DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
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.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. In particular, this Application is the bypass application of an international application that claims foreign priority to a Chinese application filed on 16 Dec 2021.
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements, submitted on 21 Aug 2024 and 9 Apr 2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Invention I in the reply filed on 4 Jun 2026 is acknowledged.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the independent claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. In particular, Lee teaches a ASK symbol conveying either a “1” or “0” value for a bit. Lee does not explicitly teach using an energy detection threshold to determine the difference between a “1” and “0.” However, Sahin explicitly teaches using a threshold to determine whether a symbols is ON or OFF (i.e. “1” or “0”).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-4, 7, 8, 11-14, 17, 18, and 21-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable by Lee (US 20190036754) in view of Sahin (US 20220095228).
Regarding claims 1, 11, and 21, Lee teaches a method, an apparatus, comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor to store instructions, and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, which when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to execute the communication method, comprising:
determining an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal carrying a first amplitude shift keying symbol that is an amplitude shift keying symbol ON (Lee, ¶195 – WRU signal is a series of OFDM symbols, where each symbol represents an OOK bit; Lee, ¶10 – OOK is a simple form of ASK modulation);
generating a first signal based on the OFDM signal and N bits (Lee, ¶194 – all OFDM symbols in the WUR signal 2108),
wherein the first signal carries N second amplitude shift keying symbols in time domain (Lee, figure 21 and ¶196 – multiple symbols 2110, each 4 microseconds in length, are a part of the WU packet 2100), each second amplitude shift keying symbol is the amplitude shift keying symbol ON or an amplitude shift keying symbol OFF (Lee, ¶196 – OFDM symbols 2110-2 through 2110-(N+1) may have either a value of 1 or 0 [i.e. ON or OFF]), and N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 2 (Lee, figure 21 and ¶196 – more than 2 symbols are transmitted in WUR signal 2108); and
sending the first signal. Lee, figure 1 and ¶78 (wake up transmission sent from AP 102 to STA 104).
Lee does not explicitly teach “wherein the amplitude shift keying symbol ON is an amplitude shift keying symbol whose signal energy within duration of the amplitude shift keying symbol is greater than a threshold.” However, Sahin teaches a device that determines that a bit corresponds to ON, when the energy detected is above a threshold and determines that a bit corresponds to OFF, when the energy detected is below a threshold. Sahin, ¶¶5, 102. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to use the energy threshold, taught by Sahin, to determine whether the OFDM signal, taught by Lee, is carrying an ON or OFF bit, in order to trigger the device to wake up when it received a preconfigured bit pattern using a preconfigured threshold. Sahin, ¶¶136, 139.
Regarding claims 2, 12 and 22, the combination of Lee and Sahin also teaches wherein the OFDM signal comprises N first-interval signals in time domain. Lee, figures 21 and 23 (WUR 2108 includes at least 9 intervals of 4 microseconds).
Regarding claims 3, 13, and 23, the combination of Lee and Sahin also teaches wherein the N first-interval signals are the same, or the N first-interval signals have same energy. Lee, figures 21 (each of the at least 9 symbols are 4 microseconds in length) or alternatively Lee, figure 23 (each transmitted symbols has the same transmission power).
Regarding claims 4, 14, and 24, the combination of Lee and Sahin also teaches wherein the N first-interval signals do not overlap with each other in time domain, and the N second amplitude shift keying symbols do not overlap with each other in time domain. Lee, ¶12 (each symbol has a duration of 4 microseconds) and Lee, figures 21 and 23 (no symbol overlaps with another).
Regarding claims 7 and 17, the combination of Lee and Sahin also teaches wherein duration of the second amplitude shift keying symbol is a second interval equal to a first interval, or the second interval is less than the first interval. Lee, figure 21 and 23 (each symbol is 4 microseconds).
Regarding claims 8 and 18, the combination of Lee and Sahin also teaches
wherein duration of the first amplitude shift keying symbol is equal to duration of the OFDM signal (Lee, ¶10 and figure 21 and 23 – OOK, which is ASK modulation, provides a bit over one OFDM symbol’s duration [4 microseconds]), and
duration of the first signal is equal to the duration of the OFDM signal (Lee, figure 21 – duration of 2108 is the duration of all OFDM symbols in the packet;
the first interval is equal to 1/N times the duration of the OFDM signal (Lee, figure 21 – 4 microsections is equal to length of WUR 2108 divided by the total number of symbols); and
the second interval is less than or equal to 1/N times the duration of the OFDM signal. Lee, figure 21 and 23 (each symbol is 4 microseconds).
Claims 5, 6, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee and Sahin (both of record) and further in view of Iwai (US 20200127756).
Regarding claims 5 and 15, the combination of Lee and Sahin teaches the method according to claim 2, the apparatus of claim 12, and Manchester encoding, in which each symbol corresponds to a bit using OOK (Lee, ¶30), but does not explicitly teach “multiplying an i.sup.th first-interval signal in the N first-interval signals in the OFDM signal by a window function corresponding to an i.sup.th bit in the N bits, to obtain an i.sup.th second amplitude shift keying symbol in the N second amplitude shift keying symbols.” However, Iwai teaches a Manchester coder that generates either an OOK symbol of either 0 or 1 by multiplying a signal by a window function. Iwai, ¶¶137, 140. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to use the window function, taught by Iwai, when generating the OFDM signal, taught by the combination of Lee and Sahin, in order to maintain the waveform of the signal and reduce interference outside of the frequency band. Iwai, ¶141.
Regarding claims 6 and 16, the combination of Lee, Sahin, and Iwai also teaches wherein when the i.sup.th bit is 1 (Lee, ¶196 – symbol 2110-1 has a value of 1 for the first bit), the window function corresponding to the i.sup.th bit is one or more of a rectangular window function, a Hamming window function, a Hamming window function, or a Blackman window function (Iwai, ¶47, 64 – all coefficients have the same amplitude of 1.0, where half of the OOK signal is masked out when encoding either a 0 or 1 bit [i.e. a rectangular window function]), wherein the rectangular window function is a function with an all-one function value; and/or when the i.sup.th bit is 0, the window function corresponding to the i.sup.th bit is a function with an all-zero function value. Iwai, figure 2 (OOK bit of either 1 or 0 is encoded by masking out half of the 3.2 microsecond time interval [see figure 3 for 4 microsecond embodiment]); Iwai, figure 7(a) (either the first half or the second half of the time interval has a value of 0 after masking [i.e. the Off signal is masked with “0” and the On signal is masked with “1”]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is cited on attached PTO-892.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN S LAMONT whose telephone number is (571)270-7514 and email address is benjamin.lamont@uspto.gov (see MPEP 502.03 for using EFS or mail, but not email to authorize electronic communications). The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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