DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The instant Office Action is in response to Applicant’s arguments filed on 1/9/2026.
Claims 43, 47-58 and 60-64 are pending. Claims 43, 52 and 58 are the base independent claims.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 1/9/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments/Amendments
Regarding claim 43, Applicant files arguments in the Remark.
--In response, new grounds of rejection are made based on DING in view of Mukherjee for the amended claim limitations. The rest of the arguments have been fully considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the new reference being used in the current 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, 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.
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.
Claims 43, 47, 50-54, 57-58, 60 and 62-64 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DING et al (US 2023/0308853, supported by provisional application 63/056406) in view of Mukherjee et al (US 2020/0154459), and further in view of Laitila et al (US 2021/0136620).
Regarding claim 43, DING discloses a base station (BS) (par 235; base station; also fig. 1, RAN, fig. 2, xNB) comprising: at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions stored therein (par 283; e.g. CRM); at least one receiver; at least one transmitter (par 283; communication resources); and at least one processor coupled to the at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium, the at least one receiver and the at least one transmitter (par 283; processor); wherein the computer executable instructions cause the at least one processor to:
transmit information of task associated with a user equipment (UE) (fig. 13 & par 226; e.g. the Comp CF can select a Comp SF to handle the UE’s compute task… and send information such as task ID, status etc. to the selected Comp SF), wherein the information of the task includes an indicator indicating whether any task is in progress for the UE (par 161; e.g. compute context information is related to compute task status, e.g., granted, ready, in progress, done); and in response to the indicator indicating that at least one task is in progress (par 174, 185; e.g. exchange information about compute task, e.g., status or report compute task related information like status, errors), receive at least one configuration of task result feedback (TRF) associated with the UE from at least one candidate BS (par 226-228; e.g. Comp CF sends a response for compute service about whether to accept the compute task and its related information about the task).
The reference does not disclose:
wherein each configuration indicates how to provide result feedback on at least one task to the UE via a corresponding candidate BS of the at least one candidate BS.
However, Mukherjee discloses:
receive at least one configuration of task result feedback (TRF) associated with the UE from at least one candidate BS (par 39; UE 102 may determine the amount of resources that target MEC platform 106 is to share based on a configuration indicating a predetermined amount of resources that are to be shared. Also see fig. 1E & par 54-61; e.g. a new set of RU values may be provided to target base station 104; also par 94; may include receiving a set of resource utilization (RU) values indicating an amount of available resources of a group of server devices that are maydidates for being used as a target server device for sharing resources to support a session of an application), wherein each configuration indicates how to provide result feedback on at least one task to the UE via a corresponding candidate BS of the at least one candidate BS (par 56; e.g. target base station 104 may be able to request RU values from MEC platforms 106 that are linked to or a communication range of target base station 104 (e.g., MEC Platform B, MEC Platform C). This may cause the MEC platforms 106 that are linked to or in the communication range of target base station 104 to report the RU values; also see par 49, UE 102 and/or target MEC platform 106 may be configured with an amount of resources to dedicate to the session or with a rule that may be used to determine the amount of resources to dedicate to the session).
In view of the above, 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 teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Mukherjee with the electronic system of DING. One is motivated as such to select new target base station using analysis/feedback of the performance (Mukherjee, par 61).
Regarding claim 47, DING discloses:
wherein in response to at least one task being in progress as indicated by the indicator (par 174, 185; e.g. exchange information about compute task, e.g., status or report compute task related information like status, errors), the information of task further includes an information unit, wherein the information unit includes at least one task unit (fig. 13 & par 226; e.g. the Comp CF can select a Comp SF to handle the UE’s compute task… and send information such as task ID, status etc. to the selected Comp SF).
Regarding claim 50, the combination does not explicitly disclose the subject matter, however Laitila discloses:
wherein the information of task is included in a handover (HO) request message (par 54; e.g. message comprising the requested QoS profile and the one or more alternative QoS profiles is comprised in a handover (HO) request message) and each configuration of the at least one configuration of TRF is received in a HO request acknowledge from the corresponding candidate BS (par 54; e.g. the indication for configuring the UE 120 based on the requested QoS profile (e.g., the second message) is comprised in a handover acceptance message such as Handover Request Acknowledge message).
