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
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 7, 13-14, 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by KIM et al (US 2022/0408506)
Regarding claim 1, 19 KIM et al (US 2022/0408506) discloses a first multi-link device (MLD) comprising a first plurality of affiliated stations (STAs), wherein the first MLD comprises:
at least one transceiver, and circuitry, wherein the at least one transceiver works in conjunction with the circuitry, which in operation
enables one or more STAs of the first plurality of affiliated STAs to perform measurement operations with one or more STAs of a second plurality of affiliated STAs comprised in a second MLD (KIM: ¶115-117 SSW initiation frame is transmitted from a first MLD device, MLD1 to a second MLD device, MLD2; measurement procedure is for allowing a direction measurement to occur that helps configuring the direction which is required for transmission on a link (e.g. the second link between the MLD1 and MLD2); the measurement procedure is terminated by performing a measurement termination procedure (SSW feedback frame transmission) ).
Regarding claim 7, KIM et al (US 2022/0408506) discloses first MLD of claim 1, wherein the first MLD comprises a single interface to upper layer applications, wherein the upper layer applications configure the one or more STAs of the first plurality of affiliated STAs to perform the measurement operations with the one or more STAs of the second plurality of affiliated STAs comprised in a second MLD over one or more links (KIM: Fig. 4, ¶85, ¶128, single interface, LSAP, between the multiple STAs of the MLD to communicate with and getting configuration parameters to operate to perform measurement).
Regarding claim 13, KIM discloses first MLD of claim 1, wherein the first MLD is an access point (AP) MLD and each of the first plurality of affiliated STAs is an AP, and wherein the second MLD is a non-AP MLD and each of the second plurality of affiliated STAs is a non-AP STA (KIM: ¶135, Fig. 3, non-AP STA and AP STA).
Regarding claim 14, 20 KIM discloses a second multi-link device (MLD) comprising a second plurality of affiliated stations (STAs), wherein the second MLD comprises at least one transceiver, and circuitry,
wherein the at least one transceiver works in conjunction with the circuitry, which in operation enables at least one STA of the second plurality of affiliated STAs to receive a request frame from at least one STA of a first plurality of affiliated STAs comprised in a first MLD (KIM: ¶115, SSW initiation frame is transmitted from a first MLD device, MLD1 to a second MLD device, MLD2),
wherein the request frame is configured to request a measurement setup procedure or a measurement termination procedure (KIM: ¶115, SSW initiation frame is a request to perform a channel measurement procedure), wherein the measurement setup procedure is configured to allow measurement operations to be performed on one or more links established between the first MLD and the second MLD (KIM: ¶115-116, measurement procedure is for allowing a direction measurement to occur that helps configuring the direction which is required for transmission on a link (e.g. the second link between the MLD1 and MLD2)), and wherein the measurement termination procedure is configured to terminate the measurement setup procedure established between the first MLD and the second MLD (KIM: ¶117, ¶116, the measurement procedure is terminated by performing a measurement termination procedure (SSW feedback frame transmission)).
Regarding 18, KIM discloses second MLD of claim 14, wherein the second MLD is a non-access point (non-AP) MLD and each of the second plurality of affiliated STAs is a non-AP STA, and wherein the first MLD is an access point (AP) MLD and each of the first plurality of affiliated STAs is an AP (KIM: ¶135, Fig. 3, non-AP STA and AP STA MLDs).
Claim(s) 2-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM et al (US 2022/0408506) in view of DESHMUKH et al (US 2022/0322120)
Regarding claim 2, KIM discloses first MLD of claim 1, wherein the measurement operations are performed. KIM remains silent regarding, however, DESHMUKH et al (US 2022/0322120) discloses measurement comprising one or more of a sensing measurement, a ranging measurement, and/or a fine time measurement (FTM) (DESHMUKH: ¶23-25, Fig. 2, measurement comprises fine time measurement and ranging measurements).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of KIM would have been motivated to use the teachings of DESHMUKH as it provides a way to improve timing adjustment by accounting for propagation delay. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of KIM with teachings of DESHMUKH in order to improve synchronization between the sending and receiving device.
