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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-2, 6-7, 11-12 and 16-17 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. Regarding claims 1 and 6, the broadest reasonable interpretation of a method (or process) claim having contingent limitations requires only those steps that must be performed and does not include steps that are not required to be performed because the condition(s) precedent are not met. For example, assume a method claim requires step A if a first condition happens and step B if a second condition happens. If the claimed invention may be practiced without either the first or second condition happening, then neither step A or B is required by the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. If the claimed invention requires the first condition to occur, then the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim requires step A. If the claimed invention requires both the first and second conditions to occur, then the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim requires both steps A and B. The conditional statement, “if the information indicating whether the OoE report is required indicates that the OoE report is required: performing a QoE measurement for the MBS broadcast session based on the QoE measurement configuration, while the UE is in the RRC idle state; transmitting, to the base station, information indicating that the UE has stored information on a result of the QoE measurement; receiving, from the base station, an RRC connection reconfiguration message including at least one application layer measurement configuration identifier for the MBS broadcast session, wherein the at least one application layer measurement configuration identifier is used to distinguish the result of the OoE measurement of the UE from results of OoE measurement of other UEs; and transmitting, to the base station, the result of the QoE measurement for the MBS broadcast session indicated in the RRC connection reconfiguration message, based on the QoE report configuration and if the information indicating whether the OoE report is required indicates that the OoE report is not required, not performing the OoE measurement.” the respective functions are not required to be performed if the respective condition does NOT happen. In order to give a patentable weight for the contingent limitations, the limitations should be amended by adding the respective determining steps for the conditions.
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.
Claims 1 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KRISHNAN et al. (US 20250203396 A1, hereinafter Krishnan) in view of Centonza et al. (US 20230231779 A1, hereinafter Centonza).
Regarding claims 1 and 6 Krishnan discloses:
receiving, from a base station, while the UE is in a radio resource control (RRC) idle state, (Paragraph [0072], “The controller/processor 375 provides RRC layer functionality associated with broadcasting of system information (e.g., MIB, SIBs), RRC connection control (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), inter radio access technology (RAT) mobility, and measurement configuration for UE measurement reporting;” The UE receives info through SIBs (RRC idle mode). Also means base station is transmitting the SIBs to the UE)
information on an application layer measurement configuration associated with a multicast and broadcast service (MBS) broadcast session, wherein the application layer measurement configuration includes a quality of experience (QoE) measurement configuration; (Paragraph [0082], “A UE may collect (e.g., measure, calculate, and/or determine) QoE metrics for one or more cells serving the UE. The metrics may evaluate how a service facilitated by the UE is performing based on wireless communication with the cell. Examples of services include augmented reality (AR) services, mixed reality (MR) services, and multicast broadcast services (MBS).” And paragraph [0117], “the network node 802 outputs (e.g., transmits or communicates) a QoE configuration 816 that is received by the UE 804. The UE 804 collects QoE measurements, at 818, based on the QoE configuration 816.” The UE receives information on the app layer including all the configuration required for the report.)
performing a QoE measurement for the MBS broadcast session based on the QoE measurement configuration; (Paragraph [0117], “the UE 804 may measure QoE information, calculate QoE information, and/or determine QoE information based on the QoE configuration 816.”)
Krishnan does not disclose: transmitting, to the base station, information indicating that the UE has stored information on a result of the QoE measurement; receiving, from the base station, while the UE is in an RRC connected state, an RRC connection reconfiguration message including at least one application laver measurement configuration identifier for the NBS broadcast session;
QoE report configuration;
and transmitting, to the base station, a result of the QoE measurement for the MBS broadcast session indicated in the RRC connection reconfiguration message based on the QoE report configuration.
