CTNF 18/733,094 CTNF 94988 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. Information Disclosure Statement 06-52 The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 06/04/2024 and 04/16/2026; the submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 07-30-01 AIA The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a): (a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112: The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention. 07-31-02 AIA Claim s 1, 5, 14, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention. Claims 1, 5, 14, and 15 include “in a case where the request received by the reception unit does not include information about an assignment of a traffic identifier (TID) indicating data priority”, “a transmission unit configured to transmit a request including information about a link establishment but not including information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority”, “transmitting, in a case where the request in the receiving does not include information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority, a response including information about the assignment of the TID”, and “transmitting a request including information about a link establishment but not including information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority” as a negative recitation and it broadens its scope by citing and arbitrarily excluding what is not; in this case these elements do not further restrict the claim and element needs to address the actions that it is doing . 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. 07-103 AIA The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action. 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-20220124855-A1 to Hu et al., from hereon Hu in view of JP-7613800-B2 to Guo . Regarding claim 1 Hu teaches…a communication apparatus capable of establishing a plurality of links with another communication apparatus in parallel (Fig. 3, P. 59-60 discloses…electronic components, such as microprocessors, storage and memory that store computer program instructions in a computer readable storage medium (e.g., non-transitory computer readable medium). Many of the features described in this specification can be implemented as processes that are specified as a set of program instructions encoded on a computer readable storage medium. When these program instructions are executed by one or more processors, they cause the processors to perform various operation indicated in the program instructions. Examples of program instructions or computer code include machine code, such as is produced by a compiler, and files including higher-level code that are executed by a computer, an electronic component, or a microprocessor using an interpreter. Through suitable programming, processor 316 can provide various functionality for computing system 314, including any of the functionality described herein as being performed by a server or client, or other functionality associated with message management services ), the communication apparatus comprising: a reception unit configured to receive a request including information about a link establishment (P. ); and a transmission unit configured to transmit a response to the request received by the reception unit (P.64 discloses…a first wireless multilink device (MLD) may include a transceiver configured to send, to a second wireless MLD, a request for multi-link reconfiguration. The transceiver may be configured to receive, from the second wireless MLD, a response to the request for the multi-link reconfiguration. The multi-link reconfiguration may include configuring to implement at least one of: adding a link, removing a link or switching one end of a link, between the first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD. The first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD may maintain connection via at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration, so as to communicate traffic or keep the ability to support traffic on the at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration ), but does not teach…wherein, in a case where the request received by the reception unit does not include information about an assignment of a traffic identifier (TID) indicating data priority, the transmission unit transmits a response including the information about the assignment of the TID. Guo teaches… wherein, in a case where the request received by the reception unit does not include information about an assignment of a traffic identifier (TID) indicating data priority, the transmission unit transmits a response including the information about the assignment of the TID (P.24 discloses the operation of establishing Multilink operation the link information is provided the request carries the required information to form the link; P . 257, Fig. 12 disclose the usage of a negotiation field to indicate the type of value for traffic identifier to be assign in case it there is not one assigned and update the station with one). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of HU by incorporating the teachings of Guo because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration of the traffic identifier, its handling, and its linkages based on the configuration of bits (Guo, P.257). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability. Regarding claim 2 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 1, Hu teaches…wherein the request and the response are management frames conforming to an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard (Fig. 12, P. 102 discloses the request/response frame conforms to 802.11 which includes 802.11be). Regarding claim 3 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 1, wherein the request is an association request (Fig. 5, P. 74). Regarding claim 4 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 1, Hu teaches…wherein the response is an association response (Fig. 5, P.64, 67, 74 ). Regarding claim 5 Hu teaches…a communication apparatus capable of establishing a plurality of links with another communication apparatus in parallel (Abs discloses… A first wireless multilink device (MLD) including a transceiver configured to send, to a second wireless MLD, a request for multi-link reconfiguration. The transceiver may be configured to receive, from the second wireless MLD, a response to the request for the multi-link reconfiguration. The multi-link reconfiguration may include