Regarding claim 3, KIM modified by DESHMUKH discloses first MLD of claim 2, wherein a STA of the first plurality of affiliated STAs transmits a request frame to a STA of the second plurality of affiliated STAs to request a measurement setup procedure or a measurement termination procedure (KIM: ¶115-117, SSW initiation frame is transmitted from a first MLD device, MLD1 to a second MLD device, MLD2), wherein the measurement setup procedure is configured to allow the measurement operations to be performed on one or more links established between the first MLD and the second MLD (KIM: ¶115-117, measurement procedure is for allowing a direction measurement to occur that helps configuring the direction which is required for transmission on a link (e.g. the second link between the MLD1 and MLD2)), and wherein the measurement termination procedure is configured to terminate the measurement setup procedure established between the first MLD and the second MLD (KIM: ¶115-117, the measurement procedure is terminated by performing a measurement termination procedure (SSW feedback frame transmission)).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM modified by DESHMUKH as applied to claim 3 above, further in view of JIANG et al (US 20230247665)
Regarding claim 6, KIM modified by DESHMUKH first MLD of claim 3. KIM modified by DESHMUKH remains silent, however, JIANG et al (US 20230247665) discloses the measurement setup procedure comprises a location negotiation and ranging identifier (ID) assignment procedure (JIANG: ¶45, the measuring setup includes a negotiation phase including a location negotiation and a ranging ID).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of KIM modified by DESHMUKH would have been motivated to use the teachings of LOU to improve the AP's scheduling efficiency for uplink LMR feedback and enable the STAs to save more power as the scheduling for STA-to-AP LMR does not require a separate availability window (¶27). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of KIM modified by DESHMUKH with teachings of LOU in order to improve scheduling efficiency.
Claim(s) 4-5, 8-11, 15-17, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM modified by DESHMUKH as applied to claim 3 above, further in view of LOU et al (US 2024/0023009)
Regarding claim 4, KIM modified by DESHMUKH discloses first MLD of claim 3. KIM modified by DESHMUKH remains silent, however, LOU discloses
wherein the measurement setup procedure comprises one of a sensing session setup or a sensing measurement setup, and wherein the measurement termination procedure comprises one of a sensing session termination or a sensing measurement termination (LOU: ¶44-45, ¶37, multilink discover/sensing measurement is performed including CSI, SNR, beamforming, measurements),
wherein the sensing session setup is configured to identify the one or more links established between the first MLD and the second MLD (LOU: ¶44, the discovery/sensing identifies links between the two devices based on a link-level discovery), and
wherein one or more sensing operations are performed on one or more of the identified links (LOU: ¶38, Fig. 2, the discovery/sensing identifies links between the two devices based on a link-level or multi-link discovery, on the links between the MLD devices), and
wherein the sensing measurement setup is used to negotiate sensing operation attributes for each of the one or more of the identified links (LOU: ¶48-49, sensing capabilities of each of the other MLD devices (negotiate sensing attributes i.e. exchange and agree on sensing operational attributes associated with one or more sensing measurement instances)).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of KIM modified by DESHMUKH would have been motivated to use the teachings of LOU as it provides sensing discovery including multi-link device-level (MLD-level) discovery and/or link-level discovery, achieve extremely high throughput, provide good communication performance, and/or provide high reliability (¶5). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of KIM modified by DESHMUKH with teachings of LOU in order to improve reliability and performance.
Regarding claim 5, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses first MLD of claim 4, wherein the sensing operation attributes comprise sensing transmitter or receiver roles, measurement report type, and sampling rate on each of the one or more of the identified links (LOU: ¶37, attributes include channel state information).
Regarding claim 8, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses first MLD of claim 4, wherein a sensing measurement setup is identified with a same measurement setup identifier (ID) on one or more of the identified links (LOU: ¶37-38, Fig. 20, ¶61, common information includes an MLD MAC address being the identifier for the measurement setup between the two MLDs), and wherein for each of the one or more of the identified links:
a link ID of each of the one or more of the identified links together with the measurement setup ID is used to identify the sensing operation attributes specific to the each of the one or more of the identified links (LOU: ¶37-38, Fig. 20, ¶61, a link-id of each of the one or more links which is corresponding to a common MLD mac address with individual SENS elements with specific operation attributes).
