DETAILED ACTION
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 .
This Office Action is in response to the Applicants' response to restriction requirement received on 12/23/2025.
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-15 is acknowledged. Accordingly, claims 1-15 are currently presenting for examination and claims 23-31 are withdrawn.
Claim Status
Claims 1-15 are currently presenting for examination.
Claims 23-31 are withdrawn.
This action has been made NON-FINAL.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed 04/07/2023 fails to comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609 because of the following reasons:
The listings of Non-Patent Literature Documents 2, 3, 4, 5 in the IDS don’t clearly indicate the dates of the documents.
It has been placed in the application file, but part of the information referred to therein has not been considered as to the merits.
Applicant is advised that the date of any re-submission of any item of information contained in this information disclosure statement or the submission of any missing element(s) will be the date of submission for purposes of determining compliance with the requirements based on the time of filing the statement, including all certification requirements for statements under 37 CFR 1.97(e). See MPEP § 609.05(a).
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 3-7, 9-12, 14-15 are objected to because of the following reasons:
For claims 1, 3-5, 7, 9-12, 15, to improve clarity, Examiner recommends the usage of parentheses instead of commas when defining abbreviations such as MAC, QoS, sub-PDUs, PCell, SCell, HARQ, PUCCH, VPGs, UL, UCI, PUSCH, PRBs, CSI, REs, PDSCH... For example, to change “media access control, MAC,” to “media access control (MAC)” (claim 1).
For claims 3, 9, 12, the term “UE” is an abbreviation as thus the full words, phrases which describe what such abbreviation stands for should be included for at least the first occurrence of such abbreviation in a set of claims.
For claim 6, the term “VPG” is an abbreviation as thus the full words, phrases which describe what such abbreviation stands for should be included for at least the first occurrence of such abbreviation in a set of claims.
For claim 6, the term “HARQ-ACK” is an abbreviation as thus the full words, phrases which describe what such abbreviation stands for should be included for at least the first occurrence of such abbreviation in a set of claims.
For claim 6, the term “PUCCH” is an abbreviation as thus the full words, phrases which describe what such abbreviation stands for should be included for at least the first occurrence of such abbreviation in a set of claims.
For claim 7, the term “UCI” is an abbreviation as thus the full words, phrases which describe what such abbreviation stands for should be included for at least the first occurrence of such abbreviation in a set of claims.
For claim 14, the term “SCell” is an abbreviation as thus the full words, phrases which describe what such abbreviation stands for should be included for at least the first occurrence of such abbreviation in a set of claims.
For claim 15, from the claim language, Examiner assumes that it is the processing circuitry that perform the functional steps.
However, Examiner recommends Applicants to further clarify the claim language by changing the phrase “causes the first network node to” to “causes the processing circuitry to”.
Otherwise, if Applicants intends for some other hardware components of the first network node to perform the steps, then please amend the claims to include those hardware components and clearly indicate that those hardware components perform the steps.
If Applicants intends for any unknown hardware components of the first network node to perform the steps, then please clearly states so on record. However, Applicants are reminded that doing so will raise 112 issues since then the claim language would impose no limits as to a particular structure for performing the claimed invention; hence the claims may cover all devices for/ways for performing the claimed functions. As thus, there is a failure to provide a clear-cut indication of claim scope because the functional language is not sufficiently precise and definite, resulting in no boundaries on the claim limitation.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2, 11-12, 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yi, US 20200314816.
For claim 1. Yi teaches: A method performed by a first network node having one or more carriers in a network, the method comprising: (Yi, paragraph 287-288, UE (wireless device) and base station with multi connectivity (multiple carriers); base station is first network node)
defining a number of media access control, MAC, flows from the first network node that each forms a source end-point to a destination end-point, (Yi, paragraph 211, configure plurality of logical channels (flows) with one or more parameters to be used by a logical channel prioritization procedure at the MAC layer, MAC SDUs are logical channels; paragraph 210, PDCP, RLC and MAC sublayers and PHY layer are terminated in wireless device and gNB on a network side; wireless device and gNB are source end point and destination end point since the layers are terminated (ended) there)
wherein the first network node comprises the source end-point and each destination end point comprises a second network node having one or more destination carriers; (Yi, paragraph 210, PDCP, RLC and MAC sublayers and PHY layer are terminated in wireless device and gNB on a network side; wireless device and gNB are source end point and destination end point since the layers are terminated (ended) there; paragraph 287-288, UE (wireless device) is destination end point with multi connectivity (multiple destination carriers))
defining a MAC flow packet size that is scaled based on carrier bandwidth (Yi, paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprises of MAC SDU which is of variable size; paragraph 211, MAC PDU is transport block; paragraph 256-257, size of resource block group depends on size of a carrier bandwidth)
where each MAC flow packet has an approximately equivalent spectrum usage (Yi, paragraph 211, MAC PDU is transport block; paragraph 256-257, size (spectrum usage) of resource block group depends on size of a carrier bandwidth)
and an equivalent quality of service, QoS, on a destination carrier on the second network node; (Yi, paragraph 211, logical channel (MAC SDU) corresponds to radio bearer which is associated with QoS requirement; paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprises of MAC SDU)