configuring to implement at least one of: adding a link, removing a link or switching one end of a link, between the first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD. The first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD may maintain connection via at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration), a reception unit configured to receive a response to the request transmitted by the transmission unit; and a communication unit configured to communicate with the other communication apparatus based on the information about the assignment of the TID included in the response received by the reception unit(P.64 discloses…a first wireless multilink device (MLD) may include a transceiver configured to send, to a second wireless MLD, a request for multi-link reconfiguration. The transceiver may be configured to receive, from the second wireless MLD, a response to the request for the multi-link reconfiguration. The multi-link reconfiguration may include configuring to implement at least one of: adding a link, removing a link or switching one end of a link, between the first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD. The first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD may maintain connection via at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration, so as to communicate traffic or keep the ability to support traffic on the at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration ), but does not teach…the communication apparatus comprising: a transmission unit configured to transmit a request including information about a link establishment but not including information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority. Guo teaches… the communication apparatus comprising: a transmission unit configured to transmit a request including information about a link establishment but not including information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority(P.24 discloses the operation of establishing Multilink operation the link information is provided the request carries the required information to form the link; P . 257, Fig. 12 disclose the usage of a negotiation field to indicate the type of value for traffic identifier to be assign in case it there is not one assigned and update the station with one); It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of HU by incorporating the teachings of Guo because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration of the traffic identifier, its handling, and its linkages based on the configuration of bits (Guo, P.257). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability. Regarding claim 6 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 5, Guo teaches…wherein the communication apparatus transmits the request including a setting of a first value to make an inquiry about the assignment of the TID proposed by the other communication apparatus (P. 255, discloses…the request frame (third message) and the response frame (second message) may each carry a traffic 47 identifier-to-link mapping information element. [0256] Figure 12 is a schematic diagram of another possible traffic identifier-to-link mapping information 50 element according to an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 12, the control field includes a 51 mapping request (TID-to-Link Mapping request) field indicating the type of frame in which the traffic identifier-52 to-link mapping information element is located. The length of the field may be 1 bit, with 1 indicating a request 53 and 0 indicating a response). Regarding claim 7 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 6, Hu teaches…wherein the communication apparatus transmits the request including a setting of a second value different from the first value to follow the assignment of the TID proposed by the other communication apparatus (P. 113 discloses the use of an action field for the multilink operation (ML) which may differentiate the ML action frame formats (see table 3) which may indicate TID-Link mapping request, response, teardown, reserved etc.). Regarding claim 8 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 5, Guo teaches…further comprising a unit configured to transmit information about the assignment of the TID to be used by the communication apparatus (P. 102). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of HU by incorporating the teachings of Guo because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration via the transceiver module for the traffic identifier, its handling, and its linkages based on the configuration of bits (Guo, P.102 P.257). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability. Regarding claim 9 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 5, Guo teaches…wherein the request and the response are management frames conforming to the IEEE 802.11 standard(Fig. 12, P. 102 discloses the request/response frame conforms to 802.11 which includes 802.11be). Regarding claim 10 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 5, Guo teaches…wherein the request is an association request(Fig. 5, P. 74). . Regarding claim 11 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 7, Hu teaches…wherein the first value and the second value are included in an association request (P. 105). Regarding claim 12 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 5, Hu teaches…wherein the response is an association response(Fig. 5, P.64, 67, 74 ). Regarding claim 13 Hu and Guo teach the communication apparatus according to Claim 5, Hu teaches…wherein the response includes an TID-To-Link Mapping element that is information about the assignment of the TID (P.113, Table 3, P. 114 ). Regarding claim 14 Hu teaches…a communication method for a communication apparatus (P.156 )capable of establishing a plurality of links with another communication apparatus in parallel, the communication method comprising (clm. 1 discloses. sending, by a first wireless multilink device (MLD) to a second wireless MLD, a request for multi-link reconfiguration; and receiving, by the first wireless MLD from the second wireless MLD, a response to the request for the multi-link reconfiguration, wherein the multi-link reconfiguration comprises configuring to implement at least one.): receiving a request including information about a link establishment; transmitting a response to the request in the receiving, and transmitting unit (P.64 discloses…a first wireless multilink device (MLD) may