F DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-23 are pending in Instant Application.
Priority
Examiner acknowledges Applicant’s claim to priority benefits of U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 63/553,662 filed 02/15/2024 and U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 63/609,903 filed 12/14/2023.
Election/Restrictions
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claims 1-10 (Group 1), drawn to details of performing a frequency-domain (FD) mask coefficient setting operation upon at least one field comprised in the first PPDU and at least one field comprised in the second PPDU according to a frequency sub-block in a frequency band used for transmitting the DL FD-A-PPDU, in order to generate a masked FD-A-PPDU, wherein the at least one field comprised in the first PPDU corresponds to the at least one field comprised in the second PPDU; and transmitting the masked FD-A-PPDU (CPC H04L1/0068).
II. Claims 11-23 (Group 2), drawn to details of generating a trigger frame for triggering transmission of an uplink (UL) physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the trigger frame comprises a common information field, at least one special user information field, and multiple user information fields; the common information field comprises a High Efficiency (HE)/non HE P160 field (CPC H04W74/0808).
The inventions are distinct, each from the other because of the following reasons:
Inventions I and II are related as subcombinations disclosed as usable together in a single combination. The subcombinations are distinct if they do not overlap in scope and are not obvious variants, and if it is shown that at least one subcombination is separately usable.
In the instant case,
Subcombination I has separate utility such as to performing a frequency-domain (FD) mask coefficient setting operation upon at least one field comprised in the first PPDU and at least one field comprised in the second PPDU according to a frequency sub-block in a frequency band used for transmitting the DL FD-A-PPDU, in order to generate a masked FD-A-PPDU, wherein the at least one field comprised in the first PPDU corresponds to the at least one field comprised in the second PPDU; and transmitting the masked FD-A-PPDU, which is different from the invention II. Inventions II do not require performing a frequency-domain (FD) mask coefficient setting operation upon at least one field comprised in the first PPDU and at least one field comprised in the second PPDU according to a frequency sub-block in a frequency band used for transmitting the DL FD-A-PPDU, in order to generate a masked FD-A-PPDU, wherein the at least one field comprised in the first PPDU corresponds to the at least one field comprised in the second PPDU; and transmitting the masked FD-A-PPDU.
Subcombination II has separate utility such as to generating a trigger frame for triggering transmission of an uplink (UL) physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the trigger frame comprises a common information field, at least one special user information field, and multiple user information fields; the common information field comprises a High Efficiency (HE)/non HE P160 field, which is different from the invention I. Inventions I do not require generating a trigger frame for triggering transmission of an uplink (UL) physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU), wherein the trigger frame comprises a common information field, at least one special user information field, and multiple user information fields; the common information field comprises a High Efficiency (HE)/non HE P160 field. See MPEP § 806.05(d).
The examiner has required restriction between subcombinations usable together. Where applicant elects a subcombination and claims thereto are subsequently found allowable, any claim(s) depending from or otherwise requiring all the limitations of the allowable subcombination will be examined for patentability in accordance with 37 CFR 1.104. See MPEP § 821.04(a). Applicant is advised that if any claim presented in a continuation or divisional application is anticipated by, or includes all the limitations of, a claim that is allowable in the present application, such claim may be subject to provisional statutory and/or nonstatutory double patenting rejections over the claims of the instant application.
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all these inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because at least the following reason(s) apply:
The different groups have divergent subject matter and the groups require different field of search (e.g. searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search queries); and/or the prior art applicable to one group would not likely be applicable to another.
Applicant is advised that the reply to this requirement to be complete must include (i) an election of an invention to be examined even though the requirement may be traversed (37 CFR 1.143) and (ii) identification of the claims encompassing the elected invention, including any claims subsequently added. An argument that a claim is allowable or that all claims are generic is considered nonresponsive unless accompanied by an election.
The election of the invention may be made with or without traverse. To preserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the election of invention requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable on the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the invention are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the invention to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the invention unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 of the other invention.
