DETAILED ACTION
This office action is a response to the 371 application entering national stage from PCT/KR2023/004916 filed on April 12, 2023.
Claims 1-14 and 16 are pending.
Claims 1, 14 and 16 are rejected.
Claims 2-13 are objected to.
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 the Instant Application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on January 6, 2026 and June 23, 2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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 1, 14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shellhammer et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0385437, hereinafter Shellhammer, in view of Min et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0297674, hereinafter Min, and Shellhammer et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2021/0297209, hereinafter Shellhammer’209.
Regarding Claim 1, Shellhammer discloses a method performed by a first station (STA) in a wireless LAN system (Abstract; Figure 1, 4-6, 11, 13 and 14), the method comprising:
receiving, from a second STA, a specific physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) including a plurality of sub-PPDUs (S-PPDUs); and decoding a first S-PPDU received on a primary 160 MHz channel among the plurality of S-PPDUs (Figure 6 and 12; Paragraph [0066] the A-PPDU 600 is shown to include two PPDUs 602 and 604 that are transmitted on respective 160 MHz channels of a 320 MHz bandwidth. More specifically, the bandwidth of the first PPDU 602 spans a primary 160 MHz channel and the bandwidth of the second PPDU 604 spans a secondary 160 MHz channel. However, in actual implementations, the A-PPDU 600 may include any number of PPDUs that can be transmitted over a wide range of bandwidths; Paragraph [0103] the process 1200 proceeds with receiving the TB PPDU responsive to the trigger frame, where the first sub-PPDU of the TB PPDU is received on a first portion of the 320 MHz bandwidth and has a PHY preamble carrying first bandwidth information indicating the 320 MHz bandwidth, where the second sub-PPDU of the TB PPDU is received on a second portion of the 320 MHz bandwidth and has a PHY preamble carrying second bandwidth information indicating a bandwidth less than or equal to 160 MHz, and where the second portion spans the bandwidth indicated by the second bandwidth information. In some aspects, the second portion may be located within a primary 160 MHz sub-band of the 320 MHz bandwidth and the first portion may be located within a secondary 160 MHz sub-band of the 320 MHz bandwidth),
wherein the specific PPDU includes a second S-PPDU and a first pre-padding field among the plurality of S-PPDUs in a first secondary 160 MHz channel or a secondary 320 MHz channel (Figure 6 and 11; Paragraph [0095-0103] Generating, transmission and reception of PPDUs over a primary 160 MHz channel and a secondary 160 MHz channel; Figure 3; Paragraph [0052] Padding field).
Shellhammer discloses a first and second PPDU and discloses an aggregated PPDU but may not explicitly disclose wherein the first S-PPDU including information indicating that the specific PPDU is an aggregated (A)-PPDU.
However, Min teaches wherein the first S-PPDU including information indicating that the specific PPDU is an aggregated (A)-PPDU (Paragraph [0153-0160] Indication of multi-band aggregation (1-bit)).
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 teachings of Shellhammer with the teachings of Min. Min provides a solution for efficient use of the resources of a wireless local-area network (WLAN) is important to provide bandwidth and acceptable response times to the users of the WLAN. However, often there are many devices trying to share the same resources and some devices may be limited by the communication protocol they use or by their hardware bandwidth. .The next-generation wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) device is able to operate on multiple bands concurrently to achieve higher throughput performance. The antennas is effectively separated for gaining spatial diversity and the different channel characteristics (Min Abstract; Paragraph [0002-0003 and 0024-0033]).
Shellhammer in view of Min disclose reception of PPDUs and briefly disclose padding but may not explicitly disclose wherein a length of the first pre-padding field is a length from a legacy-short training field (L-STF) included in the first S-PPDU to a high throughput (HE) SIG-B field or an extremely high throughput (EHT)-SIG field.
