DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
2. A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 10/24/2025 has been entered.
Status of Claims
3. Claims 1-13 and 16 are pending wherein claims 1 and 16 are in independent form.
4. Claims 1 and 16 have been amended.
5. Claims 14-15 and 17-34 have been cancelled.
Response to Arguments
6. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 and 16 have been considered but 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 specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
7. 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.
8. Claims 1-5, 7-13, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xu et al (US 20190387517, hereinafter referred to as Xu).
Re claim 1, Xu teaches a method performed by a wireless communication device for sending a buffer status reporting, BSR, report in a cellular communications system (Fig. 1-4, Abstract), the method comprising:
(i) selecting, based on one or more parameters (LTE/LTE-A terminal, amount of data buffered for the LCGs), one or more BSR tables (BSR table 102, extended BSR tables 104) to be used for a BSR report (sending index indicating the amount of data buffered) from among two or more available BSR tables (BSR table 102, extended BSR tables 104) (Fig. 1-3, Fig. 10-13, Par 0038-0043, Par 0045-0046, Par 0049-0056, Par 0063-0069, Par 0071-0078), wherein the one or more parameters comprise:
(a) one or more services associated with one or more logical channels, LCHs, or logical channel groups, LCGs, for which one or more respective buffer size values are to be reported in the BSR report;
(b) the one or more LCHs or LCGs for which one or more respective buffer size values are to be reported in the BSR report (selecting table based on the amount of data buffered for each of the reported LCGs) (Par 0066-0072, Par 0075);
(c) one or more numerologies used for the one or more LCHs or LCGs for which one or more respective buffer size values are to be reported in the BSR report;
(d) one or more bitrates used for the one or more LCHs or LCGs for which one or more respective buffer size values are to be reported in the BSR report;
(e) one or more buffer levels associated with the one or more LCHs or LCGs for which one or more respective buffer size values are to be reported in the BSR report;
(f) one or more physical layer priorities associated with the one or more LCHs or LCGs for which one or more respective buffer size values are to be reported in the BSR report;
(h) a channel condition for a radio channel between the wireless communication device and the base station;
(i) a system load of the cellular communications system;
(j) a measured BSR mismatch between an actual buffer size and a reported buffer size;
(k) one or more respective services;
(ii) generating the BSR report using the one or more BSR tables (determining the index indicating amount of buffered data) (Fig. 1-4, Par 0049-0050, Par 0078, Par 0091, Par 0099-0100, Par 0106-0109, Par 0121-0123); and
(iii) sending the BSR report to a base station (sending the index indicating amount of buffered data) (Fig. 1-4, Par 0078, Par 0099-0103, Par 0106-0109, Par 0121-0123, Par 0138-0140).
Claim 16 recites a wireless communication device performing the steps recited in claim 1 and thereby, is rejected for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1. Xu further teaches that the wireless communication device comprises one or more transmitters (transmitter); one or more receivers (receiver); and processing circuitry (controller) associated with the one or more transmitters and the one or more receivers (Fig. 1, Fig. 14, Abstract, Par 0145-0148, Claim 1).
Re claim 2, Xu teaches that the two or more available BSR tables (table 102, 104) comprise two or more BSR tables defined based on (A) a maximum uplink transport block size (maximum uplink data limit for table 102 is 150K, for extended tables 104 are 1200K, 1500K) (Fig. 10-13, Par 0041-0046), (B) a maximum number of Multiple Input Multiple Output, MIMO, layers, (C) a maximum number of component carriers, (D) a maximum carrier bandwidth of each component carrier that the wireless communication device (512) may support, (E) a longest Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request, HARQ, round-trip-time length, (F) a fraction of slots that are uplink slots in case of Time Division Duplexing,TDD, (G) a number of bits occupied by a buffer size field of the BSR report (bits (i.e., 6 bits) needed to indicate the index 0-63 (Fig. 10-13) in the BSR MAC CE (Fig. 6-9), Par 0041-0045) , or (H) any combination of two or more of (A)-(G).
Re claim 3, Xu teaches to select, based on the one or more parameters, two or more BSR tables from among the two or more available BSR tables (selecting table 102 and extended table 104) (Fig. 6-9, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077).
