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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. KR10-2022-0043000, filed on 06 April 2022.
Claim Objections
Claim 21 is objected to under 37 CFR 1.75(c) as being in improper form because a multiple dependent claim cannot serve as a basis for other multiple dependent claims. In this case, claim 21 recites “…any one of claims 1-18…”. For instance, claim 14 depends on claim 13, which depends on claim 11, which depends on claim 1. See MPEP § 608.01(n). Accordingly, claim 21 should not be further treated on the merits. However, for the purposes of compacting prosecution, Examiner will interpret the claim similar to claim 1 but in non-transitory computer-readable medium form. Appropriate correction and/or explanation is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chun et al. (US 2017/0303280) (hereinafter as Chun).
Regarding Claim 1, Chun teaches a method performed by a station (STA) in a wireless LAN system, the method comprising:
receiving, from an access point (AP), information related to allocation of a plurality of frequency units (FUs) to the STA ( the UL MU trigger frame may include control information including STA identifier (ID)/address information, resource allocation information to be used by each STA, duration information, par [0542]); and
performing decoding or transmission to the AP for a data field based on the information, wherein each FU included in the plurality of FUs is indicated to the STA through one or more resource allocation fields (the UL MU trigger frame may further include control information, including MCS information, coding information, and the like to be used at the time of transmitting the UL MU data frame for each STA, par [0547]).
Regarding Claim 2, Chun teaches the method of 1 wherein, based on the information being received through multi user (MU) physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), decoding is performed on the data field included in the MU PPDU, and wherein each FU included in the plurality of FUs is simultaneously indicated through a value of one resource allocation field within a specific SIG field of the MU PPDU (the L-SIG protection duration may be set to a value up to a duration in which an ACK frame 3130 (or BA frame) transmitted to each STA is transmitted according to the MAC duration value of the UL MU trigger frame, par [0550]).
Regarding Claim 3, Chun teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the specific SIG field includes a plurality of user fields for the STA, and wherein the plurality of user fields are associated with the plurality of FUs indicated by the one resource allocation field (The HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted., par [0612]).
Regarding Claim 4, Chun teaches the method of claim 3,wherein the plurality of user fields are constructed based on the same STA-identifier (ID) for the STA (The HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted, par [0542]).
Regarding Claim 5, Chun teaches the method of 3 wherein a number of the plurality of user fields is set equal to a number of the plurality of FUs (wherein a number of the HE-STF symbol is equal to a maximum value among a number of stream per resource unit, claim 20).
Regarding Claim 6, Chun teaches the method of claim 1, wherein, based on the information being received through a trigger frame, a trigger- based (TB) PPDU transmission to the AP requested by the trigger frame is performed, and wherein each FU included in the plurality of FUs is individually indicated through a plurality of resource allocation fields included in the trigger frame (the UL MU trigger frame may include control information including STA identifier (ID)/address information, resource allocation information to be used by each STA, par [0542]).
Regarding Claim 7, Chun teaches the method of 6 wherein each of the plurality of resource allocation fields is included in each of a plurality of user information fields for the STA (the User Position Array field is comprised of a User Position subfield of 2 bit for each group. The user position of the STA in the group which belongs to the STA is indicated by the User Position subfield in the User Position Array field. The AP may allocate the same user position to different STAs in each group, par [0375]).
Regarding Claim 8, Chun teaches the method of claim 7 wherein the plurality of user information fields are constructed based on the same association ID (AID) 12 field value (the Duration/ID field may be configured to include an association identifier of the STA that transmits the frame. In other case, the Duration/ID field may be configured to have a specific duration value depending on the corresponding type and subtype of the MAC frame, par [0193]).
Regarding Claim 9, Chun teaches the method of claim 7, wherein a number of the plurality of user information fields is set equal to a number of the plurality of FUs (the HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted., par [0612] and The HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted, par [0542]).
