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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 11/24/25, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-30 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the previous rejections have been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, new ground(s) of rejection are made in view of Luo (US 2020/0351930 A1), Rao (US 2024/0147477 A1) & Zhang (US 2024/0098571) as discussed below.
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.
Claim(s) 1-7, 9, 12-13 & 25-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Rao et al (US 2024/0147477 A1) (hereinafter “Rao”).
Regarding claims 1 and 25, Rao teaches an apparatus for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE) (WTRU), comprising: at least one processor (See processor 118 in par [33]); and memory (See memory 130, 132 in par [33]) coupled with the at least one processor, the memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to cause the UE to:
receive a control message (configuration information in par [83,84,76]) that schedules a plurality of downlink messages (PDUs) associated with a burst, wherein the control message indicates a condition associated with dropping a first set of scheduled downlink messages from the plurality of downlink messages (See config info that includes info for scheduling PDUS and info for monitoring channel condition in par [76,156,159,160,172, 188-189]), wherein the condition is based at least in part on a failure of the UE to receive or decode a second set of scheduled downlink messages from the plurality of downlink messages (see config info having threshold values related to condition of the upper bound of rate of number of unsuccessful PDUs); and
dropping at least a subset of the first set of scheduled downlink messages from the plurality of downlink messages based at least in part on the condition (See discarding of PDUs based in part on conditions in par [108,211,214-226]).
Regarding claims 2 and 26, Rao further teaches condition indicates a threshold quantity of NACK and dropping messages based on NACKs (Rao discusses using NACKs to indicate unsuccessful communications of messages as one of the QoS/reliability conditions in par [188-189] and dropping PDUs if the QoS/reliability condition is not met in par [108,211,214-226]).
Regarding claims 3 and 27, Rao further teaches threshold values related to the number of unsuccessful PDUs in the set of PDUS, in par [76,156,159,160,172]) and dropping PDUs if the QoS/reliability condition is not met in par [108,211,214-226]).
Regarding claim 4, Rao further teaches that the reliability aspect is based in part on forward error correction FEC (See par [222-224]).
Regarding claim 5, Rao further teaches adding sequence number SNs to PDU set 1 302 and PDU set 2 304 to implement in-order delivery so that the order in which PDU set 1 302 and PDU set 2 304 are received can be checked for enhancing QoS (See par [205-210]).
Regarding claims 6, 7 and 28, Rao further teaches transmitting an indication that the UE is discarding a set of messages (PDUs) (See par [221,229]).
Regarding claim 9, Rao further teaches UE receives indication to remove a subset of messages from storage (See par [220,228]).
Regarding claim 11, Rao further teaches that if certain conditions do not meet, then PDUs are not discarded. The PDUs are only discarded when certain conditions are met. Also, if the PSDB is still achievable with the remaining PDUs of PDU set at WTRU, the WTRU may not discard the PDUs/PDU sets (Par [217,218,219]).
Regarding claim 12, Rao further teaches decoding messages associated with control information (par [3,4,76,84,98,143,148,149,172,219]).
Regarding claim 13, Rao further teaches sending multiple configuration information to the UE, wherein different configuration info indicate configurations of different set of PDUs (see different QoS requirements for different PDUs/ PDU set in par [85,87,93]).
Regarding claim 29, Rao further teaches a method at a network entity comprising:
transmitting to the UE a control message that indicates a condition associated with dropping a first set of scheduled downlink messages from the plurality of downlink messages (See config info that includes info for scheduling PDUS and info for monitoring channel condition in par [76,156,159,160,172, 188-189]), wherein the condition is based at least in part on a failure of the UE to receive or decode a second set of scheduled downlink messages from the plurality of downlink messages (see config info having threshold values related to condition of the upper bound of rate of number of unsuccessful PDUs); and
transmit the plurality of downlink messages associated with the burst (transmitting PDUs in one or more bursts to the UE; par [3,4,72-74]).
Regarding claim 30, Rao further teaches using negative acknowledgements NACK to indicate unsuccessful communications of messages (see par [188-189]).