In view of the above, 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 teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Laitila with the electronic system of DING and Mukherjee. One is motivated as such to reduce signaling and faster QoS recovery (Laitila, par 41).
Regarding claim 51, the combination does not explicitly disclose the subject matter, however Laitila discloses:
wherein the computer executable instructions cause the at least one processor to: determine a target BS from the at least one candidate BS based on the at least one configuration of TRF (par 59; e.g. the source gNB 110 decides, based on the handover request acknowledge messages 402A, 402B from the candidate target NG-RAN nodes 112, 114, to which of the candidate target NG-RAN nodes 112, 114 the handover is to be performed); and transmit a radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration message to the UE to indicate to the UE to perform a handover procedure with the target BS (par 57; e.g. the target NG-RAN node 112, 114 may also generate and transmit an RRC reconfiguration information towards the UE 120).
In view of the above, 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 teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Laitila with the electronic system of DING and Mukherjee. One is motivated as such to reduce signaling and faster QoS recovery (Laitila, par 41).
Regarding claim 52, DING discloses a base station (BS) (par 235; base station; also fig. 1, RAN, fig. 2, xNB) comprising: at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions stored therein (par 283; e.g. CRM); at least one receiver; at least one transmitter (par 283; communication resources); and at least one processor coupled to the at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium, the at least one receiver and the at least one transmitter (par 283; processor); wherein the computer executable instructions cause the at least one processor to:
receive information of task associated with a user equipment (UE) (fig. 13 & par 226; e.g. the Comp CF can select a Comp SF to handle the UE’s compute task… and send information such as task ID, status etc. to the selected Comp SF), wherein the information of the task includes an indicator indicating whether any task is in progress for the UE (par 161; e.g. compute context information is related to compute task status, e.g., granted, ready, in progress, done); and in response to the indicator indicating that at least one task is in progress (par 174, 185; e.g. exchange information about compute task, e.g., status or report compute task related information like status, errors), transmit a request message (par 244; e.g. the request for RAN Comp service is sent to the selected or default Comp CF to decide whether to accept a compute task based on the rules and policies in the Comp CF and information about RAN comp client status) for configuration of task result feedback (TRF) associated with the UE, wherein the request message includes the information of task; receive at least one candidate configuration of TRF associated with the UE (par 226-228; e.g. Comp CF sends a response for compute service about whether to accept the compute task and its related information about the task).
The reference does not disclose:
wherein each configuration indicates how to provide result feedback on at least one task to the UE via a corresponding candidate BS of the at least one candidate BS.
However, Mukherjee discloses:
receive at least one candidate configuration of TRF associated with the UE (par 39; UE 102 may determine the amount of resources that target MEC platform 106 is to share based on a configuration indicating a predetermined amount of resources that are to be shared. Also see fig. 1E & par 54-61; e.g. a new set of RU values may be provided to target base station 104; also par 94; may include receiving a set of resource utilization (RU) values indicating an amount of available resources of a group of server devices that are maydidates for being used as a target server device for sharing resources to support a session of an application), wherein each configuration indicates how to provide result feedback on at least one task to the UE via a corresponding candidate BS of the at least one candidate BS (par 56; e.g. target base station 104 may be able to request RU values from MEC platforms 106 that are linked to or a communication range of target base station 104 (e.g., MEC Platform B, MEC Platform C). This may cause the MEC platforms 106 that are linked to or in the communication range of target base station 104 to report the RU values; also see par 49, UE 102 and/or target MEC platform 106 may be configured with an amount of resources to dedicate to the session or with a rule that may be used to determine the amount of resources to dedicate to the session).
In view of the above, 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 teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Mukherjee with the electronic system of DING. One is motivated as such to select new target base station using analysis/feedback of the performance (Mukherjee, par 61).
