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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 08/02/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they include the following reference character(s) not mentioned in the description:
Symbol 1022 in Fig. 10 does not appear in the specification.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 recites “receiving, by a first user equipment comprising a processor from a second user equipment.” Suggesting the processor from the second user equipment is a component of the first user equipment. For the purpose of examination and in light of the specification, the claim is interpreted as “receiving, by a first user equipment comprising a processor, from a second user equipment.”
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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.
Claims 1-3, 5, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al. (US 2023/0262512), Zhang hereinafter, in view of Choi et al. (WO 2023/135539), Choi hereinafter.
Re. Claim 1, Zhang teaches a method (Zhang, ¶0119: FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device.), comprising:
receiving, by a first user equipment comprising a processor (Zhang, Fig. 5 [a user equipment]; ¶0188: In FIG. 5, processing circuitry 501 may be configured to process computer instructions and data. … For example, the processing circuitry 501 may include two central processing units (CPUs).) [,] from a second user equipment (Zhang, ¶¶0119: FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The relay device corresponds to the first user equipment, and the remote device corresponds to the second user equipment.]), a Quality-of-Experience indication corresponding to the second user equipment and corresponding to receiving a traffic flow by the second user equipment (Zhang, ¶¶0121-0122: In step 301, the method comprises obtaining an indication that a quality of service, QoS, metric is not meeting a QoS requirement, wherein the QoS metric is associated with one of: a traffic flow between the remote wireless device and the destination node, a radio bearer used in communication between the remote wireless device and the destination node; and a logical channel used in communication between the remote wireless device and the destination node. The QoS metric may comprise one or more of: bit rate, latency, jitter, packet loss, transmission error rate and any other QoS indicator such as Mean Opinion Score (MOS) etc.);
generating, by the first user equipment, a Quality-of-Experience report that comprises the Quality-of-Experience indication corresponding to the second user equipment (Zhang, ¶¶0130-0133: The UE may also summarize the results of its own and results from other UEs to get [an] overall evaluation. … In some examples, the measurement(s) [of] the QoS metric may be transmitted to a base station. Similarly to as described above, the measurements may be transmitted to the base station by RRC signaling, or MAC-CE. [To inform the base station via dedicated RRC signaling, it would be necessary for the relay device to generate the RRC or MAC-CE message.]); and
transmitting, by the first user equipment to a radio access network node the Quality-of-Experience report (Zhang, ¶0133: A relay device or the remote device may therefore indicate to a base station (e.g. gNB) that the QoS metric is not meeting the QoS requirement by transmitting a measurement result of the QoS metric to the base station. And ¶¶0140-0143: In step 302 the method comprises, responsive to the indication, initiating a recovery action to improve a QoS of the communication between the remote device and the destination node.).
Yet, Zhang does not explicitly teach transmitting, to a radio access network node with which the second user equipment is in an idle state, the Quality-of-Experience report.
However, in the related art, Choi teaches transmitting, to a radio access network node with which the second user equipment is in an idle state, the Quality-of-Experience report (Choi, 0046-0047: Both a UE and a core network component (e.g., an AMF) in the network can store the “UE Idle QoE context”. Further use and implementation of the UE Idle QoE context messaging is described below. … For instance, when a UE is transferred by a wireless network to RRC IDLE state using an RRC Release message, the network utilizes the idle reporting message 400 to communicate new QoE measurement reporting configurations to a UE. For example, in a scenario where a UE is transferred from RRC CONNECTED to RRC IDLE or from RRC INACTIVE to RRC IDLE, the network omits the SuspendConfig IE in an RRC Release message and instead includes the idle reporting message 400 with a parameter 402 “qoe-ReportConfigIdle-rl8” which is configured to indicate a type of trigger for a UE to transmit QoE measurement reports)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the methods and apparatuses for providing communication between a remote device and a destination device via a relay device of Zhang with the method for reporting quality of experience measurements in a variety of different connectivity states of Choi. The resulting invention would provide for avoiding the loss of QoE measurements that occurs in some wireless communication systems (Choi, ¶0020).