However, Shellhammer’209 more specifically teaches wherein a length of the first pre-padding field is a length from a legacy-short training field (L-STF) included in the first S-PPDU to a high throughput (HE) SIG-B field or an extremely high throughput (EHT)-SIG field (Figure 4 and 7A; Paragraph [0056-0060] In some such implementations, the generation-specific preambles may be signaled in subchannels that have a bandwidth size that is a multiple of 80 MHz bandwidth. For example, the bandwidth of each subchannel may be 80 MHz, 160 MHz, 240 MHz, 320 MHz, 400 MHz, 480 MHz, or greater. The bandwidths of the subchannels may be different. In the example shown in FIG. 5, the first subchannel 501 may have a bandwidth of 160 MHz, the second subchannel 502 also may have a bandwidth of 160 MHz, and the third subchannel 503 may have a bandwidth of 320 MHz; The compound PPDU also may be referred to as a combination PPDU, a Multi-Gen PPDU, a multi-PPDU, an mPPDU, an aggregated PPDU (A-PPDU), or other terms; When preparing the wireless packet 700 based on a combination of generation-specific PPDUs 731, 732, and 733, a WLAN device may modify the generation-specific PPDUs so that the preambles and data fields line up in time. For example, for preamble orthogonality, it may be desirable for the OFDM symbols of the generation-specific preambles 551 to line up in time. For example, the OFDM symbols may use the same symbol duration, guard interval duration, and subcarrier spacing, among other examples. Furthermore, the quantity of OFDM symbols used for each generation-specific preamble may be consistent. In some implementations, extra OFDM symbols may be added to one or more of the generation-specific preambles 551 such that the generation-specific preambles 551 align in time. For example, if one of the generation-specific preambles 551 is shorter than the others, a transmitting WLAN device may add padding so that the lengths of all the generation-specific preambles 551 are the same;
That is if one of the generation specific preambles is shorter than the others a transmitting WLAN device may add padding so that the lengths are the same. As shown in Figure 4A and 4B specifically the elements 410 and 420. If these preambles differ from each other in length, the padding needs to compensate for the length difference. The length difference can be provided by any of the fields of subparts 405-410 or sub-part 405-420. In other words, the padding is absolutely linked to these fields (or absence thereof). Paragraph 0055 provides the examples of padding the SIG fields. However it is clear that the padding length may be chosen such that it is suitable for the difference at hand. Specifying that the padding is of the length between L-STF to a (HE/EHT) SIG is one of the options that would be contemplated by the skilled person, depending on the actual difference between preamble lengths).
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 teachings of Shellhammer in view of Min with the teachings of Shellhammer’209. The method enables transmitting the wireless packet that includes the generation-specific preamble formatted according to the generation of the wireless communication protocol via the subchannel of a wireless channel, and receiving the portion of the data populated in the respective portions in the data fields after the first and second generation- specific preambles, thus enabling greater bandwidth or enhanced features compared to previous generations of the WLAN communication protocol in an effective manner. The method allows the wireless station to receive the data from the access point (AP) in an efficient manner (Shellhammer’209 Abstract; Paragraph [0002-0007]).
Regarding Claim 14, Shellhammer discloses a first station (STA) in a wireless LAN system, the first STA comprising: at least one transceiver; and at least one processor connected to the at least one transceiver, wherein the at least one processor is configured (Abstract; Figure 1, 4-6, 11, 13 and 14) to:
receive, from a second STA through the at least one transceiver, a specific physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) including a plurality of sub-PPDUs (S-PPDUs); and decode a first S-PPDU received on a primary 160 MHz channel among the plurality of S-PPDUs (Figure 6 and 12; Paragraph [0066] the A-PPDU 600 is shown to include two PPDUs 602 and 604 that are transmitted on respective 160 MHz channels of a 320 MHz bandwidth. More specifically, the bandwidth of the first PPDU 602 spans a primary 160 MHz channel and the bandwidth of the second PPDU 604 spans a secondary 160 MHz channel. However, in actual implementations, the A-PPDU 600 may include any number of PPDUs that can be transmitted over a wide range of bandwidths; Paragraph [0103] the process 1200 proceeds with receiving the TB PPDU responsive to the trigger frame, where the first sub-PPDU of the TB PPDU is received on a first portion of the 320 MHz bandwidth and has a PHY preamble carrying first bandwidth information indicating the 320 MHz bandwidth, where the second sub-PPDU of the TB PPDU is received on a second portion of the 320 MHz bandwidth and has a PHY preamble carrying second bandwidth information indicating a bandwidth less than or equal to 160 MHz, and where the second portion spans the bandwidth indicated by the second bandwidth information. In some aspects, the second portion may be located within a primary 160 MHz sub-band of the 320 MHz bandwidth and the first portion may be located within a secondary 160 MHz sub-band of the 320 MHz bandwidth),
wherein the specific PPDU includes a second S-PPDU and a first pre-padding field among the plurality of S-PPDUs in a first secondary 160 MHz channel or a secondary 320 MHz channel (Figure 6 and 11; Paragraph [0095-0103] Generating, transmission and reception of PPDUs over a primary 160 MHz channel and a secondary 160 MHz channel; Figure 3; Paragraph [0052] Padding field).
