DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
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.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. In particular, this Application is the continuation of an abandoned application, which claims a domestic benefit to two provisional applications, filed on 14 Oct 2020 and 26 Oct 2020, respectively.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement, submitted on 3 Jan 2025, 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 § 112(b)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 8, and 15 recite, in part, “simultaneously receiving data, by the AP MLD from the non-AP MLD, on a second link.” It is unclear which step must occur simultaneously with receiving data on the second link. As best the Examiner understands the described invention, it appears the reception of data on the second occurs simultaneously with transmission on the first link, but this is not specified in the claimed invention. All other claims are rejected due to their dependence upon an indefinite claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(d)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claims 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends.
Claims 2, 9, and 16 do not require all of the limitations of the claims upon which they depend. Specifically, claims 2, 9, and 16 depends upon claims 1, 8, and 15. Claims 1, 8, and 15 require “aligning, by the AP MLD, an end time of transmitted physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs) using padding.” Claims 2, 9, and 16 preclude this limitation by requiring “wherein the AP MLD does not align the end time of transmitted physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs).” By not aligning the end time of PPDUs, claims 2, 9, and 16 no longer require all of the limitations of claims 1, 8, and 15.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
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.
Claims 1-6, 8-13, and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hwang (US 20230156795) (citations supported by 7 Apr 2020 priority document) in view of Cherian (US 20210289575).
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15, Hwang teaches a method, an access point, and a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by an access point (AP) multi-link device (MLD) having a simultaneous transmit and receive (STR) link set in a wireless network, causes the AP MLD to perform operations for reducing interlink interference by supporting simultaneous transmit-receive with a non-AP MLD with a non-STR link set (Hwang, ¶80 and figure 2 -AP MLD communicates via multiple links with non-AP MLDs), the operations comprising:
transmitting data, by the AP MLD, to the non-AP MLD on a first link (Hwang, ¶¶75, 80 – when communicating with MLD non-AP 1, MLD AP performs transmission on link 1, while performing reception on link 3);
simultaneously receiving data, by the AP MLD from the non-AP MLD, on a second link (Hwang, ¶¶75, 80 – when communicating with MLD non-AP 1, MLD AP performs transmission on link 1, while performing reception on link 3); and
aligning, by the AP MLD, an end time of transmitted physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs) using padding. Hwang, ¶¶106 and figure 9A (AP aligns transmission end times of PPDU on a first link with RTS frame in second link by adding padding to segmented PPDU).
Hwang does not explicitly teach padding “in response to concurrently transmitting another PPDU, by the non-AP MLD, on a link that is part of the non-STR link set.” However, Cherian teaches adding padding 802 to a block acknowledgement 508 so that data transmission 510 and 804 being at the same time. Cherian, ¶¶122, 129 and figure 8. The data transmission 510 and 802 are concurrently sent from a non-STR STA to the MLD STA. ibid.; see also id. at figure 4 for allocation of STAs within two devices). At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to add padding to a block acknowledgement, as taught by Cherian, in order to enable concurrent transmissions by the non-AP MLD, taught by Hwang, in order to minimize the likelihood of interference experienced by the non-STR STA. Cherian, ¶¶38, 110.
Regarding claims 2, 9, and 16, the combination of Hwang and Cherian also teaches wherein the AP MLD does not align the end time of transmitted physical layer protocol data units (PPDUs) and instead the operations comprises: prohibiting stations (STAs) affiliated with the non-AP MLD from transmitting on links of the non-STR link set for a time period based on a time required for virtual carrier sensing to be conducted by the STAs of the non-AP MLD and a timing duration carried in multi-link operation information. Hwang, ¶95 (virtual carrier sensing includes a NAV which defines a transmission prohibition period).
Regarding claims 3, 10, and 17, the combination of Hwang and Cherian also teaches wherein the multi-link operation information is included in a management frame. Hwang, ¶¶117, 157(NAV set using CTS-to-self frame, which is a management frame); Hwang, ¶95 (NAV is based on a value of a length field included in a frame).
Regarding claims 4, 11, and 18, the combination of Hwang and Cherian also teaches wherein the PPDU aligned by the AP MLD includes a block acknowledgement (BlockACK) frame. Cherian, figure 8 (padding 802 aligns the block acknowledgements on both links).
Regarding claims 5, 12, and 19, the combination of Hwang and Cherian also teaches wherein the PPDU transmitted by the non-AP MLD includes a length field in a preamble. Hwang, ¶95 (length field in preamble of a frame).
Regarding claims 6, 13, and 20, the combination of Hwang and Cherian also teaches wherein the length field of the preamble indicates a length of a data subfield within the PPDU. Cherian, ¶127. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to use the duration field, taught by Cherian, within the MPDUs/PPDUs, transmitted by Hwang, in order to inform the nodes of what NAV duration to set, which provides interference mitigation. Ibid.
Claims 7, 14, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hwang (US 20230156795) in view of Cherian (US 20210289575) and further in view of Wang (US 20210136817).
Regarding claims 7, 14, and 21, the combination of Hwang and Cherian teaches the method of claim 6, the access point of claim 13, and the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 20, but does not explicitly teach “wherein padding performed by the AP MLD is based on the length field of the preamble.” However, Wang teaches a length indication field in a preamble, which is the sum of the length of the data packet and the length of the padding data. Wang, ¶115. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to include the length of padding data, as taught by Wang, within the preamble duration field, taught by the combination of Hwang and Cherian, in order to enable other stations to determine the state of the channel is busy for the entire duration of the length field. Id. at ¶116.
Conclusion
Additional pertinent prior art includes figure 6 and ¶69 of Chu, which describes a Block Ack with padding.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN S LAMONT whose telephone number is (571)270-7514 and email address is benjamin.lamont@uspto.gov (see MPEP 502.03 for using EFS or mail, but not email to authorize electronic communications). The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