Regarding claim 9, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses first MLD of claim 4, wherein a sensing measurement instance of a sensing measurement setup is identified with a same measurement instance identifier (ID) on one or more of the identified links ( LOU: ¶37-38, Fig. 20, ¶61, common information includes an MLD MAC address being the identifier for the measurement setup between the two MLDs for one or more links between STAs of the MLDs)and wherein for each of the one or more of the identified links:
a link ID of each of the one or more of the identified links together with the measurement instance ID is used to identify a sensing measurement instance specific to each of the one or more of the identified links (LOU: ¶37-38, Fig. 20, ¶61, a link-id of each of the one or more links which is corresponding to a common MLD mac address with individual measurement type and element ID extension)
Regarding claim 10, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses first MLD of claim 4, wherein the first MLD is configured to initiate a sensing measurement instance with the second MLD by transmitting a measurement PHY protocol data unit (PPDU) on a first link of the identified links and requesting a STA affiliated with the second MLD operating on the first link to perform sensing measurements on the measurement PPDU (LUO: ¶49, ¶37, request frame send from the initiator node and a report frame is sent in response to that on a first link between the first MLD and second MLD on a link affiliated with the requested STA of the second MLD) and another STA affiliated with the second MLD operating on a second link of the identified links to transmit a sensing measurement report on the second link, wherein the sensing measurement report carries a result of the sensing measurement performed on the first link, and wherein a STA affiliated with the first MLD operating on the second link is configured to receive the sensing measurement report (LUO: ¶49, ¶37, request frame send from the initiator node and a report frame is sent in response to that on a first link between the first MLD and second MLD on a link affiliated with the requested STA of the second MLD; Fig. 20, this occurs for each link).
Regarding claim 11, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses the first MLD of claim 4, wherein the first MLD is configured to initiate a sensing measurement instance with the second MLD by transmitting a plurality of measurement PPDUs on a first set of links of the identified links and requesting STAs affiliated with the second MLD operating on the first set of links to perform sensing measurements on the plurality of measurement PPDUs and to transmit a set of sensing measurement reports on a second link of the identified links, wherein the set of sensing measurement reports carry a set of results of the sensing measurements performed on the first set of links of the identified links, wherein a STA affiliated with the first MLD operating on the second link is configured to receive the set of sensing measurement reports, and wherein the second link is one of the first set of links or other than those in the first set of links (LUO: ¶49, ¶37-38, ¶63, Fig. 22, request frame send from the initiator node and a report frame is sent in response to that on a first link between the first MLD and second MLD on a link affiliated with the requested STA of the second MLD; Fig. 20, this occurs for each link; multi-link level discovery/sensing procedure is perform involving a plurality of request frames and a plurality of reports in response).
Regarding claim 12, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses first MLD of claim 10 , wherein the second link is indicated in a null data packet announcement (NDPA) frame or a Trigger frame of the measurement PPDU or the plurality of measurement PPDUs (KIM: ¶134, a trigger PPDU).
Regarding claim 15, KIM discloses first MLD of claim 14.
KIM remains silent regarding, however, DESHMUKH et al (US 2022/0322120) discloses wherein the measurement operations comprise one or more of a sensing measurement, a ranging measurement, and/or a fine time measurement (FTM), (DESHMUKH: ¶23-25, Fig. 2, measurement comprises fine time measurement and ranging measurements).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of KIM would have been motivated to use the teachings of DESHMUKH as it provides a way to improve timing adjustment by accounting for propagation delay. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of KIM with teachings of DESHMUKH in order to improve synchronization between the sending and receiving device.
KIM modified by DESHMUKH remains silent regarding wherein the measurement setup procedure comprises one of a sensing session setup or a sensing measurement setup, and wherein the measurement termination procedure comprises one of a sensing session termination or a sensing measurement termination (LOU: ¶44-45, ¶37, multilink discover/sensing measurement is performed including CSI, SNR, beamforming, measurements; Fig. 2, ¶38, complete probe response ML setup (equivalent to termination of measurement for that request)).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of KIM modified by DESHMUKH would have been motivated to use the teachings of LOU as it provides sensing discovery including multi-link device-level (MLD-level) discovery and/or link-level discovery, achieve extremely high throughput, provide good communication performance, and/or provide high reliability (¶5). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of KIM modified by DESHMUKH with teachings of LOU in order to improve reliability and performance.