Centonza does disclose:
transmitting, to the base station, information indicating that the UE has stored information on a result of the QoE measurement; (Paragraph [0053], “receiving, from the UE, an availability indication for the one or more QoE measurement reports. In such embodiments, the request is sent in response to the availability indication.”)
receiving, from the base station, while the UE is in an RRC connected state, an RRC connection reconfiguration message including at least one application laver measurement configuration identifier for the … session; (Paragraph [0154], “To initiate QoE measurements, the serving eNB sends to a UE in RRC_CONNECTED state an RRCConnectionReconfiguration message that includes a QoE configuration file, e.g., a measConfgAppLayer IE within an OtherConfg IE.” And paragraph [0178], “The message includes a service type (e.g., streaming), an area scope, a measurement configuration file for the QoE measurements to be performed, and a QoE reference identifier.” And paragraph [0179], “the eNB sends an RRCConnectionReconfiguration message to the AS (e.g., RRC layer) of the UE. The eNB includes the service type, the area scope (e.g., one or more cells, tracking areas, etc.), the measurement configuration file, and the QoE reference.” Krishnan discloses several RRC controls in paragraph [0072] and that MBS is a service type in paragraph [0082] that would inherently use an RRCConnectionReconfiguration message such as the RRC connection modification, but this reference explicitly shows the message being utilized. Further under the broadest reasonable interpretation the QoE reference would be an identifier.)
QoE report configuration; and transmitting, to the base station, a result of the QoE measurement for the MBS broadcast session indicated in the RRC connection reconfiguration message based on the QoE report configuration.
(Paragraph [0170], “A UE capable of application layer measurement reporting in RRC_CONNECTED may initiate the procedure when configured with application layer measurement” and Paragraph [0266], “a RAN node may limit the size of a QoE measurement report provided by a UE based on information included in a QoE measurement report configuration. In some embodiments, the RAN node may configure the UE to send QoE measurement report(s) of a particular size, i.e., an actual or required QoE measurement report size.” As a part of the QoE configurations the BS as shown above is able make the UE transmit based on the report config.)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have combined the QoE configuration for MBS of Krishnan with the report configuration of Centonza for the QoE report. One would have been motivated to do this to avoid overly large single messages and increase the efficiency in radio resource usage.
Specifically regarding 11 Krishnan discloses:
The terminal comprising: a transceiver; and a controller coupled with the transceiver and configured to (Paragraph [0162], “The apparatus 1604 may be a UE, a component of a UE, or may implement UE functionality. In some aspects, the apparatus 1604 may include a cellular baseband processor 1624 (also referred to as a modem) coupled to one or more transceivers… The cellular baseband processor 1624/application processor 1606 may be a component of the UE 350 and may include the memory 360 and/or at least one of the TX processor 368, the RX processor 356, and the controller/processor 359.”)
Specifically regarding 16 Krishnan discloses
the base station comprising: a transceiver; and a controller coupled with the transceiver (Paragraph [0071], “the base station 310 includes a transmit processor (TX processor 316), a transmitter 318Tx, a receiver 318Rx, antennas 320, a receive processor (RX processor 370), a channel estimator 374, a controller/processor 375, and memory 376.”)
Claims 2, 7, 12, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings Krishnan and Centonza in view of SHRIVASTAVA et al. (WO2022098142 A1, Hereinafter Shrivastava).
Regarding claims 2, 7, 12, and 17 Krishnan discloses:
wherein the information on the application layer measurement configuration is received from a core network, when the MBS broadcast session is setup or modified by the core network. (Paragraph [0117], “AMF 808 transmits an s-based QoE configuration 814 to the network node 802 along with the HSDN indication 809 and/or mobility indication 811.” And paragraph [0082], “A UE may collect (e.g., measure, calculate, and/or determine) QoE metrics for one or more cells serving the UE. The metrics may evaluate how a service facilitated by the UE is performing based on wireless communication with the cell. Examples of services include augmented reality (AR) services, mixed reality (MR) services, and multicast broadcast services (MBS)… The metrics may then be evaluated to provide a Quality of Experience” While the paragraph in 0082 uses VR as an example it discloses the metrics measured and evaluated are used to modify the session and can be applied to MBS.)
