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 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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 12-15, 17, 24-26, and 31-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ajami et al (US 20230104446) in view of Baek et al (US 20240324014).
As to claim 1 Ajami discloses a peer-to-peer, P2P, communication method in a wireless network, comprising at an access point, AP, of a BSS (Ajami, Fig.7, ¶0089-¶0090- the wireless network 700 can be an example of the WLAN 100 of FIG. 1. The wireless network 700 is shown to include an AP 702, a first wireless station (STA) 710, a second STA 720, and a third STA 730. In some implementations, the AP 702 may be one example of the AP 102 of FIG. 1 or the AP 602 of FIG. 6A, and may operate a BSS on a wireless medium); establishing a first peer non-AP station of the BSS in a restricted Target Wake Time, rTWT, schedule (Ajami ¶0095-2nd sentence- each of the low-latency STAs 710, 720, and 730 can request the AP 702 to schedule a r-TWT SP by sending a corresponding r-TWT REQ frame to the AP 702 over the wireless medium); determining P2P data traffic between the first peer non-AP station and a second peer non-AP station of the BSS (Ajami ¶0094- 1st and 2nd sentences-The client devices 712 and 722 can be any suitable devices that can establish P2P links with respective softAPs 711 and 721….. the client devices 712 and 722 are associated with low-latency applications having strict end-to-end latency, throughput, and timing requirements for data traffic); and responsive to the determining, notifying the second peer non-AP station about the rTWT schedule (Ajami ¶0096- 2nd sentence- the AP 702 sends a r-TWT SP accept frame to each of the first, second, and third STAs 710, 720, and 730).
Ajami, however, is silent in establishing membership of a first peer non-AP station of the BSS in a restricted Target Wake Time rTWT schedule. However in an analogous art Baek remedies this deficiency: (Baek ¶0264- ¶0265- The first STA may perform a restricted target wake time (r-TWT) membership setup procedure with the second STA (S2010)….¶0266- The second STA (e.g., r-TWT scheduling AP) and the first STA (e.g., R-TWT scheduled STA) may set the r-TWT traffic information field to identify the TID(s) carrying delay-sensitive traffic in the DL and UL for the established r-TWT membership.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Ajami with that of Baek for the purpose of improving low latency peer traffic.
As to claim 3 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, further comprising, at the AP, obtaining an identifier of the second peer non-AP station to address the notification, wherein obtaining the identifier includes: retrieving a transmitter or destination MAC address of a MAC frame of P2P- related frame exchanged between the two peer non-AP stations (Ajami ¶0123- 1st sentence- the request frame 1001 identifies the first softAP 711 and its associated client device 712 as participants of P2P communications scheduled during at least a portion of the r-TWT SP. For example, the request frame 1001 may include the MAC addresses of the first softAP 711 and the client device 712. The AP 702 can use the MAC addresses, or other suitable identifiers, of the first softAP 711 and client device 712 to construct a NAV exception for the first softAP 711 and client device 712.).
As to claim 5 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose The method of Claim 1, wherein notifying the second peer non-AP station about the rTWT schedule includes establishing membership of the second peer non-AP station in the rTWT schedule (Baek ¶0264- ¶0266). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Ajami with that of Baek for the purpose of improving low latency peer traffic.
As to claim 12 (Original) the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, wherein the P2P data are received in HE Trigger-Based PPDUs and are relayed using HE MU PPDUs (Ajami ¶Fig. 3A, 0062- 2nd sentence- The PDU 300 may be formatted as a High Efficiency (HE) WLAN PPDU in accordance with the IEEE 802.11ax amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless communication protocol standard. Ajami ¶103- 2nd sentence- the first STA 710 transmits a first trigger-based (TB) physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) protocol data unit (PPDU) 811 over the wireless medium to the AP 702, and the second STA 720 transmits a second TB PPDU 812 over the wireless medium to the AP 702. In some instances, the first and second TB PPDUs 811 and 812 may be transmitted as an MU UL PPDU).
As to claim 13 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, further comprising, at the AP, after the notification, allocating, using the Triggered TXOP Sharing, TXS, mechanism, one of the peer non-AP stations with a portion of time within an rTWT Service Period of the rTWT schedule (Ajami ¶0160- the trigger frame may be a multi-user (MU) Request-to-Send (RTS) TXOP Sharing (TXS) trigger frame. The MU-RTS TXS trigger frame may include a TXOP sharing mode subfield indicating a TXOP sharing mode associated with the P2P communications between the STA and the client device. In some instances, the TXOP sharing mode subfield indicates a request for the STA to transmit a CTS frame responsive to the MU-RTS TXS trigger frame).