include a transceiver configured to send, to a second wireless MLD, a request for multi-link reconfiguration. The transceiver may be configured to receive, from the second wireless MLD, a response to the request for the multi-link reconfiguration. The multi-link reconfiguration may include configuring to implement at least one of: adding a link, removing a link or switching one end of a link, between the first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD. The first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD may maintain connection via at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration, so as to communicate traffic or keep the ability to support traffic on the at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration ), but does not teach, in a case where the request in the receiving does not include information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority, a response including information about the assignment of the TID. Guo teaches… in a case where the request in the receiving does not include information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority, a response including information about the assignment of the TID(P.24 discloses the operation of establishing Multilink operation the link information is provided the request carries the required information to form the link; P . 257, Fig. 12 disclose the usage of a negotiation field to indicate the type of value for traffic identifier to be assign in case it there is not one assigned and update the station with one). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of HU by incorporating the teachings of Guo because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration of the traffic identifier, its handling, and its linkages based on the configuration of bits (Guo, P.257). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability. Regarding claim 15 Hu teaches…a communication method for a communication apparatus capable of establishing a plurality of links with another communication apparatus in parallel, the communication method comprising (clm. 1 discloses. sending, by a first wireless multilink device (MLD) to a second wireless MLD, a request for multi-link reconfiguration; and receiving, by the first wireless MLD from the second wireless MLD, a response to the request for the multi-link reconfiguration, wherein the multi-link reconfiguration comprises configuring to implement at least one.): receiving a response to the request in the transmitting; and communicating with the other communication apparatus based on the information about the assignment of the TID included in the response in the receiving (P.64 discloses…a first wireless multilink device (MLD) may include a transceiver configured to send, to a second wireless MLD, a request for multi-link reconfiguration. The transceiver may be configured to receive, from the second wireless MLD, a response to the request for the multi-link reconfiguration. The multi-link reconfiguration may include configuring to implement at least one of: adding a link, removing a link or switching one end of a link, between the first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD. The first wireless MLD and the second wireless MLD may maintain connection via at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration, so as to communicate traffic or keep the ability to support traffic on the at least one link during the multi-link reconfiguration ), but does not teach…transmitting a request including information about a link establishment but not including information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority; Guo teaches… transmitting a request including information about a link establishment but not including information about an assignment of a TID indicating data priority (P.24 discloses the operation of establishing Multilink operation the link information is provided the request carries the required information to form the link; P . 257, Fig. 12 disclose the usage of a negotiation field to indicate the type of value for traffic identifier to be assign in case it there is not one assigned and update the station with one). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of HU by incorporating the teachings of Guo because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration of the traffic identifier, its handling, and its linkages based on the configuration of bits (Guo, P.257). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability. Regarding claim 16 Hu teaches…a non-transitory storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to function as each unit of the communication apparatus (P. 59 discloses…Some implementations include electronic components, such as microprocessors, storage and memory that store computer program instructions in a computer readable storage medium (e.g., non-transitory computer readable medium). Many of the features described in this specification can be implemented as processes that are specified as a set of program instructions encoded on a computer readable storage medium. When these program instructions are executed by one or more processors, they cause the processors to perform various operation indicated in the program instructions) according to Claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1) . Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO from PTO-892: US-20240205987-A1 to Yosikawa, JP-7825958-B2 to Yusei, WO-2021183045-A1 to Chitrakar, and US-12177914-B2 to Jang . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LOUIS SAMARA whose telephone number is (408)918-7582. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 6-3 PT. 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, Ayaz Sheikh can be reached at 571-272-3795. 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. /L.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2476 /AYAZ R SHEIKH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 2 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 3 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 5 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 6 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 8 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 10 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 11 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 12 Art Unit: 2476 Application/Control Number: 18/733,094 Page 13 Art Unit: 2476
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