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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 8-10 and 18-19 is/are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
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, 5-7, 11, 13, 15-17, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cariou et al. (US 2023/0096482 A1) in view of Zhou et al. (US 2021/0352644 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 11, and 20, Cariou discloses A device, the device comprising processing circuitry coupled to storage, the processing circuitry configured to (claim 1) and A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising (claim 11) and A method comprising (claim 20) (Fig. 3, [0072]-[0074]: AP 102 includes a processing circuitry 306 and non-transitory memory 308 storing instructions):
broadcast advertisements to stations (STAs) indicating specific service periods for prioritized channel access within a Basic Service Set (BSS) ([0074]: EDCA parameters for prioritized access (e.g., a 5.sup.th access category) are defined which has highly prioritized default parameters (e.g., CWmin, AIFSN) and whose parameters are controlled and advertised by the AP in its beacons);
send an indication to the STAs queued for prioritized access to transmit reservation signals at a predetermined time post a start of a contention period ([0077]: a fixed time (e.g., lower than SIFS, maybe 8 or 12 us) after the start of a contention period, the STA will be allowed to transmit a reservation signal);
send contention window (CW) parameter settings to the STAs to control their backoff counter values during periods of prioritized access contention ([0078]: a specific set of contention parameters are used to reduce the chances of collisions between these STAs while keeping the backoff very short. In these embodiments, a new contention mechanism may be used or existing EDCA mechanisms as in option one (EDCA parameters for prioritized access) or option two (using AC-VO parameters). Option one, which uses a dedicated set of EDCA parameters for prioritized access, may be better suited in this situation allowing the AP is able to control and change the EDCA parameters of the AC-VO and of the EDCA parameters for prioritized access, independently); and
detect reception of overlapping reservation signals from STAs ([0077]: If two or more STAs are allowed to preempt the medium, all of them will send the reservation signal, that will overlap. [0078]: the STAs that sent a reservation signal. [0079]: In some of these channel preemption embodiments, if a collision is detected at the AP, then the AP may take control of the media and signal a collision. The AP would know this a collision for this mode since the reservation signal was received prior to an expected SIFS time and that it failed the STF and or SIG detection. Then the STAs that receive the notice from the AP that a collision occurred would select parameters based on a method outlined above for EDCA).
Cariou does not disclose, but Zhou discloses enforce clear channel assessment (CCA) protocol to cause STAs to defer their transmissions ([0123]: when multiple shared UEs perform LBT detection on the shared retransmission alternative resource, since the CCA measurement value is a randomly generated value by each shared UE itself, a retransmission collision event may still occur if a CCA measurement value randomly generated by a shared UE with a delayed start detection time is smaller than a CCA measurement value randomly generated by a shared UE with an earlier start detection time. [0124]: In view of this, to more clearly distinguish the LBT detection priority of each shared UE for the shared retransmission alternative resource, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the base station may also configure a fixed CCA measurement value for each shared UE, such that retransmission collision events can be avoid).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to program the AP 102, as taught by Cariou, to configure a fixed CCA measurement value for each shared UE, as taught by Zhou.
Doing so avoids collision events (Zhou: [0124]).
Regarding claim(s) 3 and 13, Cariou in view of Zhou discloses all features of claim(s) 1 and 11 as outlined above.
Cariou discloses wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to send configuration data to the STAs defining the specific service periods allocated for their use of prioritized access, including the transmission of reservation signals ([0074]: EDCA parameters for prioritized access (e.g., a 5.sup.th access category) are defined which has highly prioritized default parameters (e.g., CWmin, AIFSN) and whose parameters are controlled and advertised by the AP in its beacons. [0077]: a fixed time (e.g., lower than SIFS, maybe 8 or 12 us) after the start of a contention period, the STA will be allowed to transmit a reservation signal).
Regarding claim(s) 5 and 15, Cariou in view of Zhou discloses all features of claim(s) 1 and 11 as outlined above.
Cariou discloses wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to set overlapping reservation signals received from multiple STAs as a single reservation command ([0077]: If two or more STAs are allowed to preempt the medium, all of them will send the reservation signal, that will overlap. [0079]: if a collision is detected at the AP, then the AP may take control of the media and signal a collision. The AP would know this a collision for this mode since the reservation signal was received prior to an expected SIFS time and that it failed the STF and or SIG detection).
Regarding claim(s) 6 and 16, Cariou in view of Zhou discloses all features of claim(s) 1 and 11 as outlined above.
Cariou discloses wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to modify the CW parameter for one or more STAs ([0078]: a specific set of contention parameters are used to reduce the chances of collisions between these STAs while keeping the backoff very short. In these embodiments, a new contention mechanism may be used or existing EDCA mechanisms as in option one (EDCA parameters for prioritized access) or option two (using AC-VO parameters). Option one, which uses a dedicated set of EDCA parameters for prioritized access, may be better suited in this situation allowing the AP is able to control and change the EDCA parameters of the AC-VO and of the EDCA parameters for prioritized access, independently. [0074]: Option One: In these embodiments, EDCA parameters for prioritized access (e.g., a 5th access category) are defined which has highly prioritized default parameters (e.g., CWmin, AIFSN) and whose parameters are controlled and advertised by the AP in its beacons in order to update them depending on the load and the collision rates of retransmissions).
Regarding claim(s) 7 and 17, Cariou in view of Zhou discloses all features of claim(s) 1 and 11 as outlined above.
Cariou discloses wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to monitor the usage of prioritized access by STAs to ensure adherence to network's rules ([0080]: additional rules may be defined which allow STAs to use prioritized access only for packets from a specific AC or TID (limit to AC-VO, VI and BE for instance, or only AC-VO for instance), or for specific traffic identified as such by an SCS request. In some embodiments, additional rules may be defined which force the transmission rate of the retransmission to be reduced or fix this transmission rate. In some embodiments, additional rules may be defined which prevent STAs from being intentionally aggressive in rate selection for the first transmission, knowing that it will get prioritized access for the retransmission, by limiting the amount/ratio of retransmissions in a particular time period).
Claim(s) 2 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cariou et al. (US 2023/0096482 A1) in view of Zhou et al. (US 2021/0352644 A1) and Choi et al. (US 2025/0175902 A1).
Regarding claim(s) 2 and 12, Cariou in view of Zhou discloses all features of claim(s) 1 and 11 as outlined above.
Cariou does not disclose, but Choi discloses wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to include, within beacon frames or probe responses, High Priority Broadcast Target Wake Time (TWT) indicators associated with a start of prioritized access service periods ([0088]: In operation 1210, in a broadcast TWT, the AP 401 may advertise a beacon frame 450. The STA 301 may receive the beacon frame including a TWT element for a TWT service. [0089]: The beacon frame may include the TWT element and the member information. The TWT element may determine TWT parameters. The TWT parameters may include information about the R-TWT SP. The member information may be included in one of the TWT element and a VS IE. The VS IE may be included in the beacon frame. [0090]: The member information may be about the number of devices granted membership to perform communication by prioritizing transmission of frames in the R-TWT SP (e.g., the number of members)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to program the AP 102, as taught by Cariou, to advertise a beacon frame including a TWT element for a TWT service, where the TWT element may include member information associated with a number of devices granted membership to perform communication by prioritizing transmission of frames in the R-TWT SP, as taught by Choi.
Doing so provides efficiently using time resources from the perspective of the entire network both for a device granted membership (e.g., a member STA) and an electronic device not granted membership (e.g., a non-member STA) (Choi: [0090]).
Claim(s) 4 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cariou et al. (US 2023/0096482 A1) in view of Zhou et al. (US 2021/0352644 A1) and Tan et al. (JP 2008/072736 A).
Regarding claim(s) 4 and 14, Cariou in view of Zhou discloses all features of claim(s) 1 and 11 as outlined above.
Cariou does not disclose, but discloses wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine signal contention among multiple STAs by managing the processing of simultaneous reservation signals (pg. 7 first paragraph: When a plurality of terminals (terminal Ta and terminal Tb in the figure) simultaneously transmit reservation requests (RR) in the same slot of the contention control (CC) section, the access point AP determines which reservation request (RR). Also not accepted).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to program the AP 102, as taught by Cariou, to determine which reservation request not to accept when they are transmitted simultaneously by a plurality of terminals in the same slot of contention control section, as taught by Tan.
Doing so provides a QoS registration in contention-based data transmission section when reservation request fails (Tan: pg. 7 first paragraph).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THE HY NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-3813. The examiner can normally be reached on Mo-Fr: 8am-4pm.
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/THE HY NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
TheHy.Nguyen@USPTO.gov
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