Re. Claim 2, Zhang in view of Choi teaches claim 1,
Zhang further teaches the second user equipment (Zhang, ¶¶0119: FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The remote device corresponds to the second user equipment.]).
Yet Zhang does not explicitly teach wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication corresponds to a Quality-of-Experience parameter associated with an application being executed by a processor of theuser equipment.
However, in the related art, Choi teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication corresponds to a Quality-of-Experience parameter associated with an application being executed by a processor of the user equipment (Choi, ¶0030: The QoE reporting 120, for instance, identifies QoE measurements collected at the UE 104. Examples of QoE measurements include parameters such as Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) target for MBS, a session to record of an application, MBS service type, MBS area scope (list of cells and/or list of tracking areas), QoE reference (e.g., a destination for the QoE measurement reports to be sent (e.g., Trace Collection Entity/Measurement Collection Entity (TCE/MCE)), QoE metrics of the concerned service type, e.g., start time and duration of recording of MBS.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the methods and apparatuses for providing communication between a remote device and a destination device via a relay device of Zhang with the method for reporting quality of experience measurements in a variety of different connectivity states of Choi. The resulting invention would provide for avoiding the loss of QoE measurements that occurs in some wireless communication systems (Choi, ¶0020).
Re. Claim 3, Zhang in view of Choi teaches claim 1,
wherein the traffic flow The remote device may send an indication to the relay device that the QoS requirements on a given radio bearer or traffic flow cannot be met and may ask for a new configuration with the relay device.)
Yet, Zhang does not explicitly teach wherein the traffic flow is a multicast-and-broadcast-service traffic flow.
However, in the related art, Choi teaches wherein the traffic flow is a multicast-and-broadcast-service traffic flow (Choi, ¶0030: For instance, based on the configuration messages 116, the UE 104 generates QoE measurements for the MBS 118 and communicates QoE reporting 120 that includes the QoE measurements to the base station 102.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the methods and apparatuses for providing communication between a remote device and a destination device via a relay device of Zhang with the method for reporting quality of experience measurements in a variety of different connectivity states of Choi. The resulting invention would provide for avoiding the loss of QoE measurements that occurs in some wireless communication systems (Choi, ¶0020).
Re. Claim 5, Zhang in view of Choi teaches claim 1.
Zhang further teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication comprises a Quality-of-Experience metric (Zhang, ¶¶0121-0122: In step 301, the method comprises obtaining an indication that a quality of service, QoS, metric is not meeting a QoS requirement, wherein the QoS metric is associated with one of: a traffic flow between the remote wireless device and the destination node, a radio bearer used in communication between the remote wireless device and the destination node; and a logical channel used in communication between the remote wireless device and the destination node. The QoS metric may comprise one or more of: bit rate, latency, jitter, packet loss, transmission error rate and any other QoS indicator such as Mean Opinion Score (MOS) etc. [Li, ¶0081 discloses MOS as a specific QoE score.]).
Re. Claim 17, Zhang teaches a non-transitory machine-readable medium (Zhang, 0174: As illustrated, wireless device 410 includes antenna 411, interface 414, processing circuitry 420, device readable medium 430, user interface equipment 432, auxiliary equipment 434, power source 436 and power circuitry 437.), comprising executable instructions that (Zhang, 0177: For example, processing circuitry 420 may execute instructions stored in device readable medium 430 or in memory within processing circuitry 420 to provide the functionality disclosed herein.), when executed by a processor of a primary user equipment, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:
receiving, from a radio access network node, a primary user equipment configuration that configures the primary user equipment to generate quality of experience reports (Zhang, 0127: For each monitored QoS metric, there may be associated timer and/or threshold and/or a filtering used in the monitoring configured by a base station or another coordinator UE.);
receiving, from a secondary user equipment (Zhang, ¶¶0119: FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The relay device corresponds to the primary user equipment, and the remote device corresponds to the secondary user equipment.]), quality of experience information corresponding to the second user equipment and corresponding to receiving a multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow by the second user equipment (Zhang, ¶¶0121-0122: In step 301, the method comprises obtaining an indication that a quality of service, QoS, metric is not meeting a QoS requirement, wherein the QoS metric is associated with one of: a traffic flow between the remote wireless device and the destination node, a radio bearer used in communication between the remote wireless device and the destination node; and a logical channel used in communication between the remote wireless device and the destination node. The QoS metric may comprise one or more of: bit rate, latency, jitter, packet loss, transmission error rate and any other QoS indicator such as Mean Opinion Score (MOS) etc. [Li, ¶0081 discloses MOS as a specific QoE score.]);
