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 .
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.
DETAILED ACTION
1. The application of Chun et al. for the "METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DISTRIBUTED ALLOCATION OF MULTIPLE RESOURCE UNITS IN WIRELESS LAN SYSTEM" filed 07/23/2024 has been examined. This application is a National Stage entry of PCT/KR2023/ 001095, International Filing Date: 01/25/2023, and claims foreign priority to 10-2022-0010169, filed 01/24/2022 in Korea. The preliminary amendment filed 07/23/2024 has been entered and made of record. Claims 1-18, 20 are pending in the application.
2. The applicant should use this period for response to thoroughly and very closely proof read and review the whole of the application for correct correlation between reference numerals in the textual portion of the Specification and Drawings along with any minor spelling errors, general typographical errors, accuracy, assurance of proper use for Trademarks TM, and other legal symbols @, where required, and clarity of meaning in the Specification, Drawings, and specifically the claims (i.e., provide proper antecedent basis for “the'' and “said'' within each
claim). Minor typographical errors could render a Patent unenforceable and so the applicant is
strongly encouraged to aid in this endeavor.
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.
4. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 103, the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 103 and potential 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under 35 U.S.C. 103.
5. Claims 1-12, 14-18, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) in view of Lin (US#11,582,007).
Regarding claim 1, the references disclose a method and apparatus for Resource Unit (RU) allocation signaling to support Trigger-Based Physical layer Protocol Data Unit (TB PPDU) with multi-RU, according to the essential features of the claim. Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) discloses a method performed by a station (STA) in a wireless local area network (WLAN) system, the method comprising: receiving, from an access point (AP), a trigger frame including distributed resource allocation information related to a plurality of resource units (RU) allocated to the STA (Fig. 13; Col. 3, lines 13-30 & 28, lines 16-57: receiving a trigger frame soliciting the PPDU from the wireless communication device, where the trigger frame carries distributed transmission information indicating that the data is to be transmitted according to the distributed tone plan); and performing an uplink transmission to the AP based on the distributed resource allocation information (Fig. 19; Col. 34, line 51 to Col. 35, line 6: the M tones mapped to the M noncontiguous subcarrier indices representing a distributed resource unit (dRU) assigned to the wireless communication device).
However, Yang reference does not disclose expressly wherein the distributed resource allocation information is indicated based on at least a RU allocation subfield included in one user information field in the trigger frame. In the same field of endeavor, Lin (US#11,582,007) discloses in Fig. 4 a diagram illustrated the trigger frame usable for communications between an AP and one or more STAs, in which a trigger frame comprising a first Resource Unit (RU) Allocation subfield which has one bit to indicate support of 320 MHz bandwidth from the AP via the wireless transceiver, determine a combination of RUs to be used in a Trigger-Based Physical layer Protocol Data Unit (TB PPDU) according to the first RU Allocation subfield, and send the TB PPDU for Uplink (UL) data transmission to the AP via the wireless transceiver in response to the trigger frame (Col. 7. Line 66 to Col. 8, line 11).
Thus, It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing data of the claimed the invention to apply Lin’s Resource Unit (RU) allocation signaling to support Trigger-Based Physical layer Protocol Data Unit (TB PPDU) with multi-RU into Yang’s user information field for a trigger frame formatted for resource allocation with the motivation being to provide a method and system for distributed allocation of multiple resource units in WLAN.
Regarding claim 2, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein each of the plurality of RUs is allocated to one of a plurality of frequency units (Figs. 6-7; Col. 16, line 12 to Col. 18, line 63).
Regarding claim 3, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein a RU allocation in a specific frequency unit among the plurality of frequency units is duplicatedly applied to at least one remaining frequency unit (Figs. 6-7; Col. 16, line 12 to Col. 18, line 63).
Regarding claim 4, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the trigger frame includes information indicating a frequency band in which the plurality of frequency units are included (Figs. 6-7; Col. 16, line 12 to Col. 18, line 63).
Regarding claim 5, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the information indicating the frequency band is included in a common information field or a special user information field of the trigger frame (Fig. 12; Col. 26, line 64 to Col. 27, line 67).
Regarding claim 6, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the trigger frame includes information indicating a plurality of frequency units to which the plurality of RUs are allocated (Fig. 12; Col. 26, line 64 to Col. 27, line 67).
Regarding claim 7, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein each of the plurality of RUs corresponds to at least one sub-RU, the distributed resource allocation information includes information about a start index of the sub-RU and information about a number of the sub-RU (Fig. 6; Col. 16, line 12 to Col. 17, line 58).
Regarding claim 8, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein a size of the sub-RU corresponds to at least one of 26 tones, 52 tones, 106 tones, 52+26 tones, or 106+26 tones (Fig. 6; Col. 16, line 12 to Col. 17, line 58).
Regarding claim 9, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the distributed resource allocation information is indicated based on at least one of values from 107 to 127 indicated by the RU allocation subfield (Fig. 4; Col. 7. Line 66 to Col. 8, line 11 ).
Regarding claim 10, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the one user field includes 1-bit information indicating whether the distributed resource allocation information being included (Fig. 12; Col. 27, lines 55-67).