During a telephone conversation with Roger Chen on October 1, 2026 a provisional election was made without traverse to prosecute the invention of “A method for transmitting a downlink (DL) frequency-domain aggregation physical layer protocol data unit (FD-A-PPDU), wherein the DL FD-A-PPDU at least comprises a first PPDU and a second PPDU”, claims 1-10. Claim 11-23 withdrawn from further consideration by the examiner, 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
Claims 11-23 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in a telephone interview with Roger Chen on October 1, 2026.
Claim Objections
Claim 5 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 5 recites “the multiple fields comprise a SIG …" in line 3. Since, “a SIG” is recited for the first time in the claim, it is recommended to define “a SIG”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Notice re prior art available under both pre-AIA and 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 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.
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)(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) 1-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Huang et al. (US Pub. No.: 2023/0299881).
As per claim 1, Huang disclose A method for transmitting a downlink (DL) frequency-domain aggregation physical layer protocol data unit (FD-A-PPDU), wherein the DL FD-A-PPDU at least comprises a first PPDU (see Fig.1, PPDU-1) and a second PPDU (see Fig.1, PPDU-2, see Fig.8, Fig.9, para. 0071-0076, an aggregated physical layer protocol data unit (A-PPDU) comprising one or more high efficiency (HE) PPDUs and one or more extremely high throughput (EHT) PPDUs, also per para. 0075, the A-PPDU comprises a frequency-domain (FD) A-PPDU (FD-A-PPDU), see also para, 0116, 0117, for downlink FD-A-PPDU transmission, the AP generates the FD-A-PPDU, and the AP applies the spectral mask to the FD-A-PPDU, the present disclosure are suitable for downlink applications, see also para. 0067-0070), and the method comprises:
performing a frequency-domain (FD) mask coefficient setting operation upon at least one field comprised in the first PPDU and at least one field comprised in the second PPDU according to a frequency sub-block in a frequency band used for transmitting the DL FD-A-PPDU (see Fig.8-Fig. 11A-E, Fig.12-Fig.16, para. 0101-0104, performing a frequency-domain (FD) mask coefficient setting operation, when no preamble puncturing is applied for FD-A-PPDU comprising one or more HE PPDUs and one or more EHT PPDUs, how an interim transmit spectral mask is applied to the FD-A-PPDU depends on the FD-A-PPDU's BW, regardless of respective BW of the one or more HE PPDUs and the one or more EHT PPDUs in the FD-A-PPDU. An interim transmit spectral mask for EHT PPDU is reused for FD-A-PPDU that has the same BW as the EHT PPDU. In other words, the interim transmit spectral mask for 160 MHz mask EHT PPDU is reused for 160 MHz mask FD-A-PPDU; and the interim transmit spectral mask for 320 MHz mask EHT PPDU is reused for 320 MHz mask FD-A-PPDU), in order to generate a masked FD-A-PPDU, wherein the at least one field comprised in the first PPDU corresponds to the at least one field comprised in the second PPDU (see Fig.8, Fig.12-Fig.16, para. 0101-0104, FIG. 14 illustrates an example of preamble puncture mask for preamble puncturing at an edge of a FD-A-PPDU according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 14 illustrates that, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure, if preamble puncturing is applied for FD-A-PPDU comprising one or more HE PPDUs and one or more EHT PPDUs, the spectral mask for FD-A-PPDU is subject to the interim mask for FD-A-PPDU and additional mask restrictions on punctured subchannel(s) in the FD-A-PPDU, generating a masked FD-A-PPDU, one field comprised in the first PPDU corresponds to the at least one field comprised in the second PPDU, see also para. 0067-0070); and
transmitting the masked FD-A-PPDU (see Fig. 10, Fig.11A-11E, Fig.12, Fig.13, Fig. 20, transmitting the masked FD-A-PPDU, FIG. 20 illustrates an example of transmit spectral mask for N×20 MHz preamble punctured channel with transmissions on both upper and lower subchannels where N is a number of 20 MHz punctured subchannels within a BW allocated to one or more HE PPDUs in a FD-A-PPDU).