As to claim 14 Ajami discloses a peer-to-peer, P2P, communication method in a wireless network, comprising at a second peer non-access point, AP, station of a BSS (Ajami, Fig.7, ¶0089-¶0090- the wireless network 700 can be an example of the WLAN 100 of FIG. 1. The wireless network 700 is shown to include an AP 702, a first wireless station (STA) 710, a second STA 720, and a third STA 730. In some implementations, the AP 702 may be one example of the AP 102 of FIG. 1 or the AP 602 of FIG. 6A, and may operate a BSS on a wireless medium according to one or more versions of the IEEE 802.11 family of wireless communication standards); receiving, from an AP of the BSS, a notification about a restricted Target Wake Time, rTWT, schedule (Ajami ¶0095-2nd sentence- each of the low-latency STAs 710, 720, and 730 can request the AP 702 to schedule a r-TWT SP by sending a corresponding r-TWT REQ frame to the AP 702 over the wireless medium), and exchanging, during one or more rTWT service periods of the rTWT schedule, P2P data with the first peer non-AP station (Ajami ¶0094- 1st and 2nd sentences- The client devices 712 and 722 can be any suitable devices that can establish P2P links with respective softAPs 711 and 721….. the client devices 712 and 722 are associated with low-latency applications having strict end-to-end latency, throughput, and timing requirements for data traffic).
Ajami however is silent wherein a first peer non-AP station of the BSS has established membership. However in an analogous art Baek remedies this deficiency: Baek ¶0264- ¶0265- The first STA may perform a restricted target wake time (r-TWT) membership setup procedure with the second STA (S2010)….¶0266- The second STA (e.g., r-TWT scheduling AP) and the first STA (e.g., R-TWT scheduled STA) may set the r-TWT traffic information field to identify the TID(s) carrying delay-sensitive traffic in the DL and UL for the established r-TWT membership.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Ajami with that of Baek for the purpose of improving low latency peer traffic.
As to claim 15 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 14, wherein the notification about the rTWT schedule includes establishing membership of the second peer non-AP station in the rTWT schedule (Baek ¶0264- ¶0265- The first STA may perform a restricted target wake time (r-TWT) membership setup procedure with the second STA (S2010)….¶0266). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Ajami with that of Baek for the purpose of improving low latency peer traffic.
As to claim 17 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, wherein the notification further signals an identifier of the first peer non-AP station (Ajami ¶0054- last sentence- Each STA 104 may be configured to identify or select an AP 102 with which to associate based on the scanning information obtained through the passive or active scans, and to perform authentication and association operations to establish a communication link 108 with the selected AP 102. The AP 102 assigns an association identifier (AID) to the STA 104 at the culmination of the association operations, which the AP 102 uses to track the STA 104. Ajami ¶0075- A trigger frame may address one or more STAs 104 through respective association identifiers (AIDs), and may assign each AID (and thus each STA 104) one or more RUs that can be used to send UL traffic to the AP 102).
As to claim 24 the combine teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 14, further comprising, at the peer non-AP station, after receiving the notification, being allocated, based on the Triggered TXOP Sharing, TXS, mechanism, a portion of time within an rTWT Service Period of the rTWT schedule and directly exchanging P2P data with the first peer non-AP station within the allocated time portion. (Ajami ¶0160- the trigger frame may be a multi-user (MU) Request-to-Send (RTS) TXOP Sharing (TXS) trigger frame. The MU-RTS TXS trigger frame may include a TXOP sharing mode subfield indicating a TXOP sharing mode associated with the P2P communications between the STA and the client device. In some instances, the TXOP sharing mode subfield indicates a request for the STA to transmit a CTS frame responsive to the MU-RTS TXS trigger frame).
As to claim 25 the combine teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, wherein the two peer non-AP stations have established a P2P session prior to the notification- notification being the rTWT (Ajami ¶0172- 4th sentence- the AP 702 may poll the low-latency STAs, prior to the start of the restricted TWT SP, to determine which (if any) of the STAs have UL data to send.).
As to claim 26 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose method of Claim 1, wherein the notification about the rTWT schedule includes information about a Broadcast TWT identifier, bTWT ID, identifying the rTWT schedule, wherein the notification about the rTWT schedule provides:
- only the bTWT ID as TWT information (Ajami ¶0175),
- a Broadcast TWT Info subfield including the bTWT ID (Ajami ¶0175- last sentence- The Broadcast TWT Info field 1918 may include a broadcast TWT ID for a corresponding restricted TWT session, and carry information indicating the number of TBTTs during which the Broadcast TWT SPs corresponding to the broadcast TWT Parameter set are present. ), and
- a Restricted TWT Parameter Set subfield including the bTWT ID (Ajami ¶0178- 2nd sentence- the Broadcast TWT Recommendation subfield 1932 may indicate whether the restricted TWT session is a peer-to-peer TWT session or a broadcast TWT session).