Regarding claim 53, Mukherjee discloses:
wherein each configuration of the at least one candidate configuration of TRF includes at least one TRF unit, wherein each TRF unit of the at least one TRF unit includes a server unit, and wherein the server unit includes at least one of an ID of a server (par 50; e.g. UE 102 and/or target MEC platform 106 may provide traffic flow of the session to MEC application server 110. In this case, target base station 104 may identify the traffic as part of the MEC application based on the traffic flow including the session identifier, the identifier of target MEC platform) and routing information between the server and the candidate BS (par 75; e.g. MEC platform 215 may be assigned a dedicated access point name (APN) to enable appropriate traffic routing to and/or from UE 205 and/or a destination device).
Regarding claim 54, Mukherjee discloses:
wherein each TRF unit includes time when result feedback of task will be transmitted back from a server (par 60; the group of base stations may be configured to report RU values at set intervals or time periods) and a configuration for transmitting the result feedback along a routing path between the server and the candidate BS (par 75; e.g. MEC platform 215 may be assigned a dedicated access point name (APN) to enable appropriate traffic routing to and/or from UE 205 and/or a destination device).
Regarding claim 57, the combination does not explicitly disclose the subject matter, however Laitila discloses:
wherein: the information of task is included in a handover (HO) request message (par 54; e.g. message comprising the requested QoS profile and the one or more alternative QoS profiles is comprised in a handover (HO) request message); and the computer executable instructions cause the at least one processor to: receive at least one candidate configuration of TRF associated with the UE (par 46; e.g. the gNB 112 may transmit, to the gNB 110, an indication for configuring the relevant UE 120 based on the requested QoS profile); perform admission control based on the at least one candidate configuration of TRF to select a configuration of TRF from the at least one candidate configuration of TRF which can fulfill a handover requirement (par 56-58; each target NG-RAN node 112, 114 performs admission control for the QoS flow X. If the target NG-RAN node determines that it can serve for the QoS flow X based on one of the received alternative GBR values and may be able to serve the requested GBR in the future); and transmit the selected configuration of TRF in a HO request acknowledge (par 54; e.g. the indication for configuring the UE 120 based on the requested QoS profile (e.g., the second message) is comprised in a handover acceptance message such as Handover Request Acknowledge message).
In view of the above, 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 teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Laitila with the electronic system of DING and Mukherjee. One is motivated as such to reduce signaling and faster QoS recovery (Laitila, par 41).
Regarding claim 58, DING discloses a base station (BS) (par 235; base station; also fig. 1, RAN, fig. 2, xNB) comprising: at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions stored therein (par 283; e.g. CRM); at least one receiver; at least one transmitter (par 283; communication resources); and at least one processor coupled to the at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium, the at least one receiver and the at least one transmitter (par 283; processor); wherein the computer executable instructions cause the at least one processor to:
receiving a request message for configuration of task result feedback (TRF) associated with a user equipment (UE) (par 244; e.g. the request for RAN Comp service is sent to the selected or default Comp CF to decide whether to accept a compute task based on the rules and policies in the Comp CF and information about RAN comp client status), wherein the request message includes the request message includes information of task associated with the UE (fig. 13 & par 226; e.g. the Comp CF can select a Comp SF to handle the UE’s compute task… and send information such as task ID, status etc. to the selected Comp SF), wherein the information of the task includes an indicator indicating whether any task is in progress for the UE (par 161; e.g. compute context information is related to compute task status, e.g., granted, ready, in progress, done); and in response to the indicator indicating that at least one task is in progress (par 174, 185; e.g. exchange information about compute task, e.g., status or report compute task related information like status, errors), determine at least one candidate configuration of TRF based on the information of task (par 222-223; e.g. a Comp CF can be selected based on the compute task related information based on the request message for RAN Comp service if there are more than one Comp CF. The Comp CF selection can be based on different network slice, compute service class, and workload of different Comp CF, etc.); and transmit the at least one candidate configuration of the TRF (par 226-228; e.g. Comp CF sends a response for compute service about whether to accept the compute task and its related information about the task).
