DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the pending claims, 1-20, received 23 June 2025. Accordingly, the detailed action of claims 1-20 is as follows:
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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 11 July 2025 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 07/11/2025, 02/10/2025, 11/05/2025, 12/24/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1-6, 8-13, 15-19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kundu et al (US 20210390004 A1, hereafter referred to as Kundu) in view of Prakash et al (US 20230087665 A1, hereafter referred to as Prakash) in view of Bernath (US 20170180272 A1, hereafter referred to as Bernath).
Regarding claim 1, Kundu teaches one or more processors comprising: one or more circuits to perform an application programming interface (API) (Kundu [0220, 0476] teaches an API that provides software functionalities to perform operations on 5G new radio operations on hardware accelerators, wherein the hardware accelerators include GPUs [0092, 0148) to cause one or more graphics processing units (GPUs) to perform functions on one or more fifth generation new radio (5G-NR) data packets (Kundu [0100, 0101, 0095 and 0151]).
However, Kundu does not explicitly teach operations including generate one or more 5G-NR data packets; and write the one or more 5G-NR data packets to memory of a network interface controller (NIC) (Kundu [0201] teaches the hardware accelerator, performing a plurality of 5G new radio operations on data and providing a result to a network interface for transmission [0201, 0198 and 0095], however, Kundu is silent regarding the specifics thereof).
Prakash, in an analogous art, teaches operations including generate one or more 5G-NR data packets (Prakash [0083,0074, 0098] discloses generating packet header information).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Kundu in view of Prakash in order to configure the operations on the one or more 5G-NR packets, as taught by Kundu, to include generating one or more 5G-NR data packets as taught by Prakash.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to offload the task of packet generation to an accelerator increasing the performance of the O-DU (Prakash 0064]).
However, Kundu-Prakash does not explicitly teach and write the one or more 5G-NR data packets to memory of a network interface controller (NIC) (Kundu [0201] teaches the hardware accelerator, performing a plurality of 5G new radio operations on data and providing a result to a network interface for transmission [0201, 0198 and 0095], however, Kundu is silent regarding the specifics thereof).
Bernath, in an analogous art, teaches write the one or more 5G-NR data packets to memory of a network interface controller (NIC) (Bernath [0037, 0084] teaches the GPU delivering data directly to the NIC using DMA, bypassing a CPU [0037])
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Kundu-Prakash in view of Bernath in order to configure the one or more 5G-NR packets provided to a network interface by the GPU, for transmission, as taught by Kundu-Prakash, include writing the packets to memory of the NIC, as taught by Bernath.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to perform direct access to reduce latency involved with invoking a kernel (Bernath [0076]).
Regarding claim 2, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the one or more processors wherein to generate one or more 5G-NR data packets include to generate header information of one or more 5G-NR data packets (Prakash [0098, 0074] discloses an accelerator generating headers for messages that are not passthrough messages).
Regarding claim 3, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the one or more processors wherein the one or more GPUs are comprised in a distributed unit that is to operate in an inline acceleration mode (Kundu [0073, 0105], Likewise Prakash [0090]).
Regarding claim 4, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the one or more processors wherein the one or more GPUs are comprised in a distributed unit that is to operate in a lookaside acceleration mode (Kundu [0076, 0105, 0354]).
Regarding claim 5, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the one or more processors wherein the API is included in an acceleration abstraction layer (Kundu [0077] discloses an acceleration abstraction layer to receive API calls to perform 5G-NR operations).
Regarding claim 6, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the one or more processors wherein the API is to be performed in an open radio access network (Kundu [0164]).
Regarding claims 8-11, they do not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claims 1-4.
Therefore, claims 8-11 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claims 1-4.
Regarding claim 12, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the system wherein inputs of the API (Prakash [0070, 0066, 0076 and 0077] teaches an FAPI (functional application platform interface [0060]) wherein inputs are received from the application [0074 and 0083]) comprise one or more of:
an accelerator identification, a workload identification, and packaging information (Prakash [0086 and 0098] teaches transmitting, by the application via FAPI abstractions, information associated with message headers and parameters to be generated or interpretated by the accelerator wherein the accelerator generates message headers/parameters based on the FAPI abstractions or input received from the application [0098]).
Regarding claim 13, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the system wherein the API (Kundu [Abstract] teaches an API to perform 5G new radio operations. Likewise, Prakash [0070, 0066, 0076 and 0077] teaches a FAPI to receive input) is to cause one or more identified accelerators to receive packaging information (Prakash [0086 and 0098] teaches an accelerator receiving input from an application to assist the accelerator in generating second and header information for the message) for one or more specific workloads (Kundu [0197-0198] teaches the API call indicates one or more workloads to be performed on one or more hardware accelerators to perform 5G new radio operations/workloads [0138]) to generate the one or more 5G-NR data packets (Prakash [0083, 0074, 0098] teaches generating header and second information for messages, wherein the messages are part of the 5G NR access technology [0025]).
Regarding claims 15-19 they do not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claims 1-5.
Therefore, claims 15-19 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claims 1-5.
Claim 7, 14, 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kundu et al (US 20210390004 A1, hereafter referred to as Kundu) in view of Prakash et al (US 20230087665 A1, hereafter referred to as Prakash) in view of Bernath et al (US 20170180272 A1, hereafter referred to as Bernath) as applied above regarding claim 1, further in view of Shim et al (US 20210058925 A1, hereafter referred to as Shim).
Regarding claim 7, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath teaches the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
However, Kundu-Prakash-Bernath does not explicitly teach the one or more processors wherein the one or more processors is to perform operations of a disaggregated distributed unit, wherein the disaggregated distributed unit comprises two or more logical nodes.
Shim, in an analogous art, teaches the one or more processors wherein the one or more processors is to perform operations of a disaggregated distributed unit, wherein the disaggregated distributed unit comprises two or more logical node (Shim [0063]).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Kundu-Prakash-Bernath in view of Shim in order to configure the distributed unit, as taught by Kundu-Prakash-Bernath, to include a disaggregated distributed unit comprising two or more logical nodes, as taught by Shim.
KSR rationale B, simple substitution of one known element (a distributed unit with one logical node, as taught by Kundu-Prakash-Bernath) for another known element (a distributed unit comprised of multiple logical nodes, as taught by Shim) in order to yield predictable results (providing service(s) to terminals).
Regarding claims 14 and 20, they do not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claim 7.
Therefore, claims 14 and 20 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claim 7.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHEAN TOKUTA whose telephone number is (571)272-5145. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 630-430.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Gillis can be reached at 5712727952. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
SHEAN TOKUTA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2446
/SHEAN TOKUTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446