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.
Claim(s) 14-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao (US 2024/0147477 A1) in view of Luo et al (US 2020/0351930 A1) (hereinafter “Luo”).
Regarding claims 14, Rao teaches an apparatus (Base station in par [16]) for wireless communications at a network entity,
transmit, to a UE, a control message that schedules a plurality of downlink messages (PDUs) associated with a burst, wherein the control message that schedules a plurality of downlink messages associated with a burst, wherein the control message indicates a condition associated with dropping a first set of scheduled downlink messages from the plurality of downlink messages, wherein the condition is based at least in part on a failure of the UE to receive or decode a second set of scheduled downlink messages from the plurality of downlink messages; and
transmit the plurality of downlink messages associated with the burst (transmitting PDUs in one or more bursts to the UE; par [3,4,72-74]).
Rao does not teach that the base station comprising: at least one processor; and memory coupled with the at least one processor, the memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to perform its operation. However, such use of processor and memory at BS is old and well known in the art. For example, Luo teaches a base station that comprises a processor and memory to efficiently perform its operations (see figure 17, par [273]). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the invention to use Luo’s teaching in Rao’s system with the motivation being to enhance the base station performance.
Regarding claim 15, Rao further teaches condition indicates a threshold quantity of NACKs and dropping messages based on NACKs (Rao discusses using NACKs to indicate unsuccessful communications of messages as one of the QoS/reliability conditions in par [188-189].
Regarding claim 16, Rao further teaches that the reliability aspect is based in part on forward error correction FEC (See par [222-224]).
Regarding claim 17, Rao further teaches adding sequence number SNs to PDU set 1 302 and PDU set 2 304 to implement in-order delivery so that the order in which PDU set 1 302 and PDU set 2 304 are received can be checked for enhancing QoS (See par [205-210]).
Regarding claims 18-19, Rao further teaches that the network receives an indication that the UE is discarding a set of messages (PDUs) (See par [221,229]).
Regarding claims 20 and 22, Rao further teaches the network sends the UE indication to remove a subset of messages from storage (See par [220,228]).
Regarding claim 21, Rao further teaches sending configuration information as control information to the UE, wherein different configuration info indicate configurations of different set of PDUs (see configuration information sent to UE in par [3,76,110,111,147,148,166]).
Regarding claim 23, Rao further teaches that the network sends an indication of the PDUs to UE wherein PDUs are associated with control information including configuration formation/QoS/reliability parameters (see different QoS requirements for different PDUs/ PDU set in par [85,87,93]).
Regarding claim 24, Rao further teaches sending multiple configuration information to the UE, wherein different configuration info indicate configurations of different set of PDUs (see different QoS requirements for different PDUs/ PDU set in par [85,87,93]).
Claims 8 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao (US 2024/0147477 A1) in view of Zhang et al (US 2024/0098571 A1) (hereinafter “Zhang”).
Regarding claim 8, Rao does not explicitly teach the UE refraining from decoding a set of messages based in part on a condition. However, Zhang teaches that the UE can cease the processing of the packet if a condition is met (see par [52]) to improve latency. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the invention to apply Zhang’s teaching in Rao’s system with the motivation being to improve latency.
Regarding claim 10, Rao further teaches receiving indication of downlink messages (PDUs) with control information (configuration information) from the first set of scheduled downlink message (see par [86,87,148,161,162]); and decoding the downlink messages with the control information (see par[3,4,76-80,93,98-102]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Korndewal et al. (US 2010/0123136 A1) teaches that if one or more data blocks of a packet is not timely and successfully received, the receiver can discard the remaining data blocks of the packet (see par [58]).
Barriac et al. (US 2017/0064713 A1) teaches that the UE may stop decoding the packet if a condition that the RSSI is below the threshold is met (see par [61]).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUY D VU whose telephone number is (571)272-3155. The examiner can normally be reached 7:00a-to 5:00p Mon-Thurs.
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/HUY D VU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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