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 .
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jang et al. (US 2022/0394759 A1) in view of Hu et al. (US 2023/0300011 A1), claims priority to 63/32,321, dated March 18, 2022.
Regarding claims 1, 9, and 17, Jang discloses:
a device (fig.1 depicts a station (STA) and par.[0039] describes stations as mobile device, computers, Access Points (APs), base stations, eNodeB, gNodeBs, wherein par.[0036] describes a wireless W-LAN), the device comprising processing circuitry (fig.1 depicts a processor in either STA element 111 or 121) coupled to storage (fig.1 element 112 depicts the memory, which is a storage), which is a non-transitory computer readable medium (fig.1 element 112 and par.[0047]) the processing circuitry configured to:
perform a method configured to:
cause to send a plurality of OFDM symbols to a station device (par.[0004] describes transmitting a PPDU, the PPDU comprising a number of symbol periods in the time domain. Also, par.[0081, 0083]).
While the disclosure of Jang teaches transmission on an Resource Units (RU) to convey a signal such as a PPDU, it may not disclose:
utilize a legacy baseband data for a generation of a plurality of orthogonal frequency- division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols for a 60 GHz communication;
select a number of subcarriers based on a bandwidth selection; assign a first subcarrier spacing for a first group of bandwidths;
assign a second subcarrier spacing for a second group of bandwidths;
generate the plurality of OFDM symbols using an upclocking mechanism based on a bandwidth for the 60 GHz communication.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Hu teaches:
utilize a legacy baseband data for a generation of a plurality of orthogonal frequency- division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols for a 60 GHz communication (par.[0004] which recites, in part, “In that regard, design options of channel bandwidth, scalable waveform and numerologies to simplify implementations and enable reuse of most legacy IEEE 802.11ac/ax/be system designs (e.g., tone plans, modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and so on) remain to be defined at the present time.”);
select a number of subcarriers based on a bandwidth selection (par.[0040] which recites, in part, “for each channel bandwidth under each design, pertinent parameters may include, for example and without limitation…….. NFFT which includes a number of FFT subcarriers for the selected bandwidth, Nsd which describes the number of data carrying subcarriers for the selected bandwidth, Nsp which provides the number of pilot tone subcarriers, and Nst which provides for a total number of subcarriers for the bandwidth);
assign a first subcarrier spacing for a first group of bandwidths (par.[0041] describes the legacy physical layer designs are reusable, wherein the legacy physical layer SCS is either 312.5kHz or 78.125kHZ, for the legacy bandwidths);
assign a second subcarrier spacing for a second group of bandwidths (par.[0041 – 0042] wherein the 60GHz bandwidths are upclocked so their SCS which relies on the legacy SCS will be multiplied by n as discussed below);
generate the plurality of OFDM symbols using an upclocking mechanism based on a bandwidth for the 60 GHz communication (par.[0056] which recites, in part, “Alternatively, the SCS may be 312.5 kHz*n , or 78.125 kHz*n, n being a positive integer.”. The upclocking being performed when the SCS is multiplied by n, wherein n is a positive integer in order to 60GHz communications, also par.[0041 - 0042]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the teachings of Jang for transmitting over a physical layer in a 2.4, 5GHz, or 6GHz wireless fidelity communication, with the disclosure of Hu which teaches modifying the legacy to support 60GHz operation. The motivation/suggestion would have been that upclocking the legacy SCS allows for interoperability with previous 802.11 standards, lower production costs, reliable link establishment and control utilizing multi-links etc.
Regarding claims 2, 10, and 18, Hu teaches:
wherein the number of subcarriers is at least one of 64, 128, 256, or 512 (par.[0041] which describes the NFFT which includes a number of FFT subcarriers for the selected bandwidth which may be any of the above values, see “a fast Fourier transform (FFT) size of less than or equal to 4096 (e.g., 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096) may be utilized.”).