As to claim 31 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose a wireless communication device (Ajami Fig. 21, ¶0182) comprising at least one microprocessor configured for carrying out the steps of the method of Claim 1(Ajami ¶0183- last sentence).
As to claim 32 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program which, when executed by a microprocessor or computer system in a wireless device, causes the wireless device to perform the method of Claim 1 (Ajami ¶0183- last sentence-components 2122 or 2124 can be implemented as non-transitory instructions (or “code”) executable by a processor (such as the processor 506 of FIG. 5) to perform the functions or operations of the respective component).
Claim(s) 2, 7 11, 18 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ajami in view of Baek and further in view of Chitrakar et al (20240040639).
As to claim 2 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, however silent wherein the determining includes: relaying P2P data exchanged between the two peer non-AP stations, receiving P2P session setup frames exchanged between the two peer non-AP stations, to be relayed to the second peer non-AP station:
However in analogous art Chitrakar remedies this deficiency: ¶0091- AP MLD 702, which receives the data frame, identifies that the TDLS Discovery Request carried in the data frame is directed to non-AP MLD-2 706 based on MAC address carried in the DA field of the data frame, and relays the data frame from non-AP MLD-1 704 to non-AP MLD-2 706. Chitrakar ¶0117- To setup multiple direct links between two MLDs, the two MLDs may exchange TDLS Setup (Request/Response/Confirm) frames carrying the TDLS ML Element via the AP path. Encapsulated data frames (e.g. Ethertype 89-0d Data frame carrying TDLS payload) may be used as TDLS Setup frames). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek with that of CHITRAKAR for the purpose of a direct link session enabling lower-latency exchange between two peer non-AP stations
As to claim 7 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, however silent further comprising, at the AP, responsive to the determining, sending, to one of the peer non-AP stations, an invitation to establish a Direct Link communication session with the other peer non-AP station- in other words sending a TDLS discover frame. However, in an analogous art Chitrakar remedies this deficiency: Chitrakar ¶0072- 2nd sentence- FIG. 2A depicts a method for TDLS discovery performed using TDLS Discovery frames. In particular, TDLS Initiator STA, in this case STA1 202, transmits a TDLS Discovery Request frame via the AP path to another STA 204. If the other STA 204 supports TDLS, it transmits a TDLS Discovery Response frame via the direct path.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek with that of CHITRAKAR for the purpose of establishing Direct Link communication session between non-AP stations.
As to claim 11 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 1, however silent further comprising, at the AP, after the notification, receiving P2P data from one of the peer non-AP stations and relaying them to the other peer non-AP station within the same rTWT Service Period of the rTWT schedule. However in an analogous art Chitrakar remedies this deficiency: (Chitrakar ¶0091- AP MLD 702, which receives the data frame, identifies that the TDLS Discovery Request carried in the data frame is directed to non-AP MLD-2 706 based on MAC address carried in the DA field of the data frame, and relays the data frame from non-AP MLD-1 704 to non-AP MLD-2 706. . ¶0093- last sentence). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek with that of CHITRAKAR for the purpose of improving low-latency peer traffic.
As to claim 18 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose the method of Claim 14, however silent further comprising, at the peer non-AP station, receiving, from the AP, an invitation to establish Direct Link communication session with the first peer non-AP station. in other words, receiving a TDLS discover frame. However, in an analogous art Chitrakar remedies this deficiency: Chitrakar ¶0072- 2nd sentence- FIG. 2A depicts a method for TDLS discovery performed using TDLS Discovery frames. In particular, TDLS Initiator STA, in this case STA1 202, transmits a TDLS Discovery Request frame via the AP path to another STA 204. If the other STA 204 supports TDLS, it transmits a TDLS Discovery Response frame via the direct path.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek with that of CHITRAKAR for the purpose of performing TDLS discovery.
As to claim 23 the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek disclose method of Claim 14, however silent further comprising, at the peer non-AP station, after receiving the notification, receiving, from the AP and within an rTWT Service Period of the rTWT schedule, P2P data emitted by the first peer non-AP station. However in an analogous art Chitrakar remedies this deficiency: (Chitrakar ¶0091- AP MLD 702, which receives the data frame, identifies that the TDLS Discovery Request carried in the data frame is directed to non-AP MLD-2 706 based on MAC address carried in the DA field of the data frame, and relays the data frame from non-AP MLD-1 704 to non-AP MLD-2 706.; Chitrakar ¶0093- last sentence). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the combined teachings of Ajami and Baek with that of CHITRAKAR for the purpose of improving low-latency peer traffic.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10 and 22 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DERRICK V ROSE whose telephone number is (571)270-7460. The examiner can normally be reached 9am- 6pm.
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/DERRICK V ROSE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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