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 .
DETAILED OFFICE ACTION
This action is responsive to the communication received February 14th, 2023. Claims 18-19 have been canceled. Claims 1-17 and 20-22 have been entered and are presented for examination.
Application 18/021,236 is a 371 of PCT/CN2021/112326 (08/12/2021) and claims benefit of Chinese Patent Application 202010820994.7 (08/14/2020).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed November 24th, 2025, have been fully considered, but deemed moot in view of the new grounds of rejection which has been necessitated by Applicant’s amendments.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-6, 9-11, 13-17, 20-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo et al. (US 2017/0012731) in view of Umesh et al. (US 2015/0117455).
Regarding claims 1, 13, 20-22, Luo et al. discloses a data sending method, performed by a sending device in a passive optical network (PON) (see Abstract [A method of fragmented packet transmission in a multiple-channel passive optical network (PON)]), comprising: generating to-be-transmitted data into a data frame according to a bandwidth on each channel (paragraphs 0029, 0033 [The fragments of a packet can be transmitted over one or more of the multiple channels, substantially in parallel; the channels may have an enforced maximum amount of payload that can be accommodated (the Payload Length)]); dividing the data frame into at least two data units (paragraph 0030 [fragmenting, by a GEM/XGEM engine of a network element, data into a plurality of packet fragments]); and sending the at least two data units one by one through at least two channels according to a bandwidth on each of the at least two channels and a predetermined principle (paragraph 0033 [all the channels may not be ready to send at the same time. In general, each channel will become available at a certain time; the channels may have an enforced maximum amount of payload that can be accommodated (the Payload Length)]) and wherein sending the at least two data units one by one through the at least two channels according to the bandwidth on each of the at least two channels and the predetermined principle comprises: allocating the at least two data units to the at least two channels sequentially according to the bandwidth on each of the at least two channels and the predetermined principle (paragraph 0050 [The illustrated sequence of packet completion in this example is: 2, 3, 4, 1, 5, 8, 6, 7, and 9. Thus, to enforce the packet ordering, packets 2, 3, and 4 wait until packet 1 is completed, and packet 8 waits until packets 6 and 7 are completed]), and sending the at least two data units one by one until the sending of the data frame is completed (Abstract and paragraphs 0034-0035[the plurality of packet fragments into frames; scheduling, by a bonding block of the network element, transmission of the frames on a plurality of channels; if the current fragment is marked as the last fragment, then the receiver knows that the next fragment will belong to another packet; ten packets (Pkt 1 through Pkt 10) are carried in a total of thirteen fragments]).
Luo et al. does not explicitly disclose wherein generating the to-be-transmitted data into the data frame according to the bandwidth on the each channel comprises: encapsulating the to-be-transmitted data into the data frame in a single channel manner according to the bandwidth on the each channel without additional frame header processing being performed on the each channel.
However, Umesh et al. discloses wherein generating the to-be-transmitted data into the data frame according to the bandwidth on the each channel comprises: encapsulating the to-be-transmitted data into the data frame in a single channel manner according to the bandwidth on the each channel without additional frame header processing being performed on the each channel (paragraph 0015 [ When a switch device receives multiple packets (e.g., a burst), the switch device may provide packet processing on the first packet to determine what type of packet action should be performed on the first packet (e.g., forward, edit) and perform the packet action on the first packet. The same packet action may be performed on subsequent packets in the packet stream or burst that have the same PPP identification information as the first packet without performing packet processing on the subsequent packets.]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to recognize the initial packet would need to be processed and subsequent packets can be forwarded without performing packet processing which speeds up the transmission process.
Regarding claims 2, 14, Luo et al. discloses wherein sending the at least two data units one by one through the at least two channels according to the predetermined principle comprises: sending each data unit of the at least two data units through a channel having an earliest sending time of the at least two channels (paragraph 0033 [each channel will become available at a certain time Tstart[i]. These can be sorted in ascending order, so that Tstart[0]<Tstart[1]< . . . <Tstart[n]]); and in a case where at least two channels having the earliest sending time exist, selecting one channel from the at least two channels having the earliest sending time according to a minimum channel serial number or a maximum channel serial number (paragraph 0049 [At time 8, Channels 1 and 4 are available at exactly the same time. To break this degeneracy, one of the channels can be intentionally occupied with an idle XGEM header, the channels can be numbered sequentially, and in cases of degeneracy, the lower numbered channel can be selected first by rule.]), and sending the each data unit through the one channel (see Figure 5 [data sent through channels based on available time]).
