Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 25, 2026
Application No. 18/918,215

METHOD FOR ENABLING GENERAL SENSING APPLICATIONS WITH COMPRESSED BEAMFORMING REPORTS

Non-Final OA §102§103
Filed
Oct 17, 2024
Priority
Oct 18, 2023 — provisional 63/591,163
Examiner
CHOWDHURY, FAHMIDA S
Art Unit
2471
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
City University of Hong Kong
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
93%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 93% — above average
93%
Career Allowance Rate
602 granted / 647 resolved
+35.0% vs TC avg
Moderate +6% lift
Without
With
+6.2%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Fast prosecutor
2y 1m
Avg Prosecution
16 currently pending
Career history
667
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
3.1%
-36.9% vs TC avg
§103
42.5%
+2.5% vs TC avg
§102
31.0%
-9.0% vs TC avg
§112
11.6%
-28.4% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 647 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §103
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 . DETAILED ACTION This action is in response to the application filed on 10/17/2024.Claims 1-20 have been examined. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 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, 2, 4,8, 9, 11, 14 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a) (1) as being anticipated by WANG (CN 2016/80088169 A). As of claim 1, WANG discloses a wireless sensing method based on compressed beamforming reports (CBR), comprising: performing channel sounding and transmit (TX) beamforming (See page 3: beam-forming: para 3, line 2; the beamforming by explicit channel specific channel sounding frame measurements (=performing channel sounding), the channel sounding process based on non-data packets NDP, [FIG. 1] shows the beam-forming transmitter BF TX firstly sending the NDP announcement frame NDP AF, then transmitted NDP frame. STA1 estimating channels of the NDP frame, and back to TX BF feedback frame which is a compressed beamforming frame (=compressed beamforming reports); performing sniffing or extracting information from Wi-Fi traffic (see location section, page 4; para 2-3 discloses WiFi location fingerprint identification corresponds to extracting information from Wi-Fi traffic); and performing multi-path estimation ([FIG. 2] [FIG. 3] shows first time measuring frame (i.e. FTM FTM1 data packet) transmitted by STA2 and received by STA1. respectively recording the leaving time ToD and ToA FTM1, then transmitted from the STA1 and the STA2 receives the confirmation message, which is associated with the FTM1 ACK acknowledging data packet. Here, respectively recording the ToD and ToA of ACK, (= performing multi-path estimation by STA 1 or beamformee station). received multipath signal). As of claim 2, rejection of claim 1 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG discloses the performing channel sounding comprises evaluating a control frame Null Data Packet Announcement (NDPA) from a beamformer station (STA) and selecting another STA as the beamformee to receive subsequent Null Data Packet (NDP) frame ( [FIG. 1] shows the beam-forming transmitter BF TX (=beamformer station) sending the NDP announcement frame NDP AF, then transmitted NDP frame. STA1 (=beamformee) estimating channels of the NDP frame and responds to the received NDP NDP AF after receiving the NDP frame). As of claim 4, rejection of claim 1 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG discloses the performing channel sounding further comprises performing channel state information (CSI) measurement to analyze ubiquity of CSI ( [FIG. 1] shows and discloses STA1 estimating channels by the NDP frame, and the back compressed beamforming frame that includes information about the channel state measured using NDP BF TX and STA1 of information which corresponds to CSI measurement to analyze ubiquity of CSI). As of claim 8, rejection of claim 4 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG discloses the performing channel sounding further comprises computing beamforming parameters ([FIG. 1] BF TX calculated using the feedback steering matrix for weighting matrix towards the beam-forming STA. Table 1. Shows angle of the compressed beam-forming matrix (=beamforming parameters). As of claim 9, rejection of claim 8 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG discloses the performing channel sounding further comprises generating compressed Beamforming Report for analyzing transmit (TX) beamforming support among deployed Wi-Fi devices (Fig. 1] shows performing beam-forming type of support to a plurality of receivers at the same time in the IEEE802.11ac standard , the first communication node 110, 121 (=deployed Ei-FI devices) and the second communication node 122 be exchanging channel sounding process capability, the first communication node 110, 121 and the second communication node 122 both support relevant channel detection process. As of claim 11, rejection of claim 4 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG further discloses the performing channel sounding further comprises generating, by the beamformee, beamforming reports, and sending the reports back to the beamformer, upon measuring the channel state information from the NDP ( [FIG. 1] shows the beam-forming transmitter BF TX (=beamformer ) sending the NDP announcement frame NDP AF, then transmitted NDP frame. STA1 (=beamformee) estimating channels of the NDP frame and back to TX BF feedback frame which is a compressed beamforming frame (=compressed beamforming reports) to the transmitter BF TX (=beamformer). As of claim 14, rejection of claim 1 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG further discloses the performing multi-path estimation comprises performing multi-path modeling with CBR to analyze relationship between signal propagation characteristics and information in CBR by modeling a multi-path channel based on uplink and downlink steering matrices (WANG, [FIG. 3] shows and discloses a NLoS component of the received multipath signal, the complex propagation, a NLoS component of the received multipath signal. And the compressed beamforming frame provided via compressed steering matrix). As of claim 20, rejection of claim 1 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG further discloses outputting results of the multi-path estimation for wireless sensing applications (section location: AP obtained by the sensing sample with a predetermined fingerprint map is compared to determine the position of the STA). 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 of this title, 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 3, and 10 is rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over WANG (CN 2016/80088169 A) in view of Xia et al. (US 2014/0093005). As of claim 3, rejection of claim 2 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG does not explicitly discloses frame preamble but Xia teaches wherein the NDP is a sounding packet that only includes a standalone frame preamble (Xia, para [0208] [0221 discloses the preamble of the sounding packet. Beamformer (BFer) sends an NDPA followed by an NDP and uses the preamble to transmit the data). Therefore it would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of WANG with the teaching of Xia in order to improve the coverage area and throughput. as taught by Xia in para [0002]. As of claim 10, rejection of claim 9 cited above incorporated herein, in addition WANG discloses the generating compressed Beamforming Report comprises computing steering matrices ([FIG. 1] BF TX calculated using the feedback steering matrix) WANG does not explicitly discloses averaged SNR but Xia teaches the generating compressed Beamforming Report comprises computing averaged SNR (ASNR) (Xia, [0124] discloses the beamforming/precoding codebook be predefined by the system as a collection of matrices or vectors, para [0136] discloses the monitor feedback be defined as average SNR measured on the beamformed portion of the transmitted packet). Therefore it would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of WANG with the teaching of Xia in order to improve the coverage area and throughput. as taught by Xia in para [0002]. Claim 12 is rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over WANG (CN 2016/80088169 A) in view of CHO et al. (US 20250030459). As of claim 12, The method of claim 1, wherein the performing sniffing information from Wi-Fi traffic comprises sniffing ambient traffic to collect CBR frames of adjacent Wi-Fi links (CHOI [0058] [0059] discloses the beamformee (e.g., the STA ) feedback the CSI in the form of a compressed beamforming report and collect feedback frames according to channel sounding between APs (=adjacent wi-fi links). Therefore it would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of WANG with the teaching of CHOI in order to ensure that data be transmitted accurately to a receiving party. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 5-7, 13, and 15-19 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, since the combined teachings of the prior art references do not teach or reasonably suggest the claimed invention as a whole. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FAHMIDA S CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)272-2547. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am to 5pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy K Kundu can be reached at 571-272-8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /FAHMIDA S CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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Prosecution Timeline

Oct 17, 2024
Application Filed
Oct 13, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102, §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
93%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+6.2%)
2y 1m (~1m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 647 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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