generating a quality of experience report that comprises the quality of experience information corresponding to the secondary user equipment (Zhang, ¶¶0130-0133: The UE may also summarize the results of its own and results from other UEs to get [an] overall evaluation. … In some examples, the measurement(s) [of] the QoS metric may be transmitted to a base station. Similarly to as described above, the measurements may be transmitted to the base station by RRC signaling, or MAC-CE. [To inform the base station via dedicated RRC signaling, it would be necessary for the relay device to generate the RRC or MAC-CE message.]); and
transmitting, to the radio access network node the quality of experience report (Zhang, ¶0133: A relay device or the remote device may therefore indicate to a base station (e.g. gNB) that the QoS metric is not meeting the QoS requirement by transmitting a measurement result of the QoS metric to the base station. And ¶¶0140-0143: In step 302 the method comprises, responsive to the indication, initiating a recovery action to improve a QoS of the communication between the remote device and the destination node.).
Yet, Zhang does not explicitly teach transmitting, to the radio access network node with respect to which the second user equipment is in an idle state, the quality of experience report.
However, in the related art, Choi teaches transmitting, to the radio access network node with respect to which the second user equipment is in an idle state, the quality of experience report (Choi, 0046-0047: Both a UE and a core network component (e.g., an AMF) in the network can store the “UE Idle QoE context”. Further use and implementation of the UE Idle QoE context messaging is described below. … For instance, when a UE is transferred by a wireless network to RRC IDLE state using an RRC Release message, the network utilizes the idle reporting message 400 to communicate new QoE measurement reporting configurations to a UE. For example, in a scenario where a UE is transferred from RRC CONNECTED to RRC IDLE or from RRC INACTIVE to RRC IDLE, the network omits the SuspendConfig IE in an RRC Release message and instead includes the idle reporting message 400 with a parameter 402 “qoe-ReportConfigIdle-rl8” which is configured to indicate a type of trigger for a UE to transmit QoE measurement reports.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the methods and apparatuses for providing communication between a remote device and a destination device via a relay device of Zhang with the method for reporting quality of experience measurements in a variety of different connectivity states of Choi. The resulting invention would provide for avoiding the loss of QoE measurements that occurs in some wireless communication systems (Choi, ¶0020).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Choi as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Centonza et al. (US 2023/0231779), Centonza hereinafter.
Re. Claim 4, Zhang in view of Choi teaches claim 1.
Zhang further teaches wherein the second user equipment, the radio access network node (Zhang, ¶¶0119: FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The remote device corresponds to the second user equipment, and the destination node corresponds to the radio access network node. To clarify, Zhang teaches the relaying between the second user equipment and the radio access network node.]).
Yet, neither Zhang nor Choi teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication comprises a Quality-of-Experience metric availability indication indicative that a Quality-of-Experience metric is available, to be reported to the radio access network node [To clarify, Zhang and Choi fail to teach sending an indication that a QoE metric is available to be relayed from a remote device to destination device (from the second user equipment to the radio access network node).].
However, in the related art, Centonza teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication comprises a Quality-of-Experience metric availability indication indicative that a Quality-of-Experience metric is availableto be reported to the radio access network node (Centonza, ¶0310: In some embodiments, the exemplary method can also include the operations of block 2340, where the RNN can receive, from the UE, an availability indication for the one or more QoE measurement reports. [Centonza, 0201 discloses that the QoE report is to be forwarded by the receiving RNN.]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Zhang as modified by the teaching of Choi with the method for configuring QoE reports of Centonza. The resulting invention would prevent and/or mitigate congestion caused by simultaneous delivery of backlogged QoE reports by multiple UEs in a single cell (Centonza, ¶0064).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Choi as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Park et al. (US 2025/0133464), Park hereinafter.
