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 .
Election/Restrictions
Examiner called Christopher R. Lipp on 10/7/2026 to elect over the phone between group I (claims 1-18), group II (claim 20) and group III (claim 28). The undersigned elected orally group I without traverse. Thus, group II (claim 20) and group III (claim 28) are withdrawn from consideration. The undersigned is requested to confirm this election in the next reply.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6 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. The cited art of records failed to teach each of the limitations.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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 1-3, 7-12 and 13-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang et al. (hereinafter Fang) US 2023/0397249 A1 in view of Ryu et al. (hereinafter Ryu) US 2024/0056968 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Fang teaches a method of wireless communication in a first device (abstract; AP), the method comprising:
transmitting a first physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) comprising inserted PPDU information to a plurality of second devices (¶0071-¶0072 & ¶0084; the AP may encode a plurality of downlink (DL) physical-layer protocol data units (PPDUs) 606, 608, 610, etc. for transmission within the TXOP to plurality of STAs);
detecting a generation of a latency sensitive traffic for a third device while transmitting the first PPDU to the plurality of second devices (¶0093, ¶0072 & ¶0074; AP triggers STA to transmit LL traffic to the AP when the frame is determined to be preemption request frame 616. Note that Low latency (LL) traffic = time sensitive traffic);
and transmitting an inserted PPDU comprising the latency sensitive traffic to the third device through a target resource corresponding to the inserted PPDU information (¶0072; the AP may trigger a station (STA) to transmit LL traffic to the AP when the frame is determined to be a preemption request frame 616).
Fang does not expressly teach that while transmitting….to the plurality of second devices.
Ryu on the other hand teaches while transmitting….to the plurality of second devices (¶0126; an alternative approach for managing latency-sensitive traffic where an AP is TXOP holder. An AP as a TXOP holder may transmit a pre-emptive PPDU including latency-sensitive A-MPDUs to STA A while it is transmitting a non-latency-sensitive frame to STA B. A control information indicating PPDU pre-emption is included in a pre-empted PPDU including the non-latency-sensitive frame for STA B. The control information can include the Ack Policy Update information indicating Ack Policy of the non-latency-sensitive frame to be changed to Block Ack. The control information can include the target recipient information of the pre-emptive PPDU indicating whether the pre-emptive PPDU is addressed to STA B or not).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to incorporate Ryu’s teachings into the system of Fang in order to manage latency sensitive traffic (¶0002). Utilizing such teachings enable the system to improve communications robustness and increase throughput (¶0042).
Regarding claim 2, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: the first PPDU is transmitted to the plurality of second devices through a plurality of resources allocated to the plurality of second devices, and the inserted PPDU information comprises first information indicating whether there is a presence of the inserted PPDU and second information indicating the target resource among the plurality of resources (¶0093-¶0097; see different OFDMA Rus [resources]. see ¶0057-¶0059; RU. Also note that the AP may trigger the LL STAs to send LL packets with uplink OFDMA-based random access. The trigger for the LL STAs' uplink may be implicit such that the LL STAs can send the uplink directly without the common PR and the uplink trigger; or send the uplink with the common PR but without the uplink trigger. In these embodiments, the AP may allocate the frequency resources (e.g., the OFDMA RUs) to the LL STAs beforehand).
Regarding claim 3, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 2, wherein: the first information is included in a first signal field in the first PPDU, and the second information is included in second signal fields indicating the plurality of resources in the first PPDU (¶0093-¶0095).
Regarding claim 7, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, Fang further teaches wherein: transmission of the inserted PPDU is possible based on the first device satisfying a condition of communicating with the plurality of second devices in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) transmission mode (obvious from ¶0058-¶0062 & ¶0087; when the frame is determined to be a preemption request frame 616 and when the AP suspends transmission of the next DL PPDU 608, the AP may trigger one or more LL STAs to transmit the LL traffic during the TXOP in accordance with an uplink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (UL OFDMA) based random access technique, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect).