and transmitting a MAC flow packet to the second network node, (Yi, paragraph 323, gNB transmits one or more MAC PDUs to wireless device)
wherein the MAC flow packet comprises a bundle of one or more MAC sub-protocol data units, sub-PDUs. (Yi, paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprise one or more MAC subPDUs)
For claim 2. Yi discloses all the limitations of claim 1 and Yi further teaches: wherein defining the MAC flow packet size comprises defining the Mac flow packet size as a percent of a channel bandwidth of the MAC flow. (Yi, paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprises of MAC SDU which is of variable size; paragraph 211, MAC PDU is transport block; paragraph 256-257, size of resource block group depends on size of a carrier bandwidth thus it’s implicit that the size of resource block group (and corresponding the size of MAC PDU) is a percent of size of a carrier bandwidth)
For claim 11. Yi discloses all the limitations of claim 1, and Yi further teaches: further comprising: responsive to receiving data in at least one MAC flow, using quality of service, QoS, differentiation defined for each MAC flow to provide prioritization of traffic among each of the at least one MAC flow and local user traffic. (Yi, paragraph 231, receives transport blocks (MAC PDUs) via wireless link; paragraph 211, perform logical channel prioritization according to QoS requirement)
For claim 12. Yi discloses all the limitations of claim 1, and Yi further teaches: wherein defining a number of MAC flows comprises defining a MAC flow for each quality of service, QoS level such that data from all UEs associated with the first network node of a defined QoS level are transported to a second network node having a destination SCell using a MAC flow corresponding to the defined QoS level. (Yi, paragraph 231, 323, MAC PDUs are communicated between base station and wireless device; paragraph 211, logical channel (MAC SDU) corresponds to radio bearer which is associated with QoS requirement and logical channel prioritization according to QoS requirement is performed; paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprises of MAC SDU; paragraph 221, the configured set of serving cells for the wireless device comprise one PCell and one or more SCells)
For claim 15. Yi teaches: A first network node comprising: processing circuitry; and memory coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the first network node to perform operations comprising: (Yi, fig 3, paragraph 213-214, base station comprise processor, memory storing program code instructions execute by processor to perform operations)
defining a number of media access control, MAC, flows from the first network node that each forms a source end-point to a destination end-point, (Yi, paragraph 211, configure plurality of logical channels (flows) with one or more parameters to be used by a logical channel prioritization procedure at the MAC layer, MAC SDUs are logical channels; paragraph 210, PDCP, RLC and MAC sublayers and PHY layer are terminated in wireless device and gNB on a network side; wireless device and gNB are source end point and destination end point since the layers are terminated (ended) there)
wherein the first network node comprises the source end-point and each destination end point comprises a second network node having one or more destination carriers; (Yi, paragraph 210, PDCP, RLC and MAC sublayers and PHY layer are terminated in wireless device and gNB on a network side; wireless device and gNB are source end point and destination end point since the layers are terminated (ended) there; paragraph 287-288, UE (wireless device) is destination end point with multi connectivity (multiple destination carriers))
defining a MAC flow packet size that is scaled based on carrier bandwidth (Yi, paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprises of MAC SDU which is of variable size; paragraph 211, MAC PDU is transport block; paragraph 256-257, size of resource block group depends on size of a carrier bandwidth)
where each MAC flow packet has an approximately equivalent spectrum usage (Yi, paragraph 211, MAC PDU is transport block; paragraph 256-257, size (spectrum usage) of resource block group depends on size of a carrier bandwidth)
and an equivalent quality of service, QoS, on a destination carrier on the second network node; (Yi, paragraph 211, logical channel (MAC SDU) corresponds to radio bearer which is associated with QoS requirement; paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprises of MAC SDU)
and transmitting a MAC flow packet to the second network node, (Yi, paragraph 323, gNB transmits one or more MAC PDUs to wireless device)
wherein the MAC flow packet comprises a bundle of one or more MAC sub-protocol data units, sub-PDUs. (Yi, paragraph 328, MAC PDU comprise one or more MAC subPDUs)
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi, US 20200314816 in view of Dravida, US 20070230493.
For claim 13. Yi discloses all the limitations of claim 1, however Yi doesn’t teach: further comprising performing congestion control on each MAC flow independent of other MAC flows.
Dravida from the same or similar fields of endeavor teaches: further comprising performing congestion control on each MAC flow independent of other MAC flows. (Dravida, paragraph 155-158, per MAC flow congestion control by having the parameters max buffer occupancy and max packets per flow tailored for each individual flow; for example, a high QoS flow may have a higher max buffer occupancy setting, thus admission is more likely; in other words, max buffer occupancy may be specified per flow, which allows for differing notions of what congestion means based on the flow type.”)
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Dravida into Yi, since Yi suggests a technique for communicating packet flows, and Dravida suggests the beneficial way of including into such technique per flow congestion control so that under high load, a single flow may be prevented from dominating the resources, while allowing higher priority flows greater access and under lighter load, less restrictive decisions may allow low priority flows to utilize resources, since they are not being consumed at the time (Dravida, paragraph 160-161) in the analogous art of communication.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-10, 14 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KHOA B HUYNH whose telephone number is (571)270-7185. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 1:00 PM - 9:35 PM.
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/KHOA HUYNH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462