Re. Claim 6, Zhang in view of Choi teaches claim 5.
Zhang teaches the first user equipment, the second user equipment FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The relay device corresponds to the first user equipment, and the remote device corresponds to the second user equipment.]).
Yet, neither Zhang nor Choi teaches analyzing, the Quality-of-Experience metric with respect to a Quality-of-Experience metric criterion to result in an analyzed Quality-of-Experience metric, wherein the generating of the Quality-of-Experience report to comprise the Quality-of-Experience indication is based on the analyzed Quality-of-Experience metric being determined to satisfy the Quality-of-Experience metric criterion.
However, in the related art, Park teaches analyzing, the Quality-of-Experience metric with respect to a Quality-of-Experience metric criterion to result in an analyzed Quality-of-Experience metric (Park, ¶0278: In an example, each QoE measurement result may be weighted based on a signal strength (e.g., reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), RSRP/RSRQ of sounding reference signal (SRS), etc.).),
wherein the generating of the Quality-of-Experience report to comprise the Quality-of-Experience indication is based on the analyzed Quality-of-Experience metric being determined to satisfy the Quality-of-Experience metric criterion (Park, ¶0278: QoE measurement results from UEs with low signal strength (e.g., below a threshold) may be weighted relatively less (or discarded).).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Choi as modified by the teaching of Takeda with the signaling based activation procedure for QoE measurements of Park. The resulting invention would provide for activating QoE measurements intended for particular subscribers (Park, ¶0223).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Choi as applied to claim 1 above and further in view of Eklöf et al. (US 2023/0284258), Eklöf hereinafter.
Re. Claim 7, Zhang in view of Choi teaches claim 1.
Zhang further teaches the second user equipment, the radio access network node (Zhang, ¶¶0119: FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The remote device corresponds to the second user equipment, and the destination node corresponds to the radio access network node. To clarify, Zhang teaches the relaying between the second user equipment and the radio access network node.]).
Yet, neither Zhang nor Choi explicitly teaches
wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication comprises a Quality-of-Experience metric unavailability indication indicative that a Quality-of-Experience metric is unavailable, to be reported to the radio access network node, and
wherein the Quality-of-Experience report comprises the Quality-of-Experience metric unavailability indication.
However, in the related art, Eklöf teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication comprises a Quality-of-Experience metric unavailability indication indicative that a Quality-of-Experience metric is unavailable (Eklöf, ¶0031: In such embodiments, the receiving operations can include receiving, from the second RNN, a response including one or more of the following: at least one of the requested QoE measurement reports; and an indication of availability or non-availability of the requested QoE measurement reports.), to be reported to the radio access network node (Eklöf, 0242: In some embodiments, the sending RNN can indicate to the receiving RNN that requested QoE measurement report(s) are not available.), and
wherein the Quality-of-Experience report comprises the Quality-of-Experience metric unavailability indication (Eklöf, ¶¶0032-0035: In some embodiments, these exemplary methods can also include receiving, from the second RNN, an unsolicited indication of availability of QoE measurement reports received by the second RNN from the UE. In such embodiments, the request for the QoE measurement reports can be sent in response to the unsolicited indication. In some embodiments, these exemplary methods can also include, based on receiving a response including an indication of non-availability, performing one or more of the following operations: configuring QoE measurements by one or more other UE; notifying a measurement collection entity (MCE) of the non-availability; and refraining from sending the second RNN one or more further QoE measurement configurations for the UE.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Zhang as modified by the teaching of Choi with the method for relaying QoE measurements between RRNs of Eklöf. The resulting invention would improve configuration and reporting of QoE measurements by a UE in multi-connectivity (Eklöf, ¶0065).
Claims 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Choi as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Ganesan et al. (US 2024/0155596), Ganesan hereinafter, and Filin et al. (WO 2024173347).
Re. Claim 9, Zhang in view of Choi teaches claim 1.