Shellhammer discloses a first and second PPDU and discloses an aggregated PPDU but may not explicitly disclose wherein the first S-PPDU including information indicating that the specific PPDU is an aggregated (A)-PPDU.
However, Min teaches wherein the first S-PPDU including information indicating that the specific PPDU is an aggregated (A)-PPDU (Paragraph [0153-0160] Indication of multi-band aggregation (1-bit)).
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 teachings of Shellhammer with the teachings of Min. Min provides a solution for efficient use of the resources of a wireless local-area network (WLAN) is important to provide bandwidth and acceptable response times to the users of the WLAN. However, often there are many devices trying to share the same resources and some devices may be limited by the communication protocol they use or by their hardware bandwidth. .The next-generation wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) device is able to operate on multiple bands concurrently to achieve higher throughput performance. The antennas is effectively separated for gaining spatial diversity and the different channel characteristics (Min Abstract; Paragraph [0002-0003 and 0024-0033]).
Shellhammer in view of Min disclose reception of PPDUs and briefly disclose padding but may not explicitly disclose wherein a length of the first pre-padding field is a length from an legacy-short training field (L-STF) included in the first S-PPDU to an high throughput (HE)-SIG-B field or an extremely high throughput (EHT)-SIG field.
However, Shellhammer’209 more specifically teaches wherein a length of the first pre-padding field is a length from an legacy-short training field (L-STF) included in the first S-PPDU to an high throughput (HE)-SIG-B field or an extremely high throughput (EHT)-SIG field (Figure 4 and 7A; Paragraph [0056-0060] In some such implementations, the generation-specific preambles may be signaled in subchannels that have a bandwidth size that is a multiple of 80 MHz bandwidth. For example, the bandwidth of each subchannel may be 80 MHz, 160 MHz, 240 MHz, 320 MHz, 400 MHz, 480 MHz, or greater. The bandwidths of the subchannels may be different. In the example shown in FIG. 5, the first subchannel 501 may have a bandwidth of 160 MHz, the second subchannel 502 also may have a bandwidth of 160 MHz, and the third subchannel 503 may have a bandwidth of 320 MHz; The compound PPDU also may be referred to as a combination PPDU, a Multi-Gen PPDU, a multi-PPDU, an mPPDU, an aggregated PPDU (A-PPDU), or other terms; When preparing the wireless packet 700 based on a combination of generation-specific PPDUs 731, 732, and 733, a WLAN device may modify the generation-specific PPDUs so that the preambles and data fields line up in time. For example, for preamble orthogonality, it may be desirable for the OFDM symbols of the generation-specific preambles 551 to line up in time. For example, the OFDM symbols may use the same symbol duration, guard interval duration, and subcarrier spacing, among other examples. Furthermore, the quantity of OFDM symbols used for each generation-specific preamble may be consistent. In some implementations, extra OFDM symbols may be added to one or more of the generation-specific preambles 551 such that the generation-specific preambles 551 align in time. For example, if one of the generation-specific preambles 551 is shorter than the others, a transmitting WLAN device may add padding so that the lengths of all the generation-specific preambles 551 are the same;
That is if one of the generation specific preambles is shorter than the others a transmitting WLAN device may add padding so that the lengths are the same. As shown in Figure 4A and 4B specifically the elements 410 and 420. If these preambles differ from each other in length, the padding needs to compensate for the length difference. The length difference can be provided by any of the fields of subparts 405-410 or sub-part 405-420. In other words, the padding is absolutely linked to these fields (or absence thereof). Paragraph 0055 provides the examples of padding the SIG fields. However it is clear that the padding length may be chosen such that it is suitable for the difference at hand. Specifying that the padding is of the length between L-STF to a (HE/EHT) SIG is one of the options that would be contemplated by the skilled person, depending on the actual difference between preamble lengths).
