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 .
2. Applicants arguments filed on 8/27/26 are persuasive, however, upon an updated search new references were found which are considered pertinent to the claimed subject matter. Accordingly, this action is non-final. The examiner apologizes for any delay in prosecution.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
3. Claims 1-5, 7-14, 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hedayat US 20250016830-A1 in view of either Chhabra US 20140211676 A1.
4. Consider claims 10 and 16. Hedayat teaches a system (fig 7) and device comprising: a transceiver included in a station (106) and configured to transmit and receive wireless signals from an access point (112) compatible with a wireless communications protocol; and a processing device (302 in fig 5) included in the station(106) and comprising one or more processing elements configured to: begin a service period between wireless devices (read on start SP in 0108), the service period being configured in accordance with a wireless communications protocol (0092). Although Hedayat (0108) teaches using channel usage as one of his parameters for the service periods, he fails to teach determine whether or not there has been activity during a designated period of time within the service period; and determine whether or not the service period should be terminated prior to a scheduled end of the service period, the determining being based, at least in part, on the activity. However, from the same field of endeavor Chhabra (see 730 for determining activity, see 720 for terminated, where prior reads on “returned to default” in 0045) teaches such. It would have been obvious, before the effective date, to monitor the activity in real time as taught by Chhabra in Hedayat in order to better manage the power saving of the wireless devices. Method claim 1 is rejected for the same reasons as system claim 10, since the recited elements would perform the claimed steps.
5. Regarding claims 2, 11 and 17. Chhabra (720 in fig 7) teaches wherein a termination of the service period (reads on inactivity period) comprises: switching a wireless device from an active mode to an inactive mode.
6. Regarding claims 3, 12 and 18. Chhabra (730 in fig 7) teaches wherein the determining whether or not the service period should be terminated further comprises: monitoring activity on a wireless connection during the service period; determining no activity has occurred during the designated period of time; and determining that the service period can be terminated prior to the scheduled end of the service period.
7. Regarding claims 4, 13 and 19. Chhabra (see abstract) teaches wherein the determining whether or not the service period should be terminated further comprises: determining activity has occurred during the designated period of time (first inactivity timeout period in Chhabra); determining an additional amount of time based on the activity (reads on second longer inactivity period) ; and waiting the additional amount of time before performing an additional determination of whether or not the service period should be terminated (reads on expired period to 720 in fig 7).
9. Regarding claim 7. Hedayat teaches wherein the wireless devices comprise an access point (112) and a station (106), and wherein the wireless devices are Wi-Fi compatible devices.
10. Regarding claim 8. Chhabra teaches wherein the determining whether or not the service period should be terminated is performed by the station (in 0010 it states that it can be implemented on the wireless communication device).
11. Regarding claim 9. Hedayat teaches wherein the service period is negotiated between the access point and the service period in accordance with a Wi-Fi protocol (see para 0119 and “latest 802.11”).
12. Regarding claim 20. Claim 20 is a combination of claims 8 and 9 and are rejected for the same reasons.
13. Regarding claims 5 and 14, Chhabra teaches (0053) wherein the additional amount of time is determined based on a number (of frames/bits/bytes) of identified activity events.
14. Claims 6 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hedayat US 20250016830-A1 in view of either Chhabra US 20140211676 A1futher in view of Patil et al US 2021/0184967 A1.
15. Regarding claims 6 and 15. Hedayat teaches using a program (0082) but fails to teach wherein the additional amount of time is determined using a binary exponential backoff algorithm. However, such is well known in the art as taught by Patil et al (0050) and would have been obvious before the effective date to substitute for the program taught by Hedayat to resolve the service period extensions promptly.
16. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Homchaudhuri et al US 12610318 B2 A1 teaches a wireless station may be communicating with an access point during a first active communication period. The communication may be performed in a first power mode. The station may switch to a second power mode to transition to a sleep period. The station may determine, based on traffic indicator metric(s), whether to perform a speculative wakeup and switch to the first power mode at the end of the sleep period.
Conclusion
17. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CURTIS A KUNTZ whose telephone number is (571)272-7499. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th from 530am to 330pm and Fri from 530am to 10am.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew D Anderson, can be reached at telephone number 5712724177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CURTIS A KUNTZ/Primary examiner, Art Unit 2646
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