Regarding claim 16, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses second MLD of claim 15, wherein the second MLD is configured to participate in a sensing measurement instance initiated by the first MLD on a first link of the one or more links between the first MLD and the second MLD, wherein a STA affiliated with the second MLD operating on the first link is configured to receive a measurement PPDU from the first MLD on the first link and performs sensing measurement (LUO: ¶49, ¶37, request frame send from the initiator node and a report frame is sent in response to that on a first link between the first MLD and second MLD on a link affiliated with the requested STA of the second MLD), wherein a STA affiliated with the second MLD operating on a second link of the one or more links is configured to transmit a sensing measurement report on the second link, and wherein the sensing measurement report carries a result of the sensing measurement performed on the first link (LUO: ¶49, ¶37, request frame send from the initiator node and a report frame is sent in response to that on a first link between the first MLD and second MLD on a link affiliated with the requested STA of the second MLD; Fig. 20, this occurs for each link).
Regarding claim 17, KIM modified by DESHMUKH modified by LOU discloses second MLD of claim 15, wherein the second MLD is configured to participate in a sensing measurement instance initiated by the first MLD on a first set of links of the one or more links between the first MLD and the second MLD, wherein STAs affiliated with the second MLD operating on the first set of links are configured to receive a plurality of measurement PPDUs from the first MLD on the first set of links and performs sensing measurement, wherein a STA affiliated with the second MLD operating on a second link of the one or more links is configured to transmit a single sensing measurement report frame on the second link, wherein the single sensing measurement report frame carries results of the sensing measurement performed on the first set of links, and wherein the second link is one of the first set of links or other than those in the first set of links (LUO: ¶49, ¶37-38, ¶63, Fig. 22, request frame send from the initiator node and a report frame is sent in response to that on a first link between the first MLD and second MLD on a link affiliated with the requested STA of the second MLD; Fig. 20, this occurs for each link; multi-link level discovery/sensing procedure is perform involving a plurality of request frames and a plurality of reports in response).
Conclusion
Document U discloses illustrates enhanced multi-link channel access schemes, identify the associated coexistence challenge, and propose solutions. First, it describes the multi-link operation of IEEE 802.11be and how the asynchronous and synchronous channel access schemes facilitate multi-link utilization. Next, describes the design variants of the synchronous channel access scheme and demonstrate the associated coexistence challenge. Subsequently, it is proposed in it, four features to address this challenge by assigning penalties to multi-link devices (repicking a backoff count, doubling the contention window size, switching to another contention window set, and compensating the backoff count) as well as five coexistence solutions derived from combinations of these features. Comparative simulation results are provided and analyzed for dense single-spot and indoor random deployment scenarios, demonstrating that the throughput and latency gains of multi-link operation differ between schemes. At the same time, it is investigated the coexistence performance of multi-link operation with and without the capability of simultaneous transmission and reception and demonstrate that the proposed solutions mitigate the coexistence problem. In particular, compensating the backoff count achieves the highest coexistence performance among the proposed solutions, with a marginal throughput decrease of multi-link devices. A metric for evaluating both the throughput and latency gains and the coexistence performance of a multi-link channel access scheme using a single value is also proposed.
Document V discloses that the multi-link operation (MLO) is a new feature proposed to be part of the IEEE 802.11be Extremely High Throughput (EHT) amendment. Such feature represents a paradigm shift towards multi-link communications, as nodes will be allowed to transmit and receive data over multiple radio interfaces concurrently. To make it possible, the 802.11be Task Group has proposed different modifications in regards to nodes' architecture, transmission operation, and management functionalities. This article reviews such changes and tackles the question of how traffic should be distributed over multiple links, as it is still unresolved. It evaluates different load balancing strategies over the active links. Results show that in high load, dense and complex scenarios, implementing congestion-aware load balancing policies to significantly enhance next-generation WLAN performance using MLO is a must.
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OMER S. MIAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2461
/OMER S MIAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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