telephone number is (571)270-7527. The examiner can normally be reached 9 AM to 5 PM M-F. 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, Marcus Smith can be reached at 571 270-1096. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /ZHAOHUI YANG/ Examiner, Art Unit 2468 /MARCUS SMITH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2468 Application/Control Number: 18/732,509 Page 2 Art Unit: 2468 Application/Control Number: 18/732,509 Page 3 Art Unit: 2468 Application/Control Number: 18/732,509 Page 4 Art Unit: 2468 Application/Control Number: 18/732,509 Page 5 Art Unit: 2468 Application/Control Number: 18/732,509 Page 6 Art Unit: 2468 Application/Control Number: 18/732,509 Page 7 Art Unit: 2468 Application/Control Number: 18/732,509 Page 8 Art Unit: 2468
