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 .
Response to Arguments
In response to 35 USC 102 and 103, filed 7/24/2026 on pages 6-10 of the remarks, applicant argues that McGibney fails to teach the independent claims.
Applicant’s argument have been considered but are moot, because the newly recited amendment does not rely on the newly recited reference being applied to the prior rejection of record or any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-4, 9, 11-12, 16, 18 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi et al. (US 20150124704, hereinafter Asterjadhi) in view of Shukla et al. (US 11483766, hereinafter Shukla).
Re. claim 1, Asterjadhi discloses a method performed by a wireless device to provide header protection for a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), the method comprising: generating a hash value of header information of the PPDU by applying a hash function to the header information of the PPDU (Asterjadhi discloses the STA can transmit all or a portion of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) from the packet or a hash of all or a portion of the packet in the MAC or PHY header of the ACK [0100]).
Although Asterjadhi discloses hashing header information of the PPDU, Asterjadhi does not explicitly teach but Shukla teaches including the hash value in an encrypted payload portion of the PPDU (Shukla teaches the ARP frame includes a MAC header, an encrypted payload, and a checksum. The MAC header includes a power management bit set to “1” indicating that the device is entering or has entered the power save mode. The encrypted payload includes additional authentication data (AAD) generated based on some of the information in the MAC header. The wireless access point decrypts the payload, validates the checksum, and generates a hash from the MAC header and determines that the hash is the same as or sufficiently similar to the AAD, thereby determining that the ARP frame is properly protected [Col 3 lines 1-37][Col 10 lines 21-56]); and transmitting the PPDU with the hash value included in the encrypted portion of the PPDU (Shukla teaches transmits the ARP frame that includes a MAC header, an encrypted payload and a checksum [Col 3 lines 38-57]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi to include wherein the header information includes information included in one or more of: a physical layer (PHY) header of the PPDU and a media access control (MAC) header of the PPDU as disclosed by Shukla. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of indicating that the device is entering or has entered the power save mode and frame are properly protected (Shukla [Col 3 lines 1-37]).
Re. claim 3, McGibney teaches the method of claim 1, McGibney does not explicitly teach but Shukla teaches wherein the header information includes information included in one or more of: a physical layer (PHY) header of the PPDU and a media access control (MAC) header of the PPDU (Shukla teaches the ARP frame includes a MAC header, an encrypted payload, and a checksum [Col 3 lines 1-37]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by McGibney to include wherein the header information includes information included in one or more of: a physical layer (PHY) header of the PPDU and a media access control (MAC) header of the PPDU as disclosed by Shukla. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of indicating that the device is entering or has entered the power save mode (Shukla [Col 3 lines 1-37]).
Re. claim 4, McGibney method of claim 1, McGibney does not explicitly teach but Shukla teaches wherein the header information includes information included in one or more of: a high throughput (HT) control field of a MAC header of the PPDU, an aggregated control (A-Control) field of the MAC header of the PPDU, and a power management bit included in the MAC header of the PPDU (Shukla teaches the MAC header includes a power management bit set to “1” indicating that the device is entering or has entered the power save mode [Col 3 lines 1-37]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by McGibney to include wherein the header information includes information included in one or more of: a high throughput (HT) control field of a MAC header of the PPDU, an aggregated control (A-Control) field of the MAC header of the PPDU, and a power management bit included in the MAC header of the PPDU as disclosed by Shukla. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of indicating that the device is entering or has entered the power save mode (Shukla [Col 3 lines 1-37]).
Re. claim 9, McGibney discloses a method performed by a wireless device to verify an integrity of header information of a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), the method comprising: receiving the PPDU (Asterjadhi discloses packet has been received [0094]);
extracting the header information of the PPDU (Asterjadhi discloses the packet if a field (e.g., an ACK policy field) in the packet indicates that the device should defer until an ACK is received. The field may be included in the MAC header or PHY header of the packet [0094]);
extracting a first hash value included in an encrypted payload portion of the PPDU (Asterjadhi discloses the STA can transmit all or a portion of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) from the packet or a hash of all or a portion of the packet in the MAC or PHY header of the ACK [0100]).