Yet, neither Zhang nor Choi explicitly teaches wherein the second user equipment is served by a serving beam corresponding to the radio access network node, the method further comprising:
transmitting, by the first user equipment, a Quality-of-Experience indication request receivable by the second user equipment and at least a third user equipment that is served by the serving beam corresponding to the radio access network node,
wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication request comprises a beam identifier corresponding to the serving beam.
However, in the related art, Ganesan teaches wherein the second user equipment is served by a serving beam corresponding to the radio access network node (Ganesan, Fig. 6; And 0073: In a first communication 610 a shared beam is communicated based on CSI-RS/SSB is transmitted to group member UEs 608.), the method further comprising:
transmitting, by the first user equipment, a Quality-of-Experience indication request receivable by the second user equipment and at least a third user equipment that is served by the serving beam corresponding to the radio access network node (Ganesan, Fig. 6; 0073: Further, in a third communication 614, a CSI request for Uu is transmitted using SL to group member UEs 608. [Fig. 6 shows that the CSI request is sent from the primary UE 604, corresponding to the first user equipment, to the group member UEs 608, corresponding to the second user equipment and third user equipment. See also Fig. 4.]),
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Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Zhang as modified by the teaching of Choi with the sidelink assisted CSI reporting method for measurements of common or shared beams of Ganesan. The resulting invention would provide for reduced overhead for CSI reporting for scenarios with a higher number of users or high user mobility (Ganesan, 0050-0051).
Yet, none of Zhang, Choi, or Ganesan explicitly teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication request comprises a beam identifier corresponding to the serving beam.
However, in the related art, Filin teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication request comprises a beam identifier corresponding to the serving beam (Filin, 0285: The one or more measurement reports may comprise one or more cell identifier measurements.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Zhang as modified by the teaching of Choi and Ganesan with the measurement report configuration parameters of Filin. The resulting invention would provide improvements for conditional handover by preventing wasted resources when predicted handover condition does not occur (Filin, 0265-0266).
Re. Claim 10, Zhang in view of Choi, Ganesan, and Filin teaches claim 9.
Yet, neither Zhang nor Choi explicitly teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication request is transmitted via a sidelink communication link.
However, in the related art, Ganesan teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience indication request is transmitted via a sidelink communication link (Ganesan, Fig. 6; 0073: Further, in a third communication 614, a CSI request for Uu is transmitted using [sidelink] SL to group member UEs 608. In a fourth communication 616, a CSI report is transmitted using SL. [It can be seen in Fig. 6 that the fourth communication 616 is sent from the group member UEs 608 to the primary UE 604.]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Zhang as modified by the teaching of Choi and Filin with the sidelink assisted CSI reporting method for measurements of common or shared beams of Ganesan. The resulting invention would provide for reduced overhead for CSI reporting for scenarios with a higher number of users or high user mobility (Ganesan, 0050-0051).
Re. Claim 11, Zhang in view of Choi, Ganesan, and Filin teaches claim 9.
Zhang further teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience report comprises the first Quality-of-Experience indication associated with an identifier corresponding to the second user equipment and indicative of a first Quality-of-Experience metric corresponding to the receiving of the traffic flow by the second user equipment (Zhang, 0134-0135: The measurement result(s) may also be received at a node in the relay path or at a base station with one or more of the following information: a wireless device identification (UE IDs) associated with the measurement result, for example an identification of the remote device and/or a relay device associated with a particular hop that the measurement relates to; [To clarify, Zhang teaches the relayed report contains the measurement results and a UE ID associated with the measurement.])
Neither Zhang nor Choi explicitly teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience report comprises and a second Quality-of-Experience indication associated with an identifier corresponding to the third user equipment and indicative of a second Quality-of-Experience metric corresponding to the receiving of the traffic flow by the third user equipment [To clarify, neither Zhang nor Choi explicitly teaches that the relayed report comprises an indication of the Quality-of-Experience corresponding to a third user equipment].