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 teachings of Shellhammer in view of Min with the teachings of Shellhammer’209. The method enables transmitting the wireless packet that includes the generation-specific preamble formatted according to the generation of the wireless communication protocol via the subchannel of a wireless channel, and receiving the portion of the data populated in the respective portions in the data fields after the first and second generation- specific preambles, thus enabling greater bandwidth or enhanced features compared to previous generations of the WLAN communication protocol in an effective manner. The method allows the wireless station to receive the data from the access point (AP) in an efficient manner (Shellhammer’209 Abstract; Paragraph [0002-0007]).
Regarding Claim 16, Shellhammer discloses a second station (STA) in a wireless LAN system, the second STA comprising: at least one transceiver; and at least one processor connected to the at least one transceiver, wherein the at least one processor is configured (Abstract; Figure 1, 4-6, 11, 13 and 14) to:
generate a specific physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) including multiple sub-PPDUs (S-PPDUs); transmit the specific PPDU to at least one STA including the first STA through the at least one transceiver (Figure 6, 11 and 12; Paragraph [0066] the A-PPDU 600 is shown to include two PPDUs 602 and 604 that are transmitted on respective 160 MHz channels of a 320 MHz bandwidth. More specifically, the bandwidth of the first PPDU 602 spans a primary 160 MHz channel and the bandwidth of the second PPDU 604 spans a secondary 160 MHz channel. However, in actual implementations, the A-PPDU 600 may include any number of PPDUs that can be transmitted over a wide range of bandwidths; Paragraph [0103] the process 1200 proceeds with receiving the TB PPDU responsive to the trigger frame, where the first sub-PPDU of the TB PPDU is received on a first portion of the 320 MHz bandwidth and has a PHY preamble carrying first bandwidth information indicating the 320 MHz bandwidth, where the second sub-PPDU of the TB PPDU is received on a second portion of the 320 MHz bandwidth and has a PHY preamble carrying second bandwidth information indicating a bandwidth less than or equal to 160 MHz, and where the second portion spans the bandwidth indicated by the second bandwidth information. In some aspects, the second portion may be located within a primary 160 MHz sub-band of the 320 MHz bandwidth and the first portion may be located within a secondary 160 MHz sub-band of the 320 MHz bandwidth),
wherein the specific PPDU includes a first S-PPDU among the plurality of S-PPDUs in a primary 160 MHz channel, a second S-PPDU among the plurality of S-PPDUs in a first secondary 160 MHz channel or a secondary 320 MHz channel, and a first pre-padding field (Figure 6 and 11; Paragraph [0095-0103] Generating, transmission and reception of PPDUs over a primary 160 MHz channel and a secondary 160 MHz channel; Figure 3; Paragraph [0052] Padding field).
Shellhammer discloses a first and second PPDU and discloses an aggregated PPDU but may not explicitly disclose wherein the first S-PPDU includes information indicating that the specific PPDU is an aggregated (A)-PPDU.
However, Min teaches wherein the first S-PPDU including information indicating that the specific PPDU is an aggregated (A)-PPDU (Paragraph [0153-0160] Indication of multi-band aggregation (1-bit)).
