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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(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.
Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Cherian et al (US 2020/0260488, “Cherian”).
Re claims 1, 8 and 15, Cherian discloses determining to use Distributed Resource Units (DRUs) for a Transmit Opportunity (TXOP); requesting neighbor Access Point (AP) traffic information from a neighbor AP; receiving the neighbor AP traffic information from the neighbor AP (paragraph [0051]); determining a DRU assignment for the neighbor AP based on the neighbor AP traffic information; sending the DRU assignment to the neighbor AP ((paragraph [0034]; figure 3); and exchanging traffic with one or more Stations (STAs) using Coordinated Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (C-OFDMA) with DRUs during the TXOP, wherein the neighbor AP is operable to exchange neighbor AP traffic with one or more additional STAs during the TXOP using C-OFDMA with DRUs based on the DRU assignment (paragraphs [0048] and [0049]).
Re claims 3, 10 and 19, Cherian discloses determining to use DRUs comprises determining that the traffic for exchange during the TXOP is below a threshold of tone occupation (paragraph [0074], the mTXOP allocation… to limit which STAs may use the sub-TXOP 926 for opportunistic uplink access).
Re claims 4, 11 and 18, Cherian discloses selecting a portion of available DRUs during the TXOP, wherein exchanging the traffic with the one or more STAs using C-OFDMA with DRUs comprises using the portion of available DRUs (figure 6c; paragraph [0066]).
Re claims 5 and 12, Cherian discloses the traffic and the neighbor AP traffic is any one of (i) Downlink (DL) communications, (ii) triggered Uplink (UL) communications, or (iii) a combination of (i) and (ii) (paragraph [0074]).
Re claims 6 and 13, Cherian discloses the neighbor AP traffic information comprises a Buffer Status Report (BSR) (paragraph [0034]).
Re claims 7, 14 and 20, Cherian discloses determining to use DRUs, requesting neighbor AP traffic information from the neighbor AP, and receiving the neighbor AP traffic information from the neighbor AP are before the TXOP ((paragraph [0034]).
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 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.
Claims 2, 9, 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cherian in view of Park et al (US 2023/0103807, “Park”).
Re claims 2, 9, 16 and 17, Cherian discloses all of the limitations of the base claim, but fails to disclose receiving/sending a C-OFDMA with DRU capability signal from/to the neighbor AP indicating the neighbor AP is capable of using C-OFDMA with DRUs. However, Park discloses exchanging C-OFDMA capability signal among APs (paragraph [0292]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Cherian with Park for the benefit of providing channel switching only to AP participating in the C-OFDMA with DRU capability (paragraph [0060] of Cherian).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hong Cho whose telephone number is 571-272-3087. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri during 8 am to 4 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Hassan Phillips can be reached on 571-272-3940. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HONG S CHO/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467
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