Regarding claim 8, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 7, Fang further teaches wherein a first signal field in the first PPDU comprises information indicating the OFDMA transmission mode (¶0058-¶0059 & ¶0087; OFDMA).
Regarding claim 9, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, Fang further teaches wherein the inserted PPDU is transmitted within a transmission opportunity (TXOP) duration of the first PPDU (Fig. 6).
Regarding claim 10, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, Fang further teaches wherein the inserted PPDU comprises a long training field, a signal field, a data field, and a packet extension (PE) field (¶0073, ¶0080-¶0083; L-LTF, SIG, data field and control frame extension field).
Regarding claim 11, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 10, Fang further teaches wherein the long training field comprises a certain data sequence for detection of the inserted PPDU in the third device (obvious from ¶0073 & ¶0093 because STA may encode preemption request frame to include this field, see Fig. 7A as example).
Regarding claim 12, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 10, Fang further teaches wherein the signal field comprises a plurality of fields necessary for decoding data included in the data field (¶0073 & ¶0093 & Fig. 7A; the SIG field may have a predetermined length value in a length field 704 (e.g., length=15) (see FIG. 7A) to indicate that the frame is a preemption request frame 616.).
Regarding claim 13, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: a first modulation and coding scheme corresponding to the inserted PPDU is the same as a second modulation and coding scheme corresponding to first data of the first PPDU, wherein the first data is transmitted before the inserted PPDU through the target resource, and wherein a plurality of pieces of data of the first PPDU comprise the first data (obvious from ¶0081-¶0082 & ¶0099-¶0101 because the MCS is defined in the spec).
Regarding claim 14, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: a first modulation and coding scheme corresponding to the inserted PPDU is different from a second modulation and coding scheme corresponding to first data, wherein the first data is transmitted before the inserted PPDU through the target resource, and a plurality of pieces of data of the first PPDU comprise the first data (obvious from ¶0081-¶0082 & ¶0099-¶0101 because the MCS is defined in the spec).
Regarding claim 15, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, Fang further teaches wherein a modulation and coding scheme corresponding to the inserted PPDU is fixed by a scheme predefined between the first device and the third device (¶0081-¶0082, see use of modulation and coding scheme MCS=7. Also note that ¶0100-¶0101 & Fig. 7A uses MCS adjustment).
Regarding claim 16, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the inserted PPDU is transmitted together with the remnant excluding first data transmitted through the target resource among a plurality of pieces of data comprised in the PPDU (see ¶0057-¶0059; RU. Also see ¶0094-¶0094; the AP may trigger the LL STAs to send LL packets with uplink OFDMA-based random access. The trigger for the LL STAs' uplink may be implicit such that the LL STAs can send the uplink directly without the common PR and the uplink trigger; or send the uplink with the common PR but without the uplink trigger. In these embodiments, the AP may allocate the frequency resources (e.g., the OFDMA RUs) to the LL STAs beforehand).
Regarding claim 17, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 16, wherein the inserted PPDU is transmitted immediately subsequent to the first data (obvious from ¶0094-¶0094; the AP may trigger the LL STAs to send LL packets with uplink OFDMA-based random access. The trigger for the LL STAs' uplink may be implicit such that the LL STAs can send the uplink directly without the common PR and the uplink trigger; or send the uplink with the common PR but without the uplink trigger. In these embodiments, the AP may allocate the frequency resources (e.g., the OFDMA RUs) to the LL STAs beforehand).
Regarding claim 18, Fang in view of Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, Fang further teaches wherein the target resource is one of a resource unit (RU) and a multiple resource unit (MRU) (¶0057-¶0059; RU).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHRAN ABU ROUMI whose telephone number is (469)295-9170. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6AM-5PM.
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MAHRAN ABU ROUMI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2455
/MAHRAN Y ABU ROUMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455