Although Asterjadhi discloses hashing header information of the PPDU, Asterjadhi does not explicitly teach but Shukla teaches generating a second hash value by applying a hash function to the extracted header information (Shukla teaches the ARP frame includes a MAC header, an encrypted payload, and a checksum. The MAC header includes a power management bit set to “1” indicating that the device is entering or has entered the power save mode. The encrypted payload includes additional authentication data (AAD) generated based on some of the information in the MAC header. The wireless access point decrypts the payload, validates the checksum, and generates a hash from the MAC header and determines that the hash is the same as or sufficiently similar to the AAD, thereby determining that the ARP frame is properly protected [Col 3 lines 1-37][Col 10 lines 21-56]);
determining whether the second hash value matches the first hash value; and discarding the PPDU in response to a determination that the second hash value does not match the first hash value (Shukla teaches receiving the frame 132 from the first computing device 130, the access point 110 can check the protected power management data 112 to determine whether the protected power management mode is applicable to the first computing device 130. If so, the access point 110 may discard the frame 132 if unprotected (e.g., a QoS null frame) or if any of the decryption of the payload, verification of the checksum, and/or verification of the AAD fail [Col 5 lines 57-67] [Col 6 line 55 – Col 7 line 2]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi to include wherein the header information includes information included in one or more of: a physical layer (PHY) header of the PPDU and a media access control (MAC) header of the PPDU as disclosed by Shukla. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of indicating that the device is entering or has entered the power save mode and frame are properly protected (Shukla [Col 3 lines 1-37]).
Re. claim 11, rejection of claim 9 is included and claim 11 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 3 above.
Re. claim 12, rejection of claim 9 is included and claim 12 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 4 above.
Re. claim 16, Asterjadhi discloses a wireless device to provide header protection for a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), the wireless device comprising: a radio frequency transceiver (Asterjadhi discloses radio transceiver [0057]); a memory device storing a set of instructions (Asterjadhi discloses memory [0065]); and a processor coupled to the memory device (Asterjadhi discloses processor [0065]). The claim limitation are taught by Asterjadhi-Shukla as shown in claim 1 above.
Re. claim 18, rejection of claim 16 is included and claim 18 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 3 above.
Re. claim 19, Asterjadhi discloses a wireless device to verify an integrity of header information of a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), the wireless device comprising: a radio frequency transceiver (Asterjadhi discloses radio transceiver [0057]); a memory device storing a set of instructions (Asterjadhi discloses memory [0065]); and a processor coupled to the memory device (Asterjadhi discloses processor [0065]). The claim limitation are taught by Asterjadhi-Shukla as shown in claim 9 above
Claim(s) 2, 10, 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi et al. (US 20150124704, hereinafter Asterjadhi) in view of Shukla et al. (US 11483766, hereinafter Shukla) in view of Gan (CN 113596927) and in further view of Dubrova et al. (US 20180069706, hereinafter Dubrova).
Re. claim 2, Asterjadhi-Shukla teach the method of claim 1, Asterjadhi-Shukla teach the encrypted payload portion of the PPDU, McGibney does not explicitly teach a PPDU includes pre-forward error correction (FEC) padding bits, post-FEC padding bits, and a packet extension (PE) field (Gan teaches Pre-FEC filling factor field and PE ambiguity field: for jointly indicating the physical layer filling length of the EHT PPDU, comprising post-FEC padding length and PE field length (FEC: Forward Error Correction, forward error correction code, PE: extension, packet expansion) [0085]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi-Shukla to include pre-forward error correction (FEC) padding bits, post-FEC padding bits, and a packet extension (PE) field as disclosed by Gan. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of structure of the trigger fame in order to indicate common parameters (Gan [0081]).
Asterjadhi-Shukla-Gan discloses the pre-FEC padding bits, the post-FEC padding bits, and the PE field, Asterjadhi-Shukla-Gan do not explicitly teach but Dubrova teaches wherein the first hash value is extracted from one or more of: the pre-FEC padding bits, the post-FEC padding bits, and the PE field (Dubrova teaches cryptographic checksum are extracted from the FEC codeword [0037]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi-Shukla-Gan to include wherein the first hash value is extracted from one or more of: the pre-FEC padding bits, the post-FEC padding bits, and the PE field as disclosed by Dubrova. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of the message has been modified, either intentionally or accidentally (Dubrova [0037]).
Re. claim 10, rejection of claim 9 is included and claim 10 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 2 above.
Re. claim 17, rejection of claim 16 is included and claim 17 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 2 above.
Re. claim 20, rejection of claim 19 is included and claim 20 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 2 above.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi et al. (US 20150124704, hereinafter Asterjadhi) in view of Shukla et al. (US 11483766, hereinafter Shukla) in view of Cao et al. (US 20210360472, hereinafter Cao) and in further view of Dubrova et al. (US 20180069706, hereinafter Dubrova).