However, in the related art, Ganesan teaches wherein the Quality-of-Experience report comprises and a second Quality-of-Experience indication associated with an identifier corresponding to the third user equipment and indicative of a second Quality-of-Experience metric corresponding to the receiving of the traffic flow by the third user equipment (Ganesan, 0071: The system 400 includes a first UE 402, a second UE 404, a third UE 406 (e.g., primary UE), a fourth UE 408, and a base station 410. The first UE 402, the second UE 404, and the fourth UE 408 each transmit a CSI report to the third UE 406. The third UE 406 aggregates the CSI reports and transmits an aggregated CSI report to the base station 410. [For clarity, the third UE 406 of Ganesan corresponds to the claimed first user equipment, and the first UE 402 and the second UE 404 correspond to the claimed second user equipment and the claimed third user equipment.]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Zhang as modified by the teaching of Choi and Filin with the sidelink assisted CSI reporting method for measurements of common or shared beams of Ganesan. The resulting invention would provide for reduced overhead for CSI reporting for scenarios with a higher number of users or high user mobility (Ganesan, 0050-0051).
Claims 12 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi in view of Takeda et al. (US 2022/0225384), Takeda hereinafter, further in view of Park, further in view of Zhang.
Re. Claim 12, Choi teaches a first user equipment (Choi, ¶0063: FIG. 9 illustrates an example of a block diagram 900 of a device 902 that supports QoE reporting for MBS in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure. The device 902 may be an example of a UE 104 as described herein.), comprising:
a processor (Choi, ¶0063: The device 902 may include components for bi-directional communications including components for transmitting and receiving communications, such as a communication manager 904, a processor 906, a memory 908, a receiver 910, a transmitter 912, and an [I/O] controller 914.) configured to:
receive, from a radio access network node while in an idle state with respect to the radio access network node, traffic corresponding to a multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow (Choi, ¶0059: The UE 104 in idle state continues with reception of the 4 MBS 118 and continues with the QoE measurement collection and reporting for the MBS broadcast service with identity #1.);
Yet, Choi does not explicitly teach receive, from a second user equipment that is receiving the traffic corresponding to the multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow, a quality of experience indication request to indicate, to the second user equipment, a quality of experience indication corresponding to receiving, by the first user equipment, the traffic corresponding to the multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow, wherein the quality of experience indication is to be transmitted by the second user equipment to the radio access network node; and perform a quality of experience indication action.
However, in the related art, Takeda teaches a second user equipment that is receiving the traffic corresponding to the multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow (Takeda, ¶0114: In the example of FIG. 2A, base station 105-a may use a broad beam 210 to transmit the shared data transmission 220 to a set of UEs 115 subscribed to an MBS group to receive multicast or broadcast data from base station 105-a.),
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the quality of experience reporting for multicast broadcast services with the broad beam transmission of shared data of Takeda. The resulting invention would provide a chance for every UE in the MBS group to have a chance to of receiving the shared data transmission (Takeda, ¶0114).
Yet, neither Choi nor Takeda explicitly teaches receivea quality of experience indication corresponding to receiving, by the first user equipment, the traffic corresponding to the multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow, wherein the quality of experience indication is to be transmitted to the radio access network node; and perform a quality of experience indication action.
However, in the related art, Park teaches receivea quality of experience indication request to indicate (Park, ¶0224: The QoE measurement configuration may be received by an access stratum (AS) layer of the UE. The AS layer of the UE may send the QoE measurement configuration to an application layer of the UE.), a quality of experience indication corresponding to receiving (Park, ¶0225: The UE may perform one or more measurements based on the QoE measurement configuration.), by the first user equipment, the traffic corresponding to the multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow (Park, ¶0225: The QoE measurements may be specific to a service, service type, slice, slice type, and/or application. And ¶0218: Examples of services and/or service types include streaming services (e.g., dynamic adaptive streaming over hypertext transfer protocol (DASH)), multimedia telephony services for internet protocol multimedia subsystem (MTSI), multimedia broadcast and multicast services (MBMS), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR), video streaming services, etc.),
wherein the quality of experience indication is to be transmitted to the radio access network node (Park, ¶0287: At 2331, BS2 sends the QoE information for serviceA to BS1.); and
perform a quality of experience indication action (Park, ¶0225: The UE may perform one or more measurements based on the QoE measurement configuration.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Choi as modified by the teaching of Takeda with the signaling based activation procedure for QoE measurements of Park. The resulting invention would provide for activating QoE measurements intended for particular subscribers (Park, ¶0223).
