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 .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment filed on 03/01/2026 has been entered. Independent claims 1, 6, and 11 have been amended. Dependent claims 2-3, 5, 7-8, 10, 12-13, and 15 have been amended. Claims 4, 9, and 14 have been cancelled. No claim are new and has been added. Claims 1-3, 5-8, 10-13, and 15-16 are still pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 03/01/2026 on pages 9 of applicant’s remark regarding Claim 1. The applicant argues that Lee fails to teach the amended claim for changing the selective language “or” in the claim to an “and”, thereby making the reception of the triggering status of a target BSR a selective-option. Which is taught by Lee in ¶0159, wherein the UE receives an ACK indication with a higher priority level, and causing the regular BSR to be cancelled. The applicant’s arguments have been fully considered, but are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 03/01/2026 on page 10-11 of applicant’s remark regarding Claim 1 are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specified challenged in the argument.
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) 1-3, 5-8, 10-13, and 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (Pub.: No.: US 20180139653 A1, hereafter “Lee”) in view of Xu (Pub. No.: US 20190223048 A1, hereafter “Xu”).
Regarding Claim 1, Claim 6, and Claim 11
Lee Teaches
An information processing method, performed by a relay device (Lee Abstract: UE), wherein the method comprises: triggering (Lee Abstract: triggering) a pre-emptive Buffer Status Report (BSR) (Lee Abstract: pending BSR; Lee teaches a device triggering off of a pending BSR); and canceling (Lee ¶0159: canceling pending BSR) the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) according to a first status (Lee ¶0159: receives an ACK indication) in a process from the triggering (Lee ¶0159: triggered SR) of the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) to a generation of a Media Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) (Lee ¶0152: CB grant is what is used to allow at least two UEs to transmit a MAC PDU, e.g. the CB grant is used to uplink UL data, see ¶0154-¶0155) for carrying the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR), wherein the pre-emptive BSR is cancelled after (Lee Fig. 15: T2) the triggering of the pre-emptive BSR but before (Lee Fig. 15: T1) the generation (Lee Fig. 14: S1403, triggering BSR before receiving the ACK, see Fig. 14 S1409) of the MAC PDU for carrying the pre-emptive BSR (Lee Fig. 15: BSR/SR is pending; Lee teaches canceling the pending BSR/SR in response to a CB ACK being received by the UE, and canceling the pending BSR/SR), wherein the first status (Lee Abstract: monitoring ACK) comprises a triggering status of a target BSR (Lee ¶0114: Regular BSR), wherein the target BSR is at least one of a regular BSR or a periodic BSR (Lee ¶0114: periodicBSR-Timer expires; Lee teaches the triggering of a regular BSR through periodic timers) and canceling (Lee ¶0159: cancel) the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) according to the first status in the process (Lee ¶0159: receives an indication) from the triggering (Lee ¶0159: receives an ACK indication) of the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: regular BSR and periodic BSR) to the generation of the MAC PDU for carrying the pre-emptive BSR comprises (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR; Lee teaches canceling a pending BSR in response to receiving an indication for sending the regular BSR through the CB grant through a MAC PDU):
Lee does not explicitly teach
canceling the pre-emptive BSR when: the target BSR has been triggered in the process from the triggering of the pre-emptive BSR to the generation of the MAC PDU for carrying the pre-emptive BSR; and a first priority of a highest-priority Logical Channel Group (LCG) reported by the target BSR is higher than or equal to a second priority of a highest-priority LCG reported by the pre-emptive BSR
However, Xu teaches
canceling the pre-emptive BSR (Xu ¶0100: cancel) when the target BSR (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: first BSR) has been triggered (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: send the first BSR) in the process from the triggering of the pre-emptive BSR (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: second BSR) to the generation of the MAC PDU (Xu ¶0014: BSR to the base station via a PDU, e.g. a BSR is sent through a PDU to the base station) for carrying the pre-emptive BSR (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: second BSR; Xu teaches two types of BSRs both of which are to sent to the base station via a PDU); and a first priority (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: sequence of priorities) of a highest-priority Logical Channel Group (LCG) (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: BSR reporting is still performed based on the LCG) reported by the target BSR (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: BSR reporting is still performed based on the LCG and a common BSR) is higher than or equal to a second priority of a highest-priority LCG (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: sequence of priorities) reported by the pre-emptive BSR (Xu ¶0100-¶0104: second BSR; Xu teaches a set of priorities based off of an LCG wherein the BSR reporting is based off of that list of priorities).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Lee by way of Xu, to include an element that teaches two types of BSRs both of which are to sent to the base station via a PDU and a set of priorities based off of an LCG wherein the BSR reporting is based off of that list of priorities, as taught by Xu in ¶0100-¶0104, to better support ultra-reliable and low-latency communication systems which require the transmission latency of wireless communication services to better improve base station communication and reduce data delays by allowing missed communication sequences and allow data prioritization optimizations.
