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 .
The preliminary amendment filed on 08/30/2024 has been entered. Claims 1-25 are cancelled. Claims 26-45 are added new. Therefore, claims 26-45 are pending and addressed below.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 26-27, 33-38 and 40-45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lou; Hanqing et al US 20160044711 A1, hereinafter Lou, in view of Lou; Hanqing et al US 20200204222 A1, hereinafter Lou-2.
Regarding claims 26 and 44, Lou teaches, an apparatus comprising logic and circuitry configured to cause an Access Point (AP) device (see Lou Fig. 12) to:
transmit a beamforming training trigger frame from a sub 10 Gigahertz (GHz) (sub- 10GHz) AP of the AP device over a sub-10GHz wireless communication channel, the beamforming training trigger frame comprising configuration information to configure beamforming training over a millimeterWave (mmWave) wireless communication channel,( “Beamforming training trigger frame” is interpreted as a signal frame for scheduling or setting up beamforming training. Lou [45] “In the example diagram 600 of FIG. 6, a station STA1 601 and a station STA2 602 may intend to perform beamforming training, for example, on a 60 GHz band. The stations STA1 601 and STA2 602 may use MRTS and/or MCTS transmitted on a 5 GHz band to schedule”, [0053] “The STA1 601 may receive a beamforming schedule, for example, via an AP. A beamforming schedule may refer to a beamforming training schedule”, teaches receiving a mRTS/MCTS frame on a 5 GHz (=sub-10 GHz) channel for beamforming training scheduling on 1 60 GHz (=mmWave) channel),
process a feedback frame from a non-AP device to identify feedback information based on the sequence of training frames (Lou [34] “Beamforming training for a multiband capable millimeter wave device, which may usually be performed for 45 GHz and/or 60 GHz transmission, may be completed with the help of a 2.4 GHz/5 GHz band. For example, the beamforming training feedback frames may be transmitted via a 2.4 GHz/5 GHz band.”).
Lou does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Lou-2 teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises a first count value to indicate a count of transmit sectors to be used by the AP device, and a second count value to indicate a count of training frames per transmit sector (Lou-2 [217] “For example, an initiator of the BF SLS training may send a setup frame to the responder to begin the BF SLS training. … A setup frame may carry various information, including a number of sectors for initiator TXSS, …, a number of TXSS repeat times,”, [218]-[221], suggesting a set up frame (=trigger frame) carries information including a number of sectors, a number of repetitions for training frames, thereby, suggesting number of training frames per sector).
transmit a sequence of training frames from a mmWave AP of the AP device over the mmWave wireless communication channel after the beamforming training trigger frame, the sequence of training frames comprises one or more sector-based training sequences according to the first count value, wherein a sector-based training sequence comprises transmission of one or more training frames according to the second count value (LOU-2 Title “BEAMFORMING TRAINING IN MILLIMETER WAVE SYSTEMS”; [221] “The initiator may calculate the total number of training frames/sequences to be transmitted in the initiator TXSS based on the information received in the setup frame transmitted from the responder. The initiator may transmit the training frames accordingly.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Lou to include the features as taught by Lou-2 above to provide a process of Beam refinement where a wireless station (STA) can improve its antenna configuration (e.g., antenna weight vectors) for transmission and/or reception (LOU-2 [0001]).
With respect to claim 44, claim recites the identical features of claim 26 for a corresponding non-transitory computer storage media. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
Regarding claims 27 and 45, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus/ non-transitory computer storage media, as outlined in the rejection of claims 26 and 44.
Lou further teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises timing information to indicate a target sequence start time of a beginning of the sequence of training frames (“Target sequence start time” is interpreted, in line with Spec, as a pre-defined start time for sending training frames”. Lou [65], [53] “The beamforming training schedule and/or the beamforming transmission schedule may include a start time,”).