None of Choi, Takeda, or Park explicitly teaches the quality of experience indication is to be transmitted by the second user equipment to the radio access network node.
However, in the related art, Zhang teaches
wherein the quality of experience indication is to be transmitted by the second user equipment to the radio access network node (Zhang, ¶¶0119: FIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The relay device corresponds to the second user equipment, and the remote device corresponds to the first user equipment.]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Choi as modified by the teachings of Takeda and Park with the UE relay device of Zhang. The resulting invention would provide better responsiveness and quality of experience for a user (Zhang, ¶0217).
Re. Claim 16, Choi, Takeda, Park and Zhang teach the first user equipment of claim 12, and further, the references teach wherein the quality of experience indication action comprises transmitting, to the second user equipment, a quality of experience indication indicative of a quality of experience metric corresponding to receiving, by the first user equipment, the traffic corresponding to the multicast-broadcast-service traffic flow (Park, ¶0224: The QoE measurement configuration may be received by an access stratum (AS) layer of the UE. The AS layer of the UE may send the QoE measurement configuration to an application layer of the UE. Choi, ¶0059: The UE 104 in idle state continues with reception of the 4 MBS 118 and continues with the QoE measurement collection and reporting for the MBS broadcast service with identity #1.), wherein the second user equipment transmits, to the radio access network node, the quality of experience indication (Choi, ¶0059: The UE 104 in idle state continues with reception of the 4 MBS 118 and continues with the QoE measurement collection and reporting for the MBS broadcast service with identity #1. Park, ¶0291: UE1 transmits a measurement report), and wherein the processor is further configured to: receive, from the radio access network node, a connection establishment request, transmission of which is facilitated by the radio access network node in response to the quality of experience indication (Park, ¶0294: BS1 sends a configuration message to UE1, where the configuration message is an RRC configuration message); responsive to the connection establishment request, establish a connection with the radio access network node (Park, ¶0294: BS1 sends a configuration message to UE1, where the configuration message is an RRC configuration message. ¶0295: UE1 us handover to the BS2, access BS2 via dual connectivity); and transmit, to the radio access network node, the quality of experience metric (Park, ¶0284, 0286: BS2 determines QoE information for serviceA based on the one or more QoE measurement).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Choi as modified by the teaching of Takeda and Zhang with the signaling based activation procedure for QoE measurements of Park. The resulting invention would provide for activating QoE measurements intended for particular subscribers (Park, ¶0223).
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Choi as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of Ganesan et al. (US 2024/0155596), Ganesan hereinafter.
Re. Claim 19, Zhang in view of Choi teach the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 17, and further, the references teach
the primary user equipment the second user equipmentFIG. 3 illustrates a method of providing communication between a remote device and a destination node over a relay path comprising at least one relay device. The remote device and relay device may comprise wireless terminal devices, for example user equipments (UEs). [The relay device corresponds to the primary user equipment, and the remote device corresponds to the secondary user equipment.]).
Yet, neither Zhang nor Choi explicitly teaches wherein the primary user equipment configuration further configures the primary user equipment to transmit, a quality of experience information request to transmit to the first user equipment the quality of experience information.
However, in the related art, Ganesan teaches
wherein the primary user equipment configuration further configures the primary user equipment to transmit, a quality of experience information request to transmit to the first user equipment the quality of experience information (Ganesan, Fig. 6; 0073: Further, in a third communication 614, a CSI request for Uu is transmitted using SL to group member UEs 608. [Fig. 6 shows that the CSI request is sent from the primary UE 604, corresponding to the first user equipment, to the group member UEs 608, corresponding to the second user equipment and third user equipment. See also Fig. 4.]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Zhang as modified by the teaching of Choi with the sidelink assisted CSI reporting method for measurements of common or shared beams of Ganesan. The resulting invention would provide for reduced overhead for CSI reporting for scenarios with a higher number of users or high user mobility (Ganesan, 0050-0051).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8, 13-15, 18, and 20 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
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/C.H.M./Examiner, Art Unit 2417
/REBECCA E SONG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2417