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 action is in response to the communication filed on 3/31/2026.
The Claims 3 have been canceled by the applicant.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/31/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-6, 8 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. (U.S. Pub. 20220086698) in view of Chowdhury et al. (U.S. Pub. 20070036078), further in view of Hori et al. (U.S. Pub. 20200396789), further in view of Oyman et al. (U.S. Pub. 20190274186).
Regarding claim 1 Yao disclose, a method comprising:
performing by the UE access measurement for a first Quality of Service (QoS) flow para. 24, “generating the performance measurements related to QoS flow”;
determining by the UE that the first measurement for the first QoS flow can be reused para. 4, “determine performance measurements related to the QoS flow event; and modify at least one of the QoS flows in the wireless cellular network based on the performance measurements… a number of QoS flow events can be monitored, and performance measure can be triggered based on the QoS flow events. As described below, the QoS flow events can include: QoS flow creation requests, QoS flow successful creations, QoS flow failed creations, QoS flow modifications”, see para 27.
Yao does not specifically disclose deciding by the UE not to initiate a second measurement over a second QoS flow, based on the first measurement for the first QoS flow which can be reused. However, Chowdhury teach, “The PDSN analyzes the traffic flow template (TFT), the granted QoS, the requested QoS, and the flow mapping information, and decides, at 322, whether to downgrade the granted QoS for the particular IP flow”, see para. 34.
Yao and Chowdhury are analogous because they pertain to the field of wireless communication and, more specifically, to transmission measurements and parameters.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Chowdhury and Hori in the system of Yao so the system can significantly reduce radio resource consumption. The motivation for doing so would have been to save considerable processing power and prolonging the battery life by reducing its consumptions.
Yao and Chowdhury do not specifically disclose, receiving by a User Equipment (UE) Measurement Assistance Information (MAI) from a Session Management Function (SMF) However, Hori teach, “The receiver 1300 of the UE 122 receives an RRC reconfiguration message from the gNB 108 (step S400). The processing unit 1302 of the UE 122 performs configuration in accordance with information included in the RRC reconfiguration request (step S402)” see para. 150.
Hori further teach, wherein the MAI includes a Quality of Service (QoS) flow list for which at least one measurement is to be performed performing a first measurement over a first QoS flow included in the QoS flow list para. 151, Fig. 10, “after reconfiguring the SDAP entity and performing DRB configuration according to the information indicating the configuration of the DRB to be added or modified, the processing unit 1302 of the UE 122 notifies a higher layer of QoS flow identifiers or a list of QoS flow identifiers corresponding (mapping) to established DRB, and DRB establishment information (step S1004)”.
Yao, Chowdhury and Hori are analogous because they pertain to the field of wireless communication and, more specifically, to transmission measurements and parameters.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Chowdhury and Hori in the system of Yao so the system can modify and update the second flow parameters with the last set of measurements and reduce the unnecessary consumption of resources. The motivation for doing so would have been to take advantage of the measurements made on similar or same path of data traffic and apply it on other flows to update the quality of services.
Yao, Chowdhury and Hori do not specifically disclose, wherein the first measurement is related to estimating a packet loss rate (PLR). However, Oyman teach, para. 146, “the transmitting UE (UE B 1120 for flow 1170 and UE A 1110 for flow 1180) can estimate also the UE PLR and send this information to the receiving UE (UE A 1110 for flow 1170 and UE B 1120 for flow 1180) via the RTP header extension method”.
Yao, Chowdhury, Hori and Oyman are analogous because they pertain to the field of wireless communication and, more specifically, to transmission measurements and parameters.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Oyman, in the system of Yao, Chowdhury and Hori, to be able to consider the relevant parameter required for the quality of services of the transmission by estimating PLR values. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve the management of the quality of the services for the traffic being measured.
Regarding claim 2 Yao does not specifically disclose wherein it is determined that the first measurement for the first QoS flow can be reused based on a mapping between Access network (AN) resources and QoS flow. However, Chowdhury teach, “The PDSN analyzes the traffic flow template (TFT), the granted QoS, the requested QoS, and the flow mapping information, and decides, at 322, whether to downgrade the granted QoS for the particular IP flow”, see para. 34.
Yao and Chowdhury are analogous because they pertain to the field of wireless communication and, more specifically, to transmission measurements and parameters.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Chowdhury in the system of Yao to determine the relationship between different traffic to be able to apply similar parameters and criteria of their performance. The motivation for doing so would have been to take advantage of the measurements made on similar or same path of data traffic and apply it on other flows to update the quality of services of the data being transmitted.
Regarding claim 4 Yao disclose, wherein performing of the first measurement over the first QoS flow further comprises: transmitting a request message requesting to count a number of uplink (UL) packets para. 29, “Each QoS flow requested to create in the message triggers the relevant subcounter per S-NSSAI and the relevant subcounter per 5QI to increment by 1 respectively (the S-NSSAI is the S-NSSAI that the PDU session belongs to” received through the first QoS flow to a User Plane Function (UPF), para. 191, “The UPF 602 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, enforce the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection)”.
Regarding claim 5 Yao disclose, wherein the performing of the first measurement over the first QoS flow further comprises: transmitting a report request message requesting to report the number of the received UL packets to the UPF para. 191, “The UPF 602 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, enforce the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection) and perform traffic usage reporting”.
Regarding claim 6 Yao disclose, wherein the performing of the first measurement over the first QoS flow further comprises: receiving a report response message including information on the number of received UL packets from the UPF para. 191, “The UPF 602 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection… and perform traffic usage reporting. Although it is not specifically disclosed sending the message with the data. It would be obvious to an ordinary skill in the art to understand that the UPF 602 in charge of inspecting, counting and reporting the traffic of packet usage would report back the information being requested.
Regarding claim 8 Yao teaches, a User Equipment comprising: at least one processor read as: “Application circuitry 705 includes circuitry such as, but not limited to one or more processors (or processor cores)”; and at least one memory read as: “memory circuitry 720”; furthermore claim 8 recites an apparatus corresponding to the method of claim 1 and thus is rejected under the same reason set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Claim 20 recites a computer–program product corresponding to the method of claim 1 and thus is rejected under the same reason set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Claim(s) 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. (U.S. Pub. 20220086698) in view of Chowdhury et al. (U.S. Pub. 20070036078), further in view of Hori et al. (U.S. Pub. 20200396789), further in view of Oyman et al. (U.S. Pub. 20190274186), further in view of Saiga (U.S. Pub. 20220150283).
Regarding claim 7 Yao, Chowdhury, Hori and Oyman does not specifically disclose, wherein performing of the first measurement over the first QoS flow further comprises: calculating a Packet Loss Rate (PLR) based on the number of received UL packets received from the UPF and the number of UL packets transmitted by the UE. However, Saiga teaches, para. 60, “the problem-occurring call extracting unit 33 calculates a packet loss rate by dividing the packet loss count by the total value of the received RTP packet count and the packet loss count”.
Yao, Chowdhury, Hori, Oyman and Saiga are analogous because they pertain to the field of wireless communication and, more specifically, to transmission measurements and parameters.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Saiga in the system of Yao, Chowdhury, Hori and Oyman to be able to consider the relevant parameter required for the quality of services of the transmission. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve the management of the quality of the services for the traffic being measured.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Chincholi et al. (U.S. pub. 20220030525) which disclose(s) dynamic transmit power adjustment.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAUL RIVAS whose telephone number is (571)270–5590. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday, from 8:30am to 5:00pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy K. Kundu, can be reached on (571) 272 - 8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571–272–8300.
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/R.R/Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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