Krishnan and Centonza does not fully disclose:
wherein the information on the application layer measurement configuration is transmitted via a system information block 20 (SIB20) including a multicast control channel (MCCH) configuration, or wherein the information on the application layer measurement configuration is transmitted via an MCCH including an MBS configuration,
Shrivastava discloses:
wherein the information on the application layer measurement configuration is transmitted via a system information block 20 (SIB20) including a multicast control channel (MCCH) configuration, or wherein the information on the application layer measurement configuration is transmitted via an MCCH including an MBS configuration, (Paragraph [27], “The MBS configuration can be provided in a RRC signalling message, a System Information Block (SIB), the MBS Control Channel (MCCH), and a MAC Control Element (CE).” And paragraph [110], “In an embodiment, the UE 101 determines whether to remain in the RRC_CONNECTED state, while receiving MBS, based on service configuration. For instance, when there is a need for high reliability (as indicated by service type such as multicast), higher Quality of service (QoS) requirement, higher Quality of Experience (QoE) requirement” Shrivastava discloses that the MBS configuration is transmitted via MCCH and that the UE will stay connected based on the QoE.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Krishnan and Centonza in view of Shrivastava to incorporate MBS configuration transmission through MCCH. One would have been motivated to do this to efficiently let one transmission reach every UE.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: The primary reason for the allowance of claims 11 and 16 is the inclusion of the limitation “transmit, to the base station, information indicating that the MBS broadcast session is in progress while the UE is in a RRC connected state. Receive, from the base station, information indicating whether a QoE report is required for the MBS broadcast session if the information indicating whether the OoE report is required indicates that the OoE report is required: performing a QoE measurement for the MBS broadcast session based on the QoE measurement configuration, while the UE is in the RRC idle state; transmitting, to the base station, information indicating that the UE has stored information on a result of the QoE measurement; receiving, from the base station, an RRC connection reconfiguration message including at least one application layer measurement configuration identifier for the MBS broadcast session, wherein the at least one application layer measurement configuration identifier is used to distinguish the result of the OoE measurement of the UE from results of OoE measurement of other UEs; and transmitting, to the base station, the result of the QoE measurement for the MBS broadcast session indicated in the RRC connection reconfiguration message, based on the QoE report configuration and if the information indicating whether the OoE report is required indicates that the OoE report is not required, not performing the OoE measurement.” In conjunction with all disclosed steps of functions or all disclosed structures performing corresponding functions in claims 11 and 16.
Krishnan (US 20250203396 A1) discloses a UE receiving broadcasting of system information from SIBs. This UE measures the QoE metrics for serving cells to evaluate its performance. (Paragraph [0082], “A UE may collect (e.g., measure, calculate, and/or determine) QoE metrics for one or more cells serving the UE. The metrics may evaluate how a service facilitated by the UE is performing based on wireless communication with the cell. Examples of services include augmented reality (AR) services, mixed reality (MR) services, and multicast broadcast services (MBS).” And paragraph [0117], “the network node 802 outputs (e.g., transmits or communicates) a QoE configuration 816 that is received by the UE 804. The UE 804 collects QoE measurements, at 818, based on the QoE configuration 816.”) However, Krishnan does not disclose the indication in which the QoE report is required and the distinguishing of a QoE measurement result.
Centonza (US 20230231779 A1) discloses a base station receiving an availability indication of the QoE measurement report by a UE and the UE receiving an RRC connection reconfiguration message. (Paragraph [0053], “receiving, from the UE, an availability indication for the one or more QoE measurement reports. In such embodiments, the request is sent in response to the availability indication.” And Paragraph [0154], “To initiate QoE measurements, the serving eNB sends to a UE in RRC_CONNECTED state an RRCConnectionReconfiguration message that includes a QoE configuration file, e.g., a measConfgAppLayer IE within an OtherConfg IE.”) However, Centonza does not disclose the indication in which the QoE report is required and the distinguishing of a QoE measurement result.
Shrivastava (WO2022098142 A1) discloses that the information on the app layer measurement configuration is transmitted by an MCCH. (Paragraph [27], “The MBS configuration can be provided in a RRC signalling message, a System Information Block (SIB), the MBS Control Channel (MCCH), and a MAC Control Element (CE).”) However, Shrivastava does not disclose the indication in which the QoE report is required and the distinguishing of a QoE measurement result.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
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/NAM P. CAO/ Examiner, Art Unit 2479 /JAE Y LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2479
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