Regarding claim 4, Luo et al. further discloses wherein the data frame comprises: a transmission convergence (TC) data frame, or a dynamic bandwidth report upstream (DBRu) and a gigabit encapsulation method (GEM) frame sequence, or a GEM frame sequence (paragraph 0023 [The PON layer 200 may employ G-PON encapsulation method (GEM) and XG-PON encapsulation method (XGEM) for data fragmentation, encapsulation, and delineation. ]).
Regarding claim 5, Lou et al. further discloses in a case of a downstream direction, determining downstream bandwidth allocation of the each channel according to pre-sending information or pre-filling information of a data unit of the at least two data units in the each channel (see Figure 5 and paragraphs 0024, 0049 [Each GEM/XGEM frame may contain a fixed size header and a variable size payload.; Channel 1 and channel 2 can send out different amounts of data]).
Regarding claim 6, Luo et al. further discloses in the case of the downstream direction, allocating a downstream bandwidth on the each channel to a receiving device (paragraph 0008 [On the receiving end of the multiple-channel transmissions, a method of fragmented packet reception in a multiple-channel PON can comprise receiving, at a receiver, a plurality of encapsulated packet fragments over a plurality of channels, wherein each fragment of the plurality of packet fragments comprises a header; assembling the plurality of packet fragments according to an arrival time of respective headers of the plurality of packet fragments; and buffering, by a processor, the plurality of packet fragments in a sequence based on the arrival times of the headers]).
Regarding claim 9, Luo et al. further discloses determining a common bandwidth allocation reference point on the each channel (paragraph 0033 [The time alignment can be done by delaying each of the channels until the downstream physical layer synchronization blocks (PSBd)]).
Regarding claim 10, Luo et al. further discloses wherein determining the common bandwidth allocation reference point on the each channel comprises: synchronously sending a physical synchronization block downstream on the each channel, and using the physical synchronization block downstream as a common downstream bandwidth allocation reference point on the each channel (paragraph 0033 [The time alignment can be done by delaying each of the channels until the downstream physical layer synchronization blocks (PSBd)]).
Regarding claim 11, Luo et al. further discloses wherein determining the common bandwidth allocation reference point on the each channel comprises: adding a time delay based on receiving a physical synchronization block downstream as a common upstream bandwidth allocation reference point on the each channel (paragraph 0033 [The time alignment can be done by delaying each of the channels until the downstream physical layer synchronization blocks (PSBd)]).
Regarding claim 15, Luo et al. further discloses before forming the data units into the data frame according to the receiving order, further comprising: in a case of an upstream direction, for each channel of the at least two channels, determining a relative position relationship of a start position of the each channel according to upstream bandwidth allocation of the each channel (paragraph 0033 [ The time alignment can be done by delaying each of the channels until the downstream physical layer synchronization blocks (PSBd) or its corresponding time in the upstream (PSBu) are the same.]).
Regarding claim 16, Luo et al. further discloses before forming the data units into the data frame according to the receiving order, further comprising: in a case of a downstream direction, for each channel of the at least two channels, determining a start position of each physical layer subframe by parsing a corresponding physical synchronization block downstream , and determining a relative position relationship of a start position of the each channel according to downstream bandwidth allocation of the each channel channel (paragraph 0033 [ The time alignment can be done by delaying each of the channels until the downstream physical layer synchronization blocks (PSBd) or its corresponding time in the upstream (PSBu) are the same.]).