As per claim 2, Huang disclose the method of claim 1.
Huang further disclose wherein a unit of the frequency sub-block is a multiple of 20 MHZ, and the unit comprises 20 MHZ, 40 MHZ, 80 MHZ, and 160 MHZ (see Fig.10, Fig11A-11E, para. 0086-0091, a unit of the frequency sub-block is a multiple of 20 MHZ, and the unit comprises 20 MHZ, 40 MHZ, 80 MHZ, and 160 MHZ).
As per claim 3, Huang disclose the method of claim 1.
Huang further disclose wherein a unit of the frequency sub-block is equal to a bandwidth of a PPDU comprised in the FD-A-PPDU (see Fig.10, Fig11A-11E, para. 0086-0091, FIG. 11B illustrates that, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure, regarding Option 1B for a 320 MHz BW FD-A-PPDU, each intended HE STA shall park in P80 while each intended EHT STA shall park in the unpunctured 80 MHz frequency segment of S160. Within P160, any non-primary 20 MHz channel and/or any non-primary 40 MHz channel may be punctured. In this case, a 160 MHz BW HE MU PPDU to which preamble puncturing may be applied is transmitted in P160. Within the unpunctured 80 MHz frequency segment of S160, any 20 MHz channel or any two consecutive 20 MHz channels may be punctured. In this case, an 80 MHz BW EHT MU PPDU with preamble puncturing applied is transmitted in the unpunctured 80 MHz frequency segment of S160 / a unit of the frequency sub-block is equal to a bandwidth of a PPDU comprised in the FD-A-PPDU).
As per claim 4, Huang disclose the method of claim 1.
Huang further disclose wherein the frequency band comprises a first channel for transmitting the first PPDU and a second channel for transmitting the second PPDU; the first channel comprises a plurality of first sub-blocks; the second channel comprises a plurality of second sub-blocks; mask coefficients of a sequence transmitted by at least one first sub-block among the plurality of first sub-blocks are opposite to mask coefficients of a sequence transmitted by at least one second sub-block among the plurality of second sub-blocks; and the at least one first sub-block corresponds to the at least one second sub-block (see Fi.g10, Fig.11A-11E, para. 0078-0079, 0086-0094, FIG. 11A illustrates that, according to some embodiments of the present disclosure, regarding Option 1A for a 320 MHz BW FD-A-PPDU, each intended HE STA shall park in P80 while each intended EHT STA shall park in one of two 80 MHz frequency segments of S160. Within P80, any non-primary 20 MHz channel may be punctured. In this case, an 80 MHz BW HE MU PPDU to which preamble puncturing may be applied is transmitted in P80. Within each of 80 MHz frequency segments of S160, any 20 MHz channel or any two consecutive 20 MHz channels may be punctured. In this case, a 160 MHz BW EHT MU PPDU to which preamble puncturing may be applied is transmitted in S160, mask coefficients of a sequence transmitted by at least one first sub-block among the plurality of first sub-blocks are opposite to mask coefficients of a sequence transmitted by at least one second sub-block among the plurality of second sub-blocks, see also Fig.12- Fig16, Fig. 21A-21C).
As per claim 5, Huang disclose the method of claim 1.
Huang further disclose wherein each PPDU comprised in the FD-A-PPDU comprises a legacy preamble field and multiple fields corresponding to each PPDU's Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) generation, and the multiple fields comprise a SIG, a short training field (STF), a long training field (LTF), and a data field (see Fig.2A, Fig.2B, Fig.3, para. 0003-0007, 0051-0052, 0076, the multiple fields comprise a SIG, a short training field (STF), a long training field (LTF), and a data field).
As per claim 6, Huang disclose the method of claim 5.