Regarding Claim 10, Chun teaches the method of claim 1 wherein each FU included in the plurality of FUs corresponds to an FU larger than or equal to a specific size among FUs of various pre-defined sizes. the FFT having a size which is four times larger than the existing PPDU may be applied from the HE-part. That is, the FFT having sizes of 256, 512, 1024, and 2048 may be applied from the HE-STF fields of the HE format PPDUs of 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and 160 MH, respectively, par [0485]).
Regarding Claim 11, Chun teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of FUs are associated with a plurality of user-related fields for the STA, and wherein specific information indicatable by user-related fields is applied equally to the plurality of FUs (the HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted., par [0612] and The HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted, par [0542]).
Regarding Claim 12, Chun teaches the method of claim 11 wherein the specific information includes at least one of modulation and coding scheme (MCS) information, stream number information, coding information, or beamforming information (he UL MU trigger frame 3110 may further include control information, including MCS information, coding information, and the like to be used at the time of transmitting the UL MU data frame for each STA., par [0047]).
Regarding Claim 13, Chun teaches the method of claim 11, wherein the specific information is indicated in a specific user-related field among the plurality of user-related fields, and wherein a field indicating the specific information in remaining user-related fields excluding the specific user-related field is reserved or used to indicate other information (the HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted., par [0612]).
Regarding Claim 14, Chun teaches the method of 13, wherein the other information includes at least one of information indicating whether a field is a last user-related field, information on a total number of the plurality of user-related fields, or information on a number of subsequent user-related fields (The HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted., par [0612] and The HE-SIG2 field 3321a may include user-specific information (e.g., frequency/space resource information of each STA, MCS level information, etc.) regarding every STA (i.e., STA1 to STA4) receiving a corresponding PPDU, and may be encoded in units of 20 MHz and transmitted, par [0542]).
Regarding Claim 15, Chun teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a number of the plurality of FUs is restricted to be less than or equal to a pre-defined maximum number (each STA may be different, a maximum PHY length of a UL frame is determined with respect to every STA participating in the UL MU transmission, and a maximum PHY length may be set to be the same for every STA participating in the UL MU transmission through a trigger frame, par [0765]).
Regarding Claim 16, Chun teaches the method of claim 1 wherein one FU included in the plurality of FUs is allocated to the STA and one or more other STAs, and remaining FUs are allocated to the STA. The number of HE-LTF 3341a symbols regarding each STA may be adjusted to a maximum number of HE-LTF 3341a symbols. The number of HE-LTF 3341a symbols may be determined according to the number of streams allocated in a spatial domain of a band to which a corresponding HE-LTF 3341a is mapped, par [0617]).
Regarding Claim 17, Chun teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of FUs are allocated to the STA in a channel having a size less than or equal to a pre-defined size (each STA may be different, a maximum PHY length of a UL frame is determined with respect to every STA participating in the UL MU transmission, and a maximum PHY length may be set to be the same for every STA participating in the UL MU transmission through a trigger frame, par [0765]).
Regarding Claim 18, Chun teaches the method of 1, wherein each FU included in the plurality of FUs includes a resource unit (RU) or a multiple resource unit (MRU) (a resource unit (or subband) refers to an allocation unit of frequency resource for DL/UL OFDMA transmission, different resource units may be allocated to a plurality of STAs by allocating one or more resource units as DL/UL frequency resources to one STA, pars [0581-0583]).
Regarding Claim 19, this apparatus (STA) claim comprises limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable (also see pars [0023-0024]).
Regarding Claim 20, this apparatus (processing unit) claim comprises limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable (also see par [0843]).
Regarding Claim 21, this non-transitory computer-readable medium claim comprises limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable (also see pars [0841-0844]).
Regarding Claim 22, this method claim comprises limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable (also see par [0015]).
Regarding Claim 23, this apparatus (access point device) claim comprises limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable (also see par [0015]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANTHONY MEJIA whose telephone number is (571)270-3630. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 10:30 AM-6:30 PM EST.
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/ANTHONY MEJIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2451
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