Regarding claims 3, 11, and 19, Hu teaches:
wherein the legacy baseband data is associated with a 20 MHz frequency for IEEE 802.11 ac (par.[0004] which recites, in part, “scalable waveform and numerologies to simplify implementations and enable reuse of most legacy IEEE 802.11ac/ax/be system designs (e.g., tone plans, modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and so on) remain to be defined at the present time”. It is noted that 802.11ac is capable of using 20MHz bandwidth, also, in 802.11be which is backward compatible with 802.11ac, the legacy 20 MHz bandwidth is also supported, par.[0039]).
Regarding claims 4, 12, and 20, Hu teaches:
wherein a legacy subcarriers spacing is 312.5 kHz (par.[0041] describes the legacy physical layer designs are reusable, wherein the legacy physical layer SCS is either 312.5kHz or 78.125kHZ, for the legacy bandwidths).
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Hu discloses:
wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to upclock the legacy baseband data by 8 times for a 160 MHz bandwidth in the 60 GHz communication (par.[0039] describes the 160 MHz bandwidth, and par.[0042] which recites, in part, “corresponding to SCS=312.5*n, with n=2, 3, 4, 5, . . . , 16.”).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Hu discloses:
wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
utilize a first legacy data for a 40 MHz physical layer (PHY) convergence protocol data unit (PPDU) (par.[0039] which describes the supported BWs in 802.11be which are legacy 40 MHz, thus a PPDU with Data may be transmitted over a 40 MHz BWs as it is supported in 802.11be);
upclock the first legacy data by 8 times for a 320 MHz bandwidth for the 60 GHz communication (par.[0041] describes the use of 320 MHz BW for 802.11be, wherein the SCS for 320 MHz BW is “Furthermore, SCS=n*78.125 kHz or n*312.5 kHz” and, par.[0042] which recites, in part, “corresponding to SCS=312.5*n, with n=2, 3, 4, 5, . . . , 16.”).
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Hu discloses:
wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
utilize a first legacy data for a 80 MHz physical layer (PHY) convergence protocol data unit (PPDU) (par.[0039] as discussed above, the 802.11be is capable of utilizing 802.11ac BWs such as the 80 MHz band, and thus is capable of transmitting the PPDU with data over the 80 MHz band);
upclock the first legacy data by 8 times for a 640 MHz bandwidth for the 60 GHz communication (par.[0041] describes the use of 640 MHz BW for 802.11be, wherein the SCS for 320 MHz BW is “Furthermore, SCS=n*78.125 kHz or n*312.5 kHz” and, par.[0042] which recites, in part, “corresponding to SCS=312.5*n, with n=2, 3, 4, 5, . . . , 16.”. That is, 802.11be for 60 GHz, the bandwidth will be a multiple of 320 MHz or 640 MHz, thus, the disclosure is capable of transmitting in the 640 MHz bandwidth).
Regarding claims 8 and 16, Hu discloses:
utilize a first legacy data for a 160 MHz physical layer (PHY) convergence protocol data unit (PPDU) (par.[0039] as discussed above 802.11be is backward compatible with 802.11ac which allows for the use of the 160 MHz bandwidth for transmitting PPDU with data appended);
upclock the first legacy data by 8 times for a 1280 MHz bandwidth for the 60 GHz communication (par.[0041] describes the BWs for 60GHz 802.11be which are multiples of 320 MHz or 640 MHz, thus 1280 MHz is supported by 802.11 see fig.2 and par.[0043]. Also as discussed above the SCS for 60GHz is 312.5*n wherein n can be equal to 8, see “with n=2, 3, 4, 5, . . . , 16.”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Boudreau et al. (US 2019/0288894 A1) “Multi-OFDM Protocol Beacon Operation”
Kim et al. (US 2022/0124852 A1) “Technique for Supporting Dual Connectivity in W-LAN System”
Kim et al. (US 2022/0159106 A1) “Method and Apparatus for Request Complete Information or Partial Information APs in Transmission MLD in Wireless LAN System”
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JAMAAL HENSON
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2411
/JAMAAL HENSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