Huang further disclose wherein the FD mask coefficient setting operation is performed upon the legacy preamble field and the SIG in each PPDU, and the legacy preamble field comprises a L-STF, a L-LTF, a L-SIG, and a RL-SIG (see Fig.2A, Fig.2B, Fig.3, para. 0003-0007, 0051-0052, 0076, the SIG in each PPDU, and the legacy preamble field comprises a L-STF, a L-LTF, a L-SIG, and a RL-SIG).
As per claim 7, Huang disclose the method of claim 5.
Huang further disclose wherein the FD mask coefficient setting operation is performed upon the STF, the LTF, and the data field in each PPDU (see Fig.2A, Fig.2B, Fig.3A-3B, para. 0003-0007, 0051-0052, 0075-0076, FD mask coefficient setting operation is performed upon the STF, the LTF, and the data field in each PPDU).
As per claim 8, Huang disclose the method of claim 5.
Huang further disclose wherein the FD mask coefficient setting operation is performed upon each of the Legacy preamble field, the SIG, the STF, the LTF, and the data field in each PPDU (see Fig.2A, Fig.2B, Fig.3A-3B, para. 0003-0007, 0051-0052, 0075-0076, FD mask coefficient setting operation is performed upon each of the Legacy preamble field, the SIG, the STF, the LTF, and the data field in each PPDU).
As per claim 9, Huang disclose the method of claim 5.
Huang further disclose wherein FD mask coefficients set on the at least one field comprised in the first PPDU and the at least one field comprised in the second PPDU are pre-defined FD mask coefficients for a single PPDU, wherein the single PPDU and the FD-A-PPDU have the same bandwidth (see para. 0091, 0101-0104, when no preamble puncturing is applied for FD-A-PPDU comprising one or more HE PPDUs and one or more EHT PPDUs, how an interim transmit spectral mask is applied to the FD-A-PPDU depends on the FD-A-PPDU's BW, regardless of respective BW of the one or more HE PPDUs and the one or more EHT PPDUs in the FD-A-PPDU. An interim transmit spectral mask for EHT PPDU is reused for FD-A-PPDU that has the same BW as the EHT PPDU).
As per claim 10, claim 10 is rejected the same way as claim 1. Huang also disclose A wireless communication device (see Fig.7, AP 10), comprising: a processor (see Fig.7, Processor 11) and a wireless transceiver circuit (see Fig.7, a transceiver 13), coupled to the processor (see para. 0067-0070, a processor 11 coupled to the memory 12, the transceiver 13).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Chen (US Pub. No.:2024/0430052) – see para. 0175, “If EHT STAs 104 and UHR STAs 104 are capable of parking on different 160 MHz subbands through Subchannel Selective Transmission (SST), several potential methods may be used to serve both EHT and UHR STAs in different 160 MHz subbands. One method may involve the use of a multi-generation frequency domain aggregated PPDU (FD-A-PPDU), where EHTs STAs may be served in the P160 and the UHR STAs 104 may be served in the remaining 320 MHz. In some cases, EHT STAs 104 and UHR STAs 104 may park on primary channels. To multiplex EHT STAs 104 in UHR 480 MHz OFDMA transmission, the UHR 480 MHz PPDU may be disguised to EHT STAs 104 as an EHT 320 MHz PPDU. In such examples, the 320+160 PPDU channel bandwidth signaling option may be used, and in the subbands where the EHT STAs 104 are parked, the E320 may be indicated in the bandwidth field (the additional 160 MHz may be understood by UHR STAs 104 but not EHT STAs 104). In such examples, the UHR-SIG field may be changed to inherit the EHT-SIG structure of 320 MHz. In such examples, the RU allocation subfield in UHR-SIG may use the EHT compatible design described herein for the E320 for EHT STAs 104 to understand, and either the channel bandwidth independent or channel bandwidth dependent RU allocation subfield design may be used in the remaining 160 MHz for UHR STAs 104”.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LAKERAM JANGBAHADUR whose telephone number is (571)272-1335. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 7 am - 4 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ian Moore can be reached on 571-272-3085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LAKERAM JANGBAHADUR/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
Prosecution Insights