The reference does not disclose:
wherein each configuration indicates how to provide result feedback on at least one task to the UE via a candidate base station (BS).
However, Mukherjee discloses:
transmit the at least one candidate configuration of TRF associated with the UE (par 39; UE 102 may determine the amount of resources that target MEC platform 106 is to share based on a configuration indicating a predetermined amount of resources that are to be shared. Also see fig. 1E & par 54-61; e.g. a new set of RU values may be provided to target base station 104; also par 94; may include receiving a set of resource utilization (RU) values indicating an amount of available resources of a group of server devices that are maydidates for being used as a target server device for sharing resources to support a session of an application), wherein each configuration indicates how to provide result feedback on at least one task to the UE via a corresponding candidate BS (par 56; e.g. target base station 104 may be able to request RU values from MEC platforms 106 that are linked to or a communication range of target base station 104 (e.g., MEC Platform B, MEC Platform C). This may cause the MEC platforms 106 that are linked to or in the communication range of target base station 104 to report the RU values; also see par 49, UE 102 and/or target MEC platform 106 may be configured with an amount of resources to dedicate to the session or with a rule that may be used to determine the amount of resources to dedicate to the session).
In view of the above, 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 teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Mukherjee with the electronic system of DING. One is motivated as such to select new target base station using analysis/feedback of the performance (Mukherjee, par 61).
Regarding claim 60, Mukherjee discloses:
wherein in response to at least one task being in progress as indicated by the indicator (par 98; e.g. the wireless communication device (e.g., the UE, the base station, etc.) may receive a set of RU values while the session is already active), the information of task further includes an information unit, wherein the information unit includes at least one task unit, wherein each task unit of the at least one task unit includes a server unit, wherein the server unit includes at least an identity (ID) of a server (par 50; e.g. UE 102 and/or target MEC platform 106 may provide traffic flow of the session to MEC application server 110. In this case, target base station 104 may identify the traffic as part of the MEC application based on the traffic flow including the session identifier, the identifier of target MEC platform).
Regarding claim 62, Mukherjee discloses:
wherein each of the at least one candidate configuration of TRF includes at least one TRF unit, wherein each TRF unit of the at least one TRF unit includes a server unit, wherein the server unit includes at least one of an ID of a server (par 50; e.g. UE 102 and/or target MEC platform 106 may provide traffic flow of the session to MEC application server 110. In this case, target base station 104 may identify the traffic as part of the MEC application based on the traffic flow including the session identifier, the identifier of target MEC platform) and routing information between the server and the candidate BS (par 75; e.g. MEC platform 215 may be assigned a dedicated access point name (APN) to enable appropriate traffic routing to and/or from UE 205 and/or a destination device).
Regarding claim 63, Mukherjee discloses:
wherein each of the at least one TRF unit includes time when result feedback of task will be transmitted back from a server (par 60; the group of base stations may be configured to report RU values at set intervals or time periods) and a configuration for transmitting the result feedback along a routing path between the server and the candidate BS (par 75; e.g. MEC platform 215 may be assigned a dedicated access point name (APN) to enable appropriate traffic routing to and/or from UE 205 and/or a destination device).
Regarding claim 64, the combination does not explicitly disclose the subject matter, however Laitila discloses:
wherein the computer executable instructions cause the at least one processor to: receive a path switch request message (par 61; e.g. the target NG-RAN node 112 may indicate in a message, such as a path switch request message), wherein the path switch request message includes a selected configuration of TRF of the at least one candidate configuration of TRF (par 60; The RRC reconfiguration message may also indicate that the gNB 112 is the one to which the handover is to be made); and perform a path switch based on the selected configuration of TRF (par 62-63; After the handover, the target NG-RAN node 112 may have "QoS notification control" feature enabled).
In view of the above, 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 teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Laitila with the electronic system of DING and Mukherjee. One is motivated as such to reduce signaling and faster QoS recovery (Laitila, par 41).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 48-49, 55-56 and 61 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 YAOTANG WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-4023. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-18:00 ET (M, W, TH & alternate F).
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/YAOTANG WANG/SCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
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