Re claim 4, Xu teaches that the two or more BSR tables are different BSR tables for two or more different logical channels, LCHs, or logical channel groups, LCGs, for which respective buffer size values are to be reported in the BSR report (different BSR tables are selected for different LCGs) (Fig. 6-9, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077).
Re claim 5, Xu teaches the two or more BSR tables are used to indicate buffer sizes for respective buffer size fields comprised in the BSR report (index from the selected BSR table indicates the amount of buffered data) Fig. 6-9, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077, Par 0099-0103, Par 0106-0109, Par 0121-0123, Par 0138-0140).
Re claim 7, Xu teaches that selecting the one or more BSR tables comprises selecting the one or more BSR tables to be used for the BSR report from among the two or more available BSR tables based on BSR table mappings, BSR table mappings comprising: (i) mappings between the two or more available BSR tables and two or more services; (ii) mappings between the two or more available BSR tables and two or more LCHs; (iii) mappings between the two or more available BSR tables and two or more LCGs (mapping LCGs to BSR table 102 and 104) (Fig. 6-9, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077); (iv) mappings between the two or more available BSR tables and two or more numerologies; (v) mappings between the two or more available BSR tables and two or more bitrates; (vi) mappings between the two or more available BSR tables and two or more buffer levels (mapping to BSR table 102 and 104 according to the amount of buffered data) (Fig. 6-9, Par 0054, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077); (vii) mappings between the two or more available BSR tables and two or more physical layer priorities (Mapping table 102 to LTE and table 104 to LTE-A) (Par 0052-0054); or (viii) a combination of any two or more of (i)-(vii).
Re claim 8, Xu teaches to obtain the BSR table mappings (terminal actively/passively obtaining the mappings/selection) (Fig. 1-3, Fig. 6-9, Par 0039-0046, Par 0049-0054, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077, Par 0081-0087).
Re claim 9, Xu teaches to obtain information (obtaining table 102, 104, obtaining table indication from the base station) that defines the two or more available BSR tables (Fig. 1-3, Fig. 6-9, Par 0039-0046, Par 0049-0054, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077, Par 0081-0087).
Re claim 10, Xu teaches that information that defines, for each available BSR table from among the two or more available BSR tables, a plurality of buffer size values in the available BSR table (each table includes a plurality of buffer size ranges) (Fig. 10-13, Par 0041-0046, Par 0048).
Re claim 11, Xu teaches that the information that defines the two or more available BSR tables comprises information that defines, for each of at least one of the two or more available BSR tables, information that indicates a granularity of the available BSR table (A range 0-150K is divided into 64 intervals in BSR table 102, Fig. 10, a range 150K – 1200K in extended table is divided into 64 intervals, Fig. 12; a range 150K – 1500K in extended table is divided into 64 intervals, Fig. 13) (Par 0041-0046).
Re claim 12, Xu teaches to select the one or more BSR tables from among a set of BSR tables (BSR table 102, extended tables 104) comprising the two or more available BSR tables (extended BSR tables 104) and a default BSR table (BSR table 102 is considered the default table as the extended tables are generated based on the BSR table 102) (Fig. 10-13, Par 0008, Par 0039-0046).
Re claim 13, Xu teaches to send, to the base station, one or more indications of the one or more BSR tables used for the BSR report, respectively (indicating selected table/table number to the base station) (Fig. 6-9, Par 0054, Par 0063-0069, Par 0072-0077).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
9. 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.
10. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu as applied to claim 5 above and further in view of Li et al (WO2019056828, hereinafter referred to as Li).
Re claim 6, Xu does not explicitly disclose that a size of one of the buffer size fields is different than a size of another one of the buffer size fields.
Li teaches that a size of one of the buffer size fields is different than a size of another one of the buffer size fields (5 bits buffer size field, Table 4, Par 0073-0074; 8 bits buffer size field, Table 1) (WO2019056828_Machine translation, Fig. 3a-b, Par 0053-0055, Par 0064-0074).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to modify xu by including the step that a size of one of the buffer size fields is different than a size of another one of the buffer size fields, as taught by Li for the purpose of accurately reporting buffer status to receive sufficient resource allocation, as taught by Li (Par 0007-0010).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARUN UR R CHOWDHURY whose telephone number is (571)270-3895. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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/HARUN CHOWDHURY/ Examiner, Art Unit 2473