Claim 6 differs by the following limitation, which is also taught by the prior art, Lee teaches
communication device (Lee Fig. 5: receiver/transmitter), comprising: a memory storing computer-readable instructions (Lee Fig. 5: Flash, Memory, ROM, SRAM); a processor (Lee Fig. 5: microprocessor) coupled to the memory and configured to execute the computer-readable instructions (Lee Fig. 5: Flash, Memory, ROM, SRAM), wherein the computer-readable instructions (Lee ¶0171: software code), when executed by the processor (Lee ¶0171: executed), cause the processor (Lee ¶0171: processor) to perform operations comprising (Lee ¶0171: functions or operations; Lee teaches having a device with memory, a processor, and said memory containing code to be executed by the processor):
Claim 11 differs by the following limitation, which is also taught by the prior art, Lee teaches
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions (Lee ¶0171: memory unit) that, when executed (Lee ¶0171: executed) by a processor (Lee ¶0171: by a processor), cause the processor (Lee ¶0171: processor) to perform operations comprising (Lee ¶0171: functions or operations; Lee teaches memory that causes the processor to perform functions):
Regarding Claim 2, Claim 7, and Claim 12
Lee in view of Xu discloses the method, device, and storage medium comprising the method, device, and storage medium as explained above in Claim 1. Lee further discloses
canceling (Lee ¶0159: can cancel) the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) according to the first status (Lee ¶0159: ACK) in the process from the triggering (Lee ¶0159: cancel) of the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) to the generation (Lee ¶0159: pending/ongoing procedure) of the MAC PDU for carrying the pre-emptive BSR comprises (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR; Lee teaches canceling the pending BSR if the UE receives an ACK while the eNB procedure is ongoing): canceling (Lee ¶0159: cancel) the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) when data expected to be received (Lee ¶0159: receives) has been received (Lee ¶0159: receives the ACK) in the process from the triggering of the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: while the triggered SR is pending) to the generation of the MAC PDU for carrying the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR; Lee teaches canceling a pending BSR after an expected ACK is received).
Regarding Claim 3, Claim 8, and Claim 13
Lee in view of Xu discloses the method, device, and storage medium comprising the method, device, and storage medium as explained above in Claim 1. Lee further discloses
canceling the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0114: radio bearers are suspended) when data corresponding to a highest-priority (Lee ¶0114: higher priority) Logical Channel Group (LCG) (Lee ¶0114: LCG) in first data (Lee ¶0159: ACK) has been received in the process (Lee ¶0159: reporting procedure) from the triggering (Lee ¶0159: triggering) of the MAC PDU for carrying the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) to the generation of the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR), wherein the first data is data expected to be received (Lee ¶0159: ACK; Lee teaches a BSR procedure that includes a higher priority LCG in the ACK acknowledgement procedure).
Regarding Claim 5, Claim 10, and Claim 15
Lee in view of Xu discloses the method, device, and storage medium comprising the method, device, and storage medium as explained above in Claim 1. Lee further discloses
canceling (Lee ¶0159: cancel) the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) when the target BSR (Lee ¶0159: regular BSR and periodic BSR) has been triggered (Lee ¶0159: triggered) in the process from the triggering (Lee ¶0159: trigger) of the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) to the generation of the MAC PDU for carrying the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) and the MAC PDU (Lee ¶0119: MAC PDU) for carrying the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: periodic BSR) is unable to carry both the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0159: pending BSR) and the target BSR (Lee ¶0119: the MAC PDU may contain the Regular BSR and Periodic BSR; Lee teaches canceling the pending BSR in the case of multiple events trigger a pending BSR, and sending out a MAC PDU containing a Regular BSR and Periodic BSR).
Regarding Claim 16
Lee in view of Xu discloses the method, device, and storage medium comprising the method, device, and storage medium as explained above in Claim 1. Lee further discloses
wherein the pre-emptive BSR (Lee ¶0121: data for the pending BSR) is a BSR report triggered (Lee ¶0114: periodic BSR) based on a received BSR (Lee ¶0114: regular BSR; Lee teaches generating a periodic BSR based off of a timer, separately from a BSR for when the data is filled with UL data).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JUSTIN MICHAEL WHITAKER whose telephone number is (703)756-4763. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7:30am - 4:00pm.
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/JUSTIN MICHAEL WHITAKER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
/Sudesh M. Patidar/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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