Regarding claim 17, Luo et al. further discloses wherein in the case of the upstream direction, the data frame formed by the data units is a transmission convergence (TC) data frame, or a dynamic bandwidth report upstream (DBRu) and a gigabit encapsulation method (GEM) frame sequence, or a GEM frame sequence (paragraph 0023 [The PON layer 200 may employ G-PON encapsulation method (GEM) and XG-PON encapsulation method (XGEM) for data fragmentation, encapsulation, and delineation. ]); in the case of the downstream direction, the data frame formed by the data units is a GEM frame sequence (paragraph 0023 [The PON layer 200 may employ G-PON encapsulation method (GEM) and XG-PON encapsulation method (XGEM) for data fragmentation, encapsulation, and delineation. ]).
Claim(s) 3, 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo et al. (US 2017/0012731) in view of Umesh et al. (US 2015/0117455) as applied to claims 1,5 above, and further in view of Wang et al. (US 2023/0116565).
Regarding claim 3, Luo et al. further discloses in a case of an upstream direction, determining upstream bandwidth allocation of the each channel according to bandwidth allocation information (paragraph 0033 [In the upstream direction, these are explicitly given in the bandwidth maps of the associated channels]), but does not disclose the bandwidth allocation is carried in a downstream frame.
However, Wang et al. discloses the bandwidth allocation is carried in a downstream frame (paragraph 0076 [the network device transmits the plurality pieces of initial BWP configuration information include configuration information of multiple uplink initial BWPs and configuration information of multiple downlink initial BWPs. Each initial BWP in the plurality of uplink initial BWPs and the plurality of downlink initial BWPs is associated with one terminal type and/or terminal capability.]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to recognize the bandwidth maps could have come from an upstream device. The motivation for this is to configure the OLT using a management device.
Regarding claim 7, Lou et al. discloses all the recited subject matter in claim 5, but does not explicitly disclose in the case of the downstream direction, sending the downstream bandwidth allocation to a receiving device.
However, Wang et al. suggests in the case of the downstream direction, sending the downstream bandwidth allocation to a receiving device (paragraph 0076 [the network device transmits the plurality pieces of initial BWP configuration information include configuration information of multiple uplink initial BWPs and configuration information of multiple downlink initial BWPs. Each initial BWP in the plurality of uplink initial BWPs and the plurality of downlink initial BWPs is associated with one terminal type and/or terminal capability.]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to recognize the bandwidth maps could have come from an upstream device. The motivation for this is to configure the OLT using a management device.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo et al. (US 2017/0012731) in view of Umesh et al. (US 2015/0117455) in view of Wang et al. (US 2023/0116565) as applied to claim 3 above, and further in view of Branlund et al. (US 9,673,855)
Regarding claim 8, the references as combined disclose all the recited subject matter in claim 3, but do not explicitly disclose indicating a size of a bandwidth of a transmission container through the bandwidth allocation information in the downstream frame.
However, Branlund et al. discloses indicating a size of a bandwidth of a transmission container through the bandwidth allocation information in the downstream frame (see Claim 1 [a bandwidth allocation message (BAM) and wherein the BAM comprises at least one of: the expected packet size of the at least one data signal]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to recognize the bandwidth allocation message could include a packet size for the transmission. The motivation for this is to inform the device of the packet size to use for the transmissions across the multiple channels.
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luo et al. (US 2017/0012731) in view of Umesh et al. (US 2015/0117455) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Anschutz et al. (US 2005/0015493)
Regarding claim 12, Luo et al. discloses all the recited subject in claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose transmitting downstream bandwidth allocation or upstream bandwidth allocation in each of the downstream frame; or transmitting downstream bandwidth allocation or upstream bandwidth allocation in a case where bandwidth allocation is updated.
However, Anschutz et al. discloses transmitting downstream bandwidth allocation or upstream bandwidth allocation in each of the downstream frame; or transmitting downstream bandwidth allocation or upstream bandwidth allocation in a case where bandwidth allocation is updated (paragraph 0008 [a modify QoS and/or bandwidth allocation message including updated QoS and/or bandwidth information]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to recognize an update of the bandwidth could be performed with an updated bandwidth allocation message to inform the device of the updated parameters.
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 CHRISTOPHER T WYLLIE whose telephone number is (571)270-3937. The examiner can normally be reached 4pm-11:30pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ayman Abaza can be reached at (571)270-0422. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHRISTOPHER T WYLLIE/Examiner, Art Unit 2465