Apple Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardDec 30, 20212020005845 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 2021) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 15/428,959 02/09/2017 Guoqing LI P30405US1/25460US.1 6199 47743 7590 12/30/2021 DICKINSON WRIGHT RLLP Attn: IP Docketing P.O. BOX 569 Cupertino, CA 95015 EXAMINER NGUYEN, THAI ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2469 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/30/2021 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): SVDocketing@dickinsonwright.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GUOQING LI, CHRISTIAAN A. HARTMAN, OREN SHANI, MATTHEW L. SEMERSKY, JOONSUK KIM, JARKKO KNECKT, ASHOK RANGANATH, YONG LIU, and SU KHIONG YONG Appeal 2020-005845 Application 15/428,959 Technology Center 2400 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOYCE CRAIG, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claims 1, 3–7, 9–13, and 15–19 are pending, stand rejected, are appealed by Appellant1, and are the subject of our decision under 35 U.S.C. 1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42 (2019). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Apple Inc. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2020-005845 Application 15/428,959 2 § 134(a).2 See Final Act. 1; Appeal Br. 10.3 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter, according to Appellant, generally relates to “providing data buffer status information in a data transmission frame that is associated with a data buffer having a traffic characteristic that is different than a traffic characteristic of the data transmission frame.” Spec. ¶ 2. Specifically, Appellant observes that in a wireless local area network (WLAN) a station (STA) can indicate to an access point (AP) that there is buffered traffic associated with a particular traffic identifier (TID) awaiting transmission. Id. ¶ 27. The AP can then schedule controlled channel access for the STA to send a portion of the data associated with the TID. Id. But, “[i]f an urgent TID develops that is different than the first TID, the STA may need to wait or contend for the [wireless medium] in order to inform the AP of the urgent TID.” Id. ¶ 33. According to Appellant, when sending scheduled data with a particular TID, an STA can only report the buffer status of that TID. Id. ¶ 34. “There is a problem here because a given STA 2 The Examiner states that “[c]laims 2, 8, 14, and 20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA), 2nd paragraph.” Final Act. 7. We see no actual rejection of claims 2, 8, 14, and 20 in the Final Office Action. See id. Accordingly, our decision addresses only rejected claims 1, 3–7, 9–13, and 15–19. 3 We refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”), filed Feb. 9, 2017; Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”), filed Mar. 30, 2020; and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”), filed Aug. 10, 2020. We also refer to the Examiner’s Final Office Action (“Final Act.”), mailed Oct. 2, 2019; and Answer (“Ans.”), mailed June 10, 2020. Appeal 2020-005845 Application 15/428,959 3 sometimes has other traffic, either high priority or low priority, which the AP should know about so that the AP can schedule in an efficient manner resources for the STAs it serves.” Id. Appellant’s claimed subject matter addresses this problem “by, when sending data of a first TID in a MAC frame, also reporting buffer status of a second TID using a header field of the MAC frame.” Id. at 36. Claim 1 (directed to a method), claim 9 (directed to a station), and claim 13 (directed to a non-transitory computer- readable medium) are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for communicating buffer status, the method performed by a wireless local area network station (STA) comprising a first buffer and a second buffer, the method comprising: receiving a trigger frame from an access point (AP); and responsive to receipt of the trigger frame: forming a frame body of a medium access control (MAC) frame, the frame body comprising a first data portion of buffered uplink data from the first buffer, wherein the first data portion of buffered uplink data is associated with a first traffic identifier; forming a MAC header of the MAC frame, wherein the MAC header comprises a buffer status report for a second data portion of buffered uplink data in the second buffer, and wherein the second data portion of buffered uplink data is associated with a second traffic identifier, different from the first traffic identifier; and transmitting the MAC frame to the AP. Appeal Br. 20 (Claims App.). REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Appeal 2020-005845 Application 15/428,959 4 Name Reference Date Hedayat US 2016/0323426 A1 Nov. 3, 2016 Ryu et al. (“Ryu”) US 2017/0311310 A1 Oct. 26, 2017 REJECTION4 The Examiner rejects claims 1, 3–7, 9–13, and 15–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ryu and Hedayat.5 See Final Act. 5–7. ANALYSIS The Examiner rejects independent claim 1 (as well as independent claims 9 and 13, and dependent claims 3–7, 10–12, and 15–19) as obvious over Ryu and Hedayat. See Final Act. 5–7. In particular, the