DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-21 are pending for examination.
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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim under US PRO 63/570309 filed on 3/27/2024.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 19, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Fang et al, US 2025/0141511 A1.
Regarding Claim 1, Fang discloses a wireless communication method, comprising: performing, by a processor of an apparatus, a wireless communication with a physical-layer protocol data unit (PPDU) by either: generating and transmitting the PPDU; or receiving and processing the PPDU (Fang [0061] – the PHY circuitry 704 may be configured to transmit a HE PPDU; [0034]- the radio architecture 100 may be configured for high-efficiency (HE) Wi-Fi (HEW) communications in accordance with the IEEE 802.11ax standard).
Regarding Claim 2, Fang discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein a bit 19 (B19) of a User field for a non-multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output (non-MU-MIMO) allocation in an Ultra-High- Reliability SIGNAL (UHR-SIG) field of the PPDU indicates whether unequal modulation (UEQM) or equal modulation (EQM) is applied in the PPDU (Fang [0158] – The wireless devices encode the MCS field in non-MU-MIMO user field, MU-MIMO user field, an UHR MU PPDU user field, and an UHR user information (info) field in the trigger frame; [0159] – The UEQM pattern field will be in a non-MU-MIMO user field and in an UHR MU PPDU).
Regarding Claim 3, Fang discloses the method of Claim 2, wherein, responsive to the B19 indicating that the UEQM is applied, bits 20 and 21 (B20-B21) of the User field for the non-MU-MIMO allocation indicate UEQM patterns, and the UEQM patterns are indicated depending on a corresponding number of spatial streams indicated in a NSS field in the User field for non-MU-MIMO allocation (Fang [0165] – The NSS 1108 subfield (NSS/Modulation patterns) is bits 1102 B16-B18 and indicates the number of spatial streams (NSS) and supports up to 8 spatial streams as in VHT/IEEE 802.11be).
Regarding Claim 4, Fang discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein a number of bits for a User field for a non-MU-MIMO allocation in a UHR-SIG field in the PPDU is 23 (Fang [0171] – FIG. 12 illustrates a UHR user field 1200, in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the total number of bits 1202 is for the non-MU MIMO user field (such as UHR user field 1200) will be increased to be 23 or 24 bits).
Regarding Claim 6, Fang discloses the method of Claim 4, wherein bit 22 (B22) in the User field for the non- MU-MIMO allocation in the UHR-SIG field is used to indicate whether LDPC codeword length for the PPDU is 2x1944, wherein, when the bit B22 is set to 1, it indicates the LDPC codeword length is 2x1944, and wherein, when the bit B22 is set to 0, it indicates the LDPC codeword length is less and other than 2x1944 (see Fang [0170], [0176], [0177], Table2).
Regarding Claim 7, Fang discloses the method method of Claim 4, wherein bit 21 (B21) set to 0 and bit 22 (B22) set to 1 in the User field for the non-MU-MIMO allocation in the UHR-SIG field indicates a new coding mode other than a BCC mode and an LDPC mode with codeword length less or equal to 2x1944 is used for the PPDU (see Fang [0169], [0170]).
Regarding Claim 9, Fang discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein a number of bits for a User field for a MU-MIMO allocation in a UHR-SIG field in the PPDU is 23 (Fang [0171] – FIG. 12 illustrates a UHR user field 1200, in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the total number of bits 1202 is for the non-MU MIMO user field (such as UHR user field 1200) will be increased to be 23 or 24 bits).
Regarding Claim 14, Fang discloses a wireless communication method, comprising: performing, by a processor of an apparatus, a wireless communication with a trigger frame by either: generating and transmitting the trigger frame; or receiving and processing the trigger frame, wherein the trigger frame is used to solicit a trigger-based (TB) PPDU ([0064] – There may be different types of PPDUs that may have different fields and different physical layers and/or different media access control (MAC) layers. For example, a single user (SU) PPDU, downlink (DL) PPDU, multiple-user (MU) PPDU, extended-range (ER) SU PPDU, and/or trigger-based (TB) PPDU; [0209] – The method 2000 begins at operation 2002 with decoding, from an access point (AP), a first physical layer protocol data unit (PPDU) comprising a user information field for a trigger frame).
Regarding Claim 19, Fang discloses the method of Claim 14, wherein a bit in a UHR User Info field in the trigger frame is used to indicates whether LDPC codeword length is 2x1944 for the TB PPDU, wherein when the bit is set to 1, it indicates the LDPC codeword length is 2x1944, and when the bit is set to 0, it indicates the LDPC codeword length is less and other than 2x1944 (Fang [0169] – B21 is set to 1 if LDPC with codeword length up to 1944 is used. In some embodiments, a codeword with length of 3888 will not be used for an RU or a MRU with size smaller than or equal to 242-tone; [0170] – In some embodiments, BSS is not supported. B21 is set to 0 if LDPC with codeword length up to 3888 is used. And B21 is set to 1 if LDPC with codeword length up to 1944 is used).
Regarding Claim 20, Fang discloses the method of Claim 19, the bit is bit 26 (B26) in a UHR User Info field in the trigger frame (Fang [0158] – an UHR user information (info) field in the trigger frame).
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.
Claim(s) 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang, in view of Hu et al, US 2022/0255690 A1.
Regarding Claim 15, Fang discloses the method of Claim 14, as outlined above.
However, Fang does not teach bits 56-59 (B56-B59) in a UHR Common Info field of the trigger frame are used as 4-bit bitmap, with each bit of the 4-bit bitmap indicating a respective 80-MHz frequency subblock being used as a distributed-tone resource unit (DRU) or a regular resource unit (RRU).
Hu teaches bits 56-59 (B56-B59) in a UHR Common Info field of the trigger frame are used as 4-bit bitmap, with each bit of the 4-bit bitmap indicating a respective 80MHz frequency subblock being used as a distributed-tone resource unit (DRU) or a regular resource unit (RRU) (Hu [0095] – the indication may be signaled by using one or more reserved bits in a Common Information field of the trigger frame. In some implementations, the indication may include a bitmap of up to 4 bits (with 1 bit per 80 MHz subblock) indicating a RU type per 80 MHz segment or frequency subblock as being dRU or rRU).
Therefore, it 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 to modify Fang to have a UHR Common Info field of the trigger frame used as 4-bit bitmap, with each bit of the 4-bit bitmap indicating a respective 80-MHz frequency subblock being used as a distributed-tone resource unit (DRU) or a regular resource unit (RRU), as taught by Hu. One would be motivated as the UHR common info field applies a uniform standard for each subblock.
Regarding Claim 16, Fang, in combination, further discloses the method of Claim 15, wherein bits 27-31 (B27-31) in a UHR User Info field in the trigger frame are used as a SS Allocation field (Fang [0142] – this information is indicated in an SS allocation field of a trigger frame in UHR/Wi-Fi 8/IEEE 802.11bn).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 8, 10-13, 17, 18 and 21 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/AMIR SHAHNAMI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483
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