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 .
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 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 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.
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 33-35, 37-38, 40, 46-48, and 50-51 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hande et al (US Pub. 2020/0383004) in view of Babaei et al. (US 10,638,487).
Regarding claim 33, Hande discloses a method by a radio access network node comprising:
receiving, from a network node, information indicating a burst end time, BET, for a first burst of data traffic within a traffic flow (fig. 17B; para. 1, 140, As shown, the XR (extended reality) edge DN 1422 of a server entity (e.g., the edge cloud server 1430) may send one or more burst parameters (e.g., a burst start time, burst spread, or burst end time) to the CN 130 having a logical function, a user plane function 1410, which may forward the burst parameters to the RAN 150. For example, if the burst spread for a traffic flow varies across bursts, the burst start time and burst end time may be conveyed to the RAN 150 via a data plane such as through the UPF 1710 of the CN 130.; para. 150, burst parameters including burst end time); and
Hande does not specifically disclose “based on at least the BET for the first burst of data traffic, aggregating packets associated with a plurality of bursts of data traffic that includes the first burst of data traffic into a single Medium Access Control Protocol Data Unit, MAC PDU, for a transmission of the traffic flow to a wireless device.” However, Babaei from an analogous art discloses MAC layer logical channel prioritization and multiplexing procedures in which a MAC entity or a multiplexing and assembly entity may perform a logical channel prioritization (LCP) procedure to allocate resources of one or more grants to one or more logical channels (Babaei, Col. 25, lines 13–18). Babaei further discloses that “the LCP procedure may multiplex data from one or more logical channels to form a MAC PDU” (Babaei, Col. 25, lines 23–25). Babaei additionally discloses that a MAC transport block may consist of a plurality of MAC SDUs/RLC PDUs/PDCP PDUs, indicating that multiple packets may be included in a single MAC PDU for transmission (Babaei, Col. 21, lines 1–5). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to apply the MAC multiplexing and MAC PDU formation procedures of Babaei to the burst-based traffic scheduling disclosed by Hande, because burst traffic may produce multiple packets buffered for transmission and multiplexing such packets into a single MAC PDU improves radio resource efficiency when transmitting burst traffic to a wireless device.
Regarding claim 34, Hande further discloses further comprising scheduling at least one radio resource for the transmission based on the information indicating the BET for the first burst of data traffic (para. 111, 119, performing scheduling resources based on the burst factor).
Regarding claim 35, Hande further discloses further comprising:
transmitting the aggregated packets associated with the first burst of data traffic based on the scheduling of the at least one radio resource (para. 111, 119).
Regarding claim 37, Hande further discloses further comprising transmitting scheduling information to the wireless device, the scheduling information indicating the at least one radio resource scheduled for the transmission by the radio access network node to the wireless device (para. 65, 73).
Regarding claim 38, Hande further discloses wherein the at least one radio resource for the burst of data traffic within the traffic flow is scheduled based on:
the information at a time after the BET,
the information at a time after the BET but before a latest time at which one or more packets are to be delivered according to a packet delay budget, PDB, minus an expected transmission time, or
the information at a time after the BET but before a latest time at which one or more packets are to be delivered according to a packet delay budget, PDB, minus an expected transmission time (para. 65, 73).
Regarding claim 40, Hande further discloses wherein the traffic flow comprises the plurality of bursts of data traffic, and wherein the first burst of data traffic is within the plurality of bursts of data traffic (para. 111, 118).
Claim 46 recites a radio access network node corresponding to the method of claim 33, and is thus similarly rejected.
Claims 47-48 recite substantially identical subject matter as recited in claims 34-35, respectively, and are thus similarly rejected.
Claims 39 and 52 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hande et al in view of Babaei et al, and further in view of Kuo et al (US Pub. 2023/0239868)
Regarding claims 39 and 52, Hande does not specifically disclose wherein the information comprises Time Sensitive Communication Assistance Information, TSCAI, associated with a Time Sensitive Communications, TSC, and wherein the TSC is associated with at least one Time Sensitive Networking, TSN, service. However, Kuo from an analogous art discloses this limitation (para. 29, For example, in 3GPP Rel-16, a base station may receive information relating to traffic characteristics of time-sensitive communication (TSC) data streams from the core network in order to enable more efficient resource allocation. Specifically, time-sensitive communication assistance information (TSCAI) could provide the base station with burst arrival periodicity and burst size, allowing the base station to configure scheduling resources, such as configured grants for uplink and SPS for downlink, with periodicity and transport block sizes suitable to accommodate the traffic patterns.) Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate teaching of Kuo in the system of Hande in order to improve scheduling of resources (Kuo, abstract).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LUAT T PHUNG whose telephone number is (571)270-3126. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9 AM - 6 PM.
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/LUAT PHUNG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468