Examiner relies on Ryu for teaching “forming a frame body of a medium access control (MAC) frame, the frame body comprising a first data portion of buffered uplink data from the first buffer, wherein the first data portion of buffered uplink data is associated with a first traffic identifier,” and “forming a MAC header of the MAC frame, wherein the MAC header comprises a buffer status report,” as recited in claim 1. See Final Act. 5–6. Specifically, with respect to the “frame body” limitation in claim 1, the Examiner identifies buffer status indicator 800 within the “BA control” 4 Upon further prosecution, the Examiner may wish to consider, under 35 U.S.C. § 101, whether the claims are patent-ineligible as being directed to an abstract idea that is not integrated into a practical application, where the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. See 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50 (Jan. 7, 2019). 5 The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), Pub. L. No. 112–29, 125 Stat. 284 (2011), amended 35 U.S.C. § 103. Because the present application has an effective filing date after the AIA’s effective date (March 16, 2013), this decision refers to the post-AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appeal 2020-005845 Application 15/428,959 5 portion of the MAC frame shown in Ryu’s Figure 8. Ans. 8. In addition, the Examiner identifies buffer status information field 710 and queue size field 720 in the “BA information” portion of the MAC frame shown in Ryu’s Figure 7. Id. at 8–9. With respect to the “MAC header” limitation in claim 1, the Examiner points to Ryu’s Figure 8 and asserts that “the buffer status information may be transmitted by using bits that are allocated to the RA [receiver address] field and/or TA [transmitter address] field of the conventional block ACK frame.” Id. at 8. Appellant contends, among other things, that “Ryu fails to teach or suggest a single frame including uplink buffer status information in a header and uplink traffic data in a body.” Appeal Br. 16. More specifically, Appellant notes that “claim 1 recites ‘the MAC header [of the MAC frame] comprises a buffer status report’ while ‘the frame body [comprises] a first data portion of buffered uplink data from a first buffer of the memory’” and argues that “the buffer status information of Ryu does not correspond to actual buffered uplink data as recited in claim 1.” Reply Br. 1–2. We agree with Appellant and find the Examiner erred in relying on Ryu for teaching “the frame body comprising a first data portion of buffered uplink data from the first buffer, wherein the first data portion of buffered uplink data is associated with a first traffic identifier,” and “the MAC header comprises a buffer status report,” as recited in claim 1. The Examiner appears not to have given proper weight to the claim language that recites “a first data portion of buffered uplink data from the first buffer.” In the Answer, the “Examiner is unclear as to what Appellant implies by arguing ‘transmitting data itself from a buffer in the uplink frame.’” Ans. 11. Although the Examiner asserts that the claimed “first Appeal 2020-005845 Application 15/428,959 6 data portion” is “clearly and wholesomely addressed by combination of Ryu and Hedayat,” the Examiner has not specifically identified any portion of a MAC frame body in Ryu that includes “buffered uplink data from the first buffer,” as recited in claim 1. Rather, the “BA information” and “BA control” portions of the MAC frames illustrated in Ryu’s figures appear to show only information about buffered data or control information about what buffered data information is included, but not “buffered uplink data” itself. For example, Ryu describes “buffer status information field 710” as including “information on a size of uplink data that are buffered per access category” (Ryu ¶ 113), and describes “buffer status indicator 800” as indicating “whether or not, among the bits that are defined for the block ACK bitmap of the BA information field of the block ACK frame, some of the bits are being used for the transmission of the buffer status information” (id. ¶ 118). Accordingly, we find the Examiner fails to show Ryu teaches a MAC frame with “the frame body comprising a first data portion of buffered uplink data from the first buffer,” in addition to “the MAC header compris[ing] a buffer status report.” Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that the Examiner erred in concluding that the combination of Ryu and Hedayat renders obvious Appellant’s claim 1. Independent claims 9 and 13 include limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 3–7, 10–12, and 15–19 depend from and stand with their respective base claims. Thus, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1, 3–7, 9–13, and 15–19. Appeal 2020-005845 Application 15/428,959 7 CONCLUSION Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 3– 7, 9–13, and 15–19 as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3–7, 9–13, and 15–19. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3–7, 9– 13, 15–19 103 Ryu, Hedayat 1, 3–7, 9– 13, 15–19 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation