Apple Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 30, 2021

2020005845 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 2021)

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