CTNF 18/814,405 CTNF 86039 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. 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. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 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 – 07-15-aia AIA Claim(s) 1-4, 6-10, 12 and 14-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by Ajami et al. (US 2023/0137826 A1) . Regarding claim 1, Ajami appears to disclose an access point (AP) in a wireless network, the AP comprising: a memory; a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to ( Fig. 5, [0078], [0084] ): receive, from a station (STA), a first frame that requests assistance for peer-to-peer (P2P) communication and includes quality of service (QoS) information for the P2P communications ( Fig. 8, REQ at t o , [0098], [0102] disclosing the STA transmits a frame to request to the AP to allocate a TXOP for delay sensitive P2P communications including a requested delay bound; [0108] disclosing the AP receives the request ); transmit, to the STA, a second frame that is a trigger frame that allocates a transmission opportunity (TXOP) to the STA to transmit P2P communications with another STA ( Fig. 8, t 3 , [0109] disclosing at “time t 3 …the AP transmits a trigger frame that allocates the requested portion of the TXOP to the STA for the P2P communications.” ). Regarding claim 2, Ajami appears to disclose the AP of claim 1, wherein the first frame is a stream classification service (SCS) request frame that includes a QoS Characteristics element ( [0107], [0148] ). Regarding claim 3, Ajami appears to disclose the AP of claim 2, wherein a direction subfield in the QoS characteristics element is set to direct link and a link is indicated where the STA intends to transmit P2P frames ( [0103] ). Regarding claim 4, Ajami appears to disclose the AP of claim 1, wherein the second frame is a multi-user request-to-send (MU-RTS) triggered TXOP sharing (TXS) trigger frame ( [0110] ). Regarding claim 6, Ajami appears to disclose the AP of claim 1, wherein the QoS information comprises a service internal, a minimum data rate, or a delay bound within which latency-sensitive P2P traffic needs to be delivered ( Fig. 8, [0105], [0107], Fig. 18, [0148] ). Regarding claim 7, Ajami appears to disclose a first station (STA) in a wireless network, the first STA comprising: a memory; a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to ( Fig. 5, [0078], [0084] ): form a peer-to-peer (P2P) link with a second STA for P2P communications ( Fig. 9, 810, [0099], [0112] disclosing link 810 may be established using tunneled direct link setup (TDLS) ); transmit, to an access point (AP), a first frame that requests assistance for the P2P communications and includes quality of service (QoS) information for the P2P communications ( Fig. 8, REQ at t o , [0098], [0102] disclosing the STA transmits a frame to request to the AP to allocate a TXOP for delay sensitive P2P communications including a requested delay bound ); receive, from the AP, a second frame that is a trigger frame that allocates a transmission opportunity (TXOP) to the first STA for the P2P communications with the second STA ( Fig. 8, t 3 , [0109] disclosing at “time t 3 …the AP transmits a trigger frame that allocates the requested portion of the TXOP to the STA for the P2P communications.”; [0111] disclosing the STA receives the trigger frame ); and perform the P2P communication with the second STA using the allocated TXOP ( [0111]-[0112] disclosing the STA determines the portion of the TXOP from the trigger frame and transmits the P2P data at t 5 ). Regarding claim 8, Ajami appears to disclose the first STA of claim 7, wherein the first frame is a stream classification service (SCS) request frame that includes a QoS Characteristics element ( [0107], [0148] ). Regarding claim 9, Ajami appears to disclose the first STA of claim 8, wherein a direction subfield in the QoS characteristics element is set to direct link and a link is indicated where the first STA intends to transmit P2P frames ( [0103] ). Regarding claim 10, Ajami appears to disclose the first STA of claim 7, wherein the second frame is a multi-user request-to-send (MU-RTS) triggered TXOP sharing (TXS) trigger frame ( [0110] ). Regarding claim 12, Ajami appears to disclose the first STA of claim 7, wherein the QoS information comprises a service internal, a minimum data rate, or a delay bound within which latency-sensitive P2P traffic needs to be delivered ( Fig. 8, [0105], [0107], Fig. 18, [0148] ). Regarding claim 14, Ajami appears to disclose the first STA of claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to: transmit PPDUs for the P2P communication using enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) based contention method ( [0046] ). Regarding claim 15, Ajami appears to disclose the first STA of claim 14, wherein the PPDUs transmitted using the EDCA based contention method are transmitted with lower priority EDCA parameters ( [0046] ). Regarding claim 16 Ajami appears to disclose a computer-implemented method for peer-to-peer (P2P) communication at a first station (STA) in a wireless network, the method comprising ( Fig. 5, [0078], [0084] ): forming a P2P link with a second STA for P2P communications ( Fig. 9, 810, [0099], [0112] disclosing link 810 may be established using tunneled direct link setup (TDLS) ); transmitting, to an access point (AP), a first frame that requests assistance for the P2P communications and includes quality of service (QoS) information for the P2P communications ( Fig. 8, REQ at t o , [0098], [0102] disclosing the STA transmits a frame to request to the AP to allocate a TXOP for delay sensitive P2P communications including a requested delay bound ); receiving, from the AP, a second frame that is a trigger frame that allocates a transmission opportunity (TXOP) to the first STA for the P2P communications with the second STA ( Fig. 8, t 3 , [0109] disclosing at “time t 3 …the AP transmits a trigger frame that allocates the requested portion of the TXOP to the STA for the P2P communications.”; [0111] disclosing the STA receives the trigger frame ); and performing the P2P communication with the second STA using the allocated TXOP ( [0111]-[0112] disclosing the STA determines the portion of the TXOP from the trigger frame and transmits the P2P data at t 5 ). Regarding claim 17, Ajami appears to disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the first frame is a stream classification service (SCS) request frame that includes a QoS Characteristics element ( [0107], [0148] ). Regarding claim 18, Ajami appears to disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein a direction subfield in the QoS characteristics element is set to direct link and a link is indicated where the first STA intends to transmit P2P frames ( [0103] ). Regarding claim 19, Ajami appears to disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the second frame is a multi-user request-to-send (MU-RTS) triggered TXOP sharing (TXS) trigger frame ( [0110] ) . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 5, 11 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ajami et al. (US 2023/0137826 A1) in view of Xin et al. (WO 2023/017377 A1) . Regarding claim 5, Ajami does not disclose the following; however, Xin suggests the AP of claim 1, wherein the AP is affiliated with an AP multi-link device (MLD) ( Fig. 19, 72 [0112]-[0113]; Fig. 18, [0104] ). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Ajami to utilize a multi-link device as taught by Xin because it provides a capability of simultaneous transmission on different frequencies which can provide increased throughput ( [0104] ). Regarding claim 11, Ajami does not disclose the following; however, Xin suggests the first STA of claim 7, wherein the first STA is affiliated with a non-AP multi-link device (MLD) ( Fig. 18, [0104], [0106] ). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Ajami to utilize a multi-link device as taught by Xin because it provides a capability of simultaneous transmission on different frequencies which can provide increased throughput ( [0104] ). Regarding claim 20, Ajami does not disclose the following; however, Xin suggests the computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the first STA is affiliated with a non-AP multi-link device (MLD) ( Fig. 18, [0104], [0106] ). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Ajami to utilize a multi-link device as taught by Xin because it provides a capability of simultaneous transmission on different frequencies which can provide increased throughput ( [0104] ) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ajami et al. (US 2023/0137826 A1) in view of Ajami et al. (US 2025/0063596 A1), hereafter Ajami2 . Regarding claim 13, Ajami does not disclose the following; however, Ajami2 suggest the first STA of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to: determine that there is no pending physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) for the P2P communication with the second STA; and return the TXOP to the AP ( [0133] disclosing when the STA completes transmission of the PPDU it transmits a control signal to indicate return of the TXOP back to the AP ). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Ajami as taught by Ajami2 because this can increase communication efficiency by allowing the unused portion of the TXOP to be utilized by other devices . Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Ajami et al. (US 2023/014446 A1) . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joseph A Bednash whose telephone number is (571)270-7500. The examiner can normally be reached 7 AM - 4:30 PM M-F. 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, Huy Vu can be reached at (571)272-3155. 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. /JOSEPH A BEDNASH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461 Application/Control Number: 18/814,405 Page 2 Art Unit: 2461 Application/Control Number: 18/814,405 Page 3 Art Unit: 2461 Application/Control Number: 18/814,405 Page 4 Art Unit: 2461 Application/Control Number: 18/814,405 Page 5 Art Unit: 2461 Application/Control Number: 18/814,405 Page 6 Art Unit: 2461 Application/Control Number: 18/814,405 Page 7 Art Unit: 2461
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