Re. claim 5, Asterjadhi-Shukla teach the method of claim 1, Asterjadhi-Shukla do not explicitly teach but Cao teaches wherein the including the hash value in the encrypted payload portion of the PPDU comprises: scrambling excess information bits and pre-forward error correction (FEC) padding bits to generate scrambled bits; applying FEC coding to the scrambled bits to generate FEC output bits; and generating an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol based on the FEC output bits (Cao teaches the post-FEC padding bits for the last OFDM symbol [0058]. The scrambled (padded) information bit stream is provided to the LDPC encoder 813 which performs forward error correction encoding, thereby generating FEC encoded bits for output to the post-FEC PHY padding unit 814 [0065][0034][0057]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi-Shukla to include scrambling excess information bits and pre-forward error correction (FEC) padding bits to generate scrambled bits; applying FEC coding to the scrambled bits to generate FEC output bits; and generating an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol based on the FEC output bits as disclosed by Cao. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of modulating the PPDU (Cao [0058]).
Asterjadhi-Shukla-Cao do not explicitly teach but Dubrova teaches wherein the pre-FED padding bits include the hash value (Dubrova teaches cryptographic checksum are extracted from the FEC codeword [0037]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi-Shukla-Cao to include wherein the pre-FED padding bits include the hash value as disclosed by Dubrova. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of the message has been modified, either intentionally or accidentally (Dubrova [0037]).
Claim 6-8 and 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asterjadhi et al. (US 20150124704, hereinafter Asterjadhi) in view of Shukla et al. (US 11483766, hereinafter Shukla) and in further view of Chun (ES 2811831).
Re. claim 6, Asterjadhi-Shukla teach the method of claim 1, Asterjadhi-Shukla do not explicitly teach but Chun teaches wherein the PPDU includes an aggregated MPDU (A-MPDU), wherein the encrypted payload portion of the PPDU includes a delimiter field of the A-MPDU (Chun teaches aggregated MPDU [0170]. A-MPDU includes an MPDU delimiter [0241]), wherein the first hash value is extracted from the delimiter field (The MPDU delimiter includes a reserved field, an MPDU length field, a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field, and a delimiter signature field [0241]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi-Shukla to include wherein the PPDU includes an aggregated MPDU (A-MPDU), wherein the encrypted payload portion of the PPDU includes a delimiter field of the A-MPDU, wherein the first hash value is extracted from the delimiter field as disclosed by Chun. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of error correction (Chun [0245]).
Re. claim 7, Asterjadhi-Shukla-Chun teach the method of claim 6, Asterjadhi-Shukla do not explicitly teach but Chun teaches wherein the hash value is included in a MPDU length field of the delimiter field (Chun teaches the MPDU delimiter includes a reserved field, an MPDU length field, a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field, and a delimiter signature field [0241][0245]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi-Shukla to include wherein the hash value is included in a MPDU length field of the delimiter field as disclosed by Chun. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of error correction (Chun [0245]).
Re. claim 8, Asterjadhi-Shukla-Chun teach the method of claim 6, Asterjadhi-Shukla do not explicitly teach but Chun teaches wherein the hash value is included in a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field and a delimiter signature field of the delimiter field (Chun teaches the MPDU delimiter includes a reserved field, an MPDU length field, a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field, and a delimiter signature field [0241][0245]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and device disclosed by Asterjadhi-Shukla to include wherein the hash value is included in a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) field and a delimiter signature field of the delimiter field as disclosed by Chun. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated for the purpose of error correction (Chun [0245]).
Re. claim 13, rejection of claim 9 is included and claim 13 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 6 above.
Re. claim 14, rejection of claim 13 is included and claim 14 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 7 above.
Re. claim 15, rejection of claim 13 is included and claim 15 is rejected with the same rationale as applied in claim 8 above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Dror (US 20210297230) discloses a media access control (MAC) processor of a network device receives a timing packet to be transmitted by the network device. The MAC processor generates one or more indicators to be used by a PHY device of the network device for embedding timing information into the timing packet. The one or more indicators include at least an indicator indicating that the timing packet is a type of packet into which timing information is to be embedded, an indicator of a location of a field in the timing packet at which the timing information is to be embedded, and an indicator of whether timing information in the timing packet needs to be updated. The MAC processor transfers the timing packet and the one or more indicators to the PHY device for further processing of the timing packet and subsequent transmission of the timing packet from the network device.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEVIN A AYALA whose telephone number is (571)270-3912. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8AM-5PM; Friday: Variable EST.
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/KEVIN AYALA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2496