Regarding claim 33, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou further teaches, wherein a training frame of a sector-based training sequence via a transmit sector comprises a sector identifier (ID) to identify the transmit sector (Lou [66] “The SSW field may be transmitted in the SSW frame and may indicate the directional multigigabit (DMG) antenna IDs and/or sector IDs that may be utilized for the SSW frame transmission.”).
Regarding claim 34, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou-2 further teaches, wherein a training frame of the sequence of training frames comprises a target sequence end time to indicate an end time of the sequence of training frames (Lou-2 [218] e.g., “The initiator may later overwrite the duration field later in the training frames.”, suggesting training frame may a duration field i.e., an ending time).
Regarding claim 35, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou-2 further teaches, wherein the second count value is based on a count of receive sectors of the non-AP device (see Lou-2 [219]-[220] for number of sectors for responder (i.e., non-AP device) in the setup frame).
Regarding claim 36, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou further teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises sequence duration information to indicate a total duration of the sequence of training frames (Lou [65], [69] “the STA1 801 may schedule a beamforming transmission on the 60 GHz band by indicating an allocation start time and/or duration of the beamforming transmission via the MRTS frame 804.”).
Regarding claim 37, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou further teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises training frame duration information to indicate a duration of a training frame in the sequence of training frames (Lou [46] “The STA1 601 may schedule the transmission (e.g., a beamforming transmission, such as a transmission of one or more beamforming training signals) on the 60 GHz band by indicating an allocation start time and/or duration of the transmission (e.g., the beamforming transmission) via the MRTS frame 604.”).
Regarding claim 38, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou further teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises listening duration information to indicate a total listening duration during which the non-AP device is to listen for the sequence of training frames over the mmWave wireless communication channel (Lou [46], and e.g., [51] suggests, duration applies to the receiving (i.e., listening) of the training frames by the STA2 602, which may be a non-AP device).
Regarding claim 40, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou-2 further teaches, wherein the first count value is greater than one, and the sequence of training frames comprises a plurality of sector-based training sequences, wherein a count of sector-based training sequences in the plurality of sector-based training sequences is equal to the first count value (Lou-2 [219]-[221] teaches, training sequences for a number of sectors).
Regarding claim 41, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou further teaches, wherein the second count value is greater than one, and the sector-based training sequence comprises transmission of a plurality of training frames, wherein a count of training frames in the plurality of training frames is equal to the second count value (Implies in Lou-2 [218]-[221]).
Regarding claim 42, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou further teaches, comprising at least one radio to transmit the beamforming training trigger frame over the sub-10GHz wireless communication channel, and to transmit the sequence of training frames over the mmWave wireless communication channel (see Lou Fig. 6, 5GHz and 60GHz; and Fig. 9B, Transceiver).
Regarding claim 43, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou further teaches, comprising one or more antennas connected to the radio, and a processor to execute instructions of an operating system of the AP device (see Lou Fig. 9B, antenna 922).
Claim 39 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lou, in view of Lou-2, as applied to claim 26 above, and further in view of Zhang; Hongyuan et al US 20100056062 A1, hereinafter Zhang.
Regarding claim 39, Lou, in view of Lou-2, teaches the apparatus, as outlined in the rejection of claim 26.
Lou and Lou-2 do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Zhang teaches, wherein an inter-training frame time interval between consecutive training frames in the sector-based training sequence is based on a sector switching time of the non-AP device (Zhang [17] “In this manner, the steering vector defines a direction of transmission or reception of the antenna array 17 that may be referred to as "sector.", [28] “Preferably, the training data units d.sub.1, d.sub.2, . . . d.sub.n are equal in length and are separated by a constant interval t so that the station 50 can correctly switch the steering vector u …”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Lou and Lou-2 to include the features as taught by Zhang above to provide an enhanced method for communication systems in which devices transmit and receive data using multiple antennas and, more particularly, to beamforming by sector sweeping in such communication systems (Zhang [0002]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 28-32 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Maamari, US 20170134076 A1 - Method And Apparatus For Multiuser MIMO Beamforming Training, teaches sector based beamforming training in millimeter wave band communication.
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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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