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 teachings of Shellhammer with the teachings of Min. Min provides a solution for efficient use of the resources of a wireless local-area network (WLAN) is important to provide bandwidth and acceptable response times to the users of the WLAN. However, often there are many devices trying to share the same resources and some devices may be limited by the communication protocol they use or by their hardware bandwidth. .The next-generation wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) device is able to operate on multiple bands concurrently to achieve higher throughput performance. The antennas is effectively separated for gaining spatial diversity and the different channel characteristics (Min Abstract; Paragraph [0002-0003 and 0024-0033]).
Shellhammer in view of Min disclose reception of PPDUs and briefly disclose padding but may not explicitly disclose wherein a length of the first pre-padding field is a length from an legacy-short training throughput (L-STF) included in the first S-PPDU to an high throughput (HE)-SIG-B field or an extremely high throughput (EHT)-SIG field.
However, Shellhammer’209 more specifically teaches wherein a length of the first pre-padding field is a length from an legacy-short training throughput (L-STF) included in the first S-PPDU to an high throughput (HE)-SIG-B field or an extremely high throughput (EHT)-SIG field (Figure 4 and 7A; Paragraph [0056-0060] In some such implementations, the generation-specific preambles may be signaled in subchannels that have a bandwidth size that is a multiple of 80 MHz bandwidth. For example, the bandwidth of each subchannel may be 80 MHz, 160 MHz, 240 MHz, 320 MHz, 400 MHz, 480 MHz, or greater. The bandwidths of the subchannels may be different. In the example shown in FIG. 5, the first subchannel 501 may have a bandwidth of 160 MHz, the second subchannel 502 also may have a bandwidth of 160 MHz, and the third subchannel 503 may have a bandwidth of 320 MHz; The compound PPDU also may be referred to as a combination PPDU, a Multi-Gen PPDU, a multi-PPDU, an mPPDU, an aggregated PPDU (A-PPDU), or other terms; When preparing the wireless packet 700 based on a combination of generation-specific PPDUs 731, 732, and 733, a WLAN device may modify the generation-specific PPDUs so that the preambles and data fields line up in time. For example, for preamble orthogonality, it may be desirable for the OFDM symbols of the generation-specific preambles 551 to line up in time. For example, the OFDM symbols may use the same symbol duration, guard interval duration, and subcarrier spacing, among other examples. Furthermore, the quantity of OFDM symbols used for each generation-specific preamble may be consistent. In some implementations, extra OFDM symbols may be added to one or more of the generation-specific preambles 551 such that the generation-specific preambles 551 align in time. For example, if one of the generation-specific preambles 551 is shorter than the others, a transmitting WLAN device may add padding so that the lengths of all the generation-specific preambles 551 are the same;
That is if one of the generation specific preambles is shorter than the others a transmitting WLAN device may add padding so that the lengths are the same. As shown in Figure 4A and 4B specifically the elements 410 and 420. If these preambles differ from each other in length, the padding needs to compensate for the length difference. The length difference can be provided by any of the fields of subparts 405-410 or sub-part 405-420. In other words, the padding is absolutely linked to these fields (or absence thereof). Paragraph 0055 provides the examples of padding the SIG fields. However it is clear that the padding length may be chosen such that it is suitable for the difference at hand. Specifying that the padding is of the length between L-STF to a (HE/EHT) SIG is one of the options that would be contemplated by the skilled person, depending on the actual difference between preamble lengths).
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 teachings of Shellhammer in view of Min with the teachings of Shellhammer’209. The method enables transmitting the wireless packet that includes the generation-specific preamble formatted according to the generation of the wireless communication protocol via the subchannel of a wireless channel, and receiving the portion of the data populated in the respective portions in the data fields after the first and second generation- specific preambles, thus enabling greater bandwidth or enhanced features compared to previous generations of the WLAN communication protocol in an effective manner. The method allows the wireless station to receive the data from the access point (AP) in an efficient manner (Shellhammer’209 Abstract; Paragraph [0002-0007]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-13 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
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IVAN O. LATORRE
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2409
/IVAN O LATORRE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
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