Regarding claim 11, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the RU allocation subfield indicates non-distributed resource allocation information based on the 1-bit information having a first value, and indicates the distributed resource allocation information based on the 1-bit information having a second value (Fig. 12; Col. 26, lines 64 to Col. 27, line 67).
Regarding claim 12, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the distributed resource allocation information is indicated based on the RU allocation subfield, or based on the RU allocation subfield and at least one another subfield (Fig. 12; Col. 26, lines 64 to Col. 27, line 67).
Regarding claim 14, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the 1-bit information corresponds to a B25 bit position of the one user field (Figs. 13, 16; Col. 28, lines 44-57).
Regarding claim 15, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the trigger frame is set as a trigger type related to distributed resource allocation (Col. 4; lines 34-55).
Regarding claim 16, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the plurality of RUs have a same or different size of 242 tones or less (Fig. 6; Col. 16, lines 31-56).
Regarding claim 17, Yang in view of Lin teaches the method of claim 1 examined above, Yang et al. (US#12,218,884) further teaches wherein the plurality of RUs are distributively allocated within an available frequency domain excluding a punctured or inactive frequency unit (Fig. 6; Col. 16, line 12 to Col. 17, line 58).
Regarding claims 18, 20, they are apparatus claims corresponding to the method claim 1 examined above. Therefore, claims 18, 20 are analyzed and rejected as previously discussed with respect to claim 1 above.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claim 13 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claims, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
7. The following is an examiner's statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art of record fails to disclose or suggest wherein based on the RU allocation subfield, or based on the RU allocation subfield and at least one another subfield of the one user field, information indicating a plurality of frequency units to which the plurality of RUs are allocated, and RU allocation information for a specific frequency unit among the plurality of frequency units are indicated, as specifically recited in the claim.
Conclusion
8. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The Patil et al. (US#12,342,364) is cited to show full duplex APs.
The Asterjadhi et al. (US#11,083,021) shows random access resource unit allocation for a multiple BSSID network.
The Patil et al. (US#11,405,953) shows trigger-based RA in a multiple BSSID network.
The Chen et al. (US#11,539,482) shows enhanced resource allocation for wireless comm.
The Patil et al. (US#12,324,009) early critical update indications for multi-link devices.
The Jang et al. (US#12,317,317) shows trigger-based data transmission.
The Kim et al. (US#12,219,530) shows signaling for multiple RU allocation.
The Han et al. (US#2023/0128560) shows resource unit assignment for selective fading.
The Hu et al. (US#2024/0163042) shows communication method and apparatus.
9. Applicant's future amendments need to comply with the requirements of MPEP § 714.02, MPEP § 2163.04 and MPEP § 2163.06.
"with respect to newly added or amended claims, applicant should show support in the original disclosure for the new or amended claims." See MPEP § 714.02 and § 2163.06 ("Applicant should * * * specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure."); and MPEP § 2163.04 ("If applicant amends the claims and points out where and/or how the originally filed disclosure supports the amendment(s), and the examiner finds that the disclosure does not reasonably convey that the inventor had possession of the subject matter of the amendment at the time of the filing of the application, the examiner has the initial burden of presenting evidence or reasoning to explain why persons skilled in the art would not recognize in the disclosure a description of the invention defined by the claims."). See In re Smith, 458 F.2d 1389, 1395, 173 USPQ 679, 683 (CCPA 1972) In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d at 262,191 USPQ at 96 (emphasis added). "The use of a confusing variety of terms for the same thing should not be permitted.
New claims and amendments to the claims already in the application should be scrutinized not only for new matter but also for new terminology. While an applicant is not limited to the nomenclature used in the application as filed, he or she should make appropriate amendment of the specification whenever this nomenclature is departed from by amendment of the claims so as to have clear support or antecedent basis in the specification for the new terms appearing in the claims. This is necessary in order to insure certainty in construing the claims in the light of the specification." Ex parte Kotler, 1901 C.D. 62, 95 O.G. 2684 (Comm'r Pat. 1901). See 37 CFR 1.75, MPEP § 608.01 (i) and § 1302.01.
Note that examiners should ensure that the terms and phrases used in claims presented late in prosecution of the application (including claims amended via an examiner's amendment) find clear support or antecedent basis in the description so that the meaning of the terms in the claims may be ascertainable by reference to the description, see 37 CFR 1,75(d)(1 ). If the examiner determines that the claims presented late in prosecution do not comply with 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1), applicant will be required to make appropriate amendment to the description to provide clear support or antecedent basis for the terms appearing in the claims provided no new matter is introduced."
"USPTO personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure." In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023,1027-28 (Fed. Cir. 1997). MPEP § 2106. "
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to M. Phan whose telephone number is (571) 272-3149. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri from 6:00 to 3:00.
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, Chirag Shah, can be reached on (571) 272-3144. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the receptionist whose telephone number is (571) 272-2600.
11. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have any questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at toll free 1-866-217-9197.
Mphan
06/04/2026
/MAN U PHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477
Prosecution Insights