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
This action is responsive to the application filed on 08/28/2024 has a total of 20 claims pending in the application; there are 4 independent claims and 16 dependent claims, all of which are ready for examination by the examiner.
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 (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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Erkucuk et al. Publication No. (US 2026/0129549 A1) in view of Chindapol et al. Publication No. (US 2008/0282126 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Erkucuk teaches a method performed by a relay station (STA) (relay station (STA 1611) FIG.16) that acts as a relay between a source STA (source station (STA 1610) FIG.16) and a destination STA (destination station (STA 1612) FIG.16), the method comprising:
wirelessly receiving a physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) from the source STA in a first channel (STA 1610 may directly transmit a PPDU 1621, comprising the low latency data frame, to relay 1611 via a first link (e.g., Link-1) [0207-208] FIG.16);
while receiving the PPDU from the source STA in the first channel (Upon receiving PPDU 1621, relay 1611 decodes the PHY header, MAC header, and frame body of PPDU 1621 and performs FCS control. If PPDU 1621 is received correctly, relay 1611 may transmit an ACK frame 1622 to STA 1610 via the first link if an explicit ACK procedure is used [0207-208] FIG.16), relaying the PPDU to the destination STA in a second channel that is different from the first channel (relay STA 1611 may use a second link (e.g., Link-2) to transmit the PPDU 1623 (comprising the low latency data frame) to destination STA 1612 [0207-208] FIG.16); and
Erkucuk does not explicitly teach responsive to detecting an error in receiving the PPDU from the source STA, ending the relaying of the PPDU to the destination STA early.
Chindapol teaches responsive to detecting an error in receiving the PPDU from the source STA, ending the relaying of the PPDU to the destination STA early (Chindapol: The relay station 106 and destination station 108 may determine whether they successfully received the packet 202 by various error detection techniques, such as parity checking matrices or cyclic redundancy coding, the relay station 106 may send a relay station ACK or NACK (relay station ACK/NACK) 204 to the source station 104 based on the determination of whether the relay station 106 successfully received the packet 202. The ACK/NACK frame may include a time slot assigned by the source station 104 [0017-20] FIG.2s; The relay station ACK or NACK 204 and the destination station ACK or NACK 206 may be received during the ACK/NACK frame at different times and via a different frequency range, at different times and via a same frequency range, at a same time and via a different frequency range, or at a same time and via a same frequency range [0034-35] FIGs.2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Erkucuk by the teaching of Chindapol to detect an error early in order to transmit or encode an ACK/NACK message to maximize the probability of the source station 104 being able to decode both ACK/NACK messages correctly (Chindapol: [0025] FIGs.2).
Regarding claim 2, Erkucuk teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: wirelessly transmitting a relay negative acknowledgement (NACK) frame to the source STA and the destination STA in the first channel (acknowledging (ACK) recipient of the frame, with an ACK policy indicator subfield, together with other information, identifies the ACK policy followed upon delivery of the MPDU (e.g., normal ack, implicit block ack request, no ack or NACK, block ack, etc.) [0078-80] FIG.4).
Regarding claim 3, Erkucuk teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: wirelessly transmitting an error indicator in the second channel after ending the relaying of the PPDU to the destination STA early (the QoS control field may include a traffic identifier (TID) subfield, an ack policy indicator subfield, and a queue size subfield (or a transmission opportunity (TXOP) duration requested subfield), The ack policy indicator subfield, together with other information, identifies the acknowledgment policy followed upon delivery of the MPDU (e.g., normal ack, implicit block ack request, no ack, block ack, etc.) [0077-80] FIG.4).
Regarding claim 4, Erkucuk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the PPDU is relayed to the destination STA using an amplify and forward relay transmission technique (when a relay begins forwarding a low latency data frame to a destination STA via a second link while still receiving the low latency data frame via a first link, latency may be reduced and the low latency data frame may be received within the transmission completion time. This may be advantageous from a latency perspective, particularly when the low latency data frame is forwarded in a long duration PPDU. The improved latency is due to the relay not fully decoding the PPDU comprising the low latency data frame before relaying the low latency data frame to the destination STA [0211] FIG.17).
Regarding claim 5, Erkucuk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the PPDU is relayed to the destination STA using a decode and forward relay transmission technique (relay 1711 may be configured to decode PPDU 1721 received from STA 1710 and to forward its contents in a PPDU 1722 to STA 1712 [0211] FIG.17).
Regarding claim 6, Erkucuk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the error in receiving the PPDU from the source STA is detected based on performing a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) of a signal field included in the PPDU using a CRC value included in a CRC field included in the PPDU (The frame check sequence (FCS) field contains a 32-bit Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) code. The FCS field value is calculated over all of the fields of the MAC header and the frame body field [0076] FIG.3).
Regarding claim 7, Erkucuk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the PPDU received from the source STA is an aggregated PPDU (A-PPDU) that includes a plurality of sub-PPDUs and a plurality of cyclic redundancy check (CRC) fields each corresponding to one of the plurality of sub-PPDUs, wherein the error in receiving the PPDU from the source STA is detected based on performing a CRC of one of the plurality of sub-PPDU using a CRC value included in one of the plurality of CRC fields corresponding to the sub-PPDU (FCS field contains a 32-bit CRC code [0076] While relay 2011 may decode and forward portions of PPDU 2121 before it fully receives PPDU 2121, relay 2011 may perform a frame check sequence (FCS) control when PPDU 2121 is fully received. After a successful FCS control of PPDU 2121, relay 2011 may transmit ACK frame 2123 to STA 2010 via the first link. In another example, after a failed FCS control of PPDU 2121, relay 2011 may not transmit an ACK frame. Upon receiving PPDU 2122 successfully, STA 2013 may transmit an ACK frame 2124 to relay 2011 via the second link. In an example, ACK frames 2123 and 2124 may be block ACK frames [0234-236] FIG.20).
Regarding claims 8-14, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-7, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from the “source station” side and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Regarding claims 15-17, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-7, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from the “wireless device in a relay STA” side with a transceiver, memory and a processor (Erkucuk: 210-FIG.2) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Regarding claims 18-20, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-7, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from the “wireless device in a source STA” side with a transceiver, memory and a processor (Erkucuk: 210-FIG.2) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Conclusion
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111 (c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDELNABI O MUSA whose telephone number is (571)270-1901, and email address is abdelnabi.musa@uspto.gov ‘preferred’. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:00 am - 5:00 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kevin Bates, can be reached on 571-2723980. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ABDELNABI O MUSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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