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 .
Claims 1-10 are subject to examination and rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 labels the steps of a multi-user flexible ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method as ‘step S1’, ‘step S2’, ‘step S3’, ‘step S4’, ‘scheme a)’ and ‘scheme b)’. The “step” and “scheme” numbering is unclear/indefinite language. Furthermore, labeling the limitations using “step” and “scheme” is non-standard and confusing, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 2 labels the steps of a multi-user flexible ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method as ‘sub-step S31’, ‘sub-step S32’, ‘sub-step S33’ and ‘sub-step S34’. The “sub-step” numbering is unclear/indefinite language. Furthermore, labeling the limitations using “sub-step” is non-standard and confusing, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 3 labels the steps of a multi-user flexible ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method as ‘sub-step S31 b’, ‘sub-step S32 b’, ‘sub-step S33 b’, ‘sub-step S34 b’, ‘sub-step S35 b’, ‘sub-step S36 b’, ‘sub-step S37 b’, ‘sub-step S38 b’, ‘sub-step S39 b’ and ‘sub-step S40 b’. The “sub-step” numbering is unclear/indefinite language. Furthermore, labeling the limitations using “sub-step” is non-standard and confusing, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 4 labels the steps of a multi-user flexible ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method as ‘sub-step S34 b1’, ‘sub-step S34 b2’ and ‘sub-step S34 b3’. The “sub-step” numbering is unclear/indefinite language. Furthermore, labeling the limitations using “sub-step” is non-standard and confusing, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 5 labels the steps of a multi-user flexible ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method as ‘sub-step S37 b1’ and ‘sub-step S37 b2’. The “sub-step” numbering is unclear/indefinite language. Furthermore, labeling the limitations using “sub-step” is non-standard and confusing, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 6 labels the steps of a multi-user flexible ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method as ‘step S101’, ‘step S102’ and ‘step S103’. The “step” numbering is unclear/indefinite language. Furthermore, labeling the limitations using “step” is non-standard and confusing, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 7 labels the steps of a multi-user flexible ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method as ‘step S201’, ‘step S202’ and ‘step S203’. The “step” numbering is unclear/indefinite language. Furthermore, labeling the limitations using “step” is non-standard and confusing, thereby rendering the scope of the claim unascertainable. Appropriate correction is required.
Claims 8-10 appear to be improper dependent claims. Claims 8-10 are independent that claims limitations of another claim (e.g., claim 1 in this case). Examiner suggests to cancel claims 8-10 or to rewrite the claims 8-10 to include the appropriate limitations similar to claim 1. Appropriate correction is required.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 3 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. Claims 3-7 are objected because of the dependency on claim 3.
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)(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.
Claims 1, 8, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Li (US PGPub 2025/0184032).
Regarding claims 1, 8, 9 and 10, Li teaches a multi-user flexible Ethernet fine granularity time slot allocation method (Li, see paragraph 0022, the first communication apparatus may specifically communicate with the second communication apparatus by using a slicing packet network (SPN) fine-granularity technology), comprising:
step S1: obtaining a current network state of flexible Ethernet (FlexE), comprising a total quantity of time slots, a quantity of idle time slots and positions of idle time slots in a current time slot allocation period (Li, see figure 4 and paragraph 0172, In FIG. 4 , a service 1 occupies a 5G bandwidth, a slot 1 of PHY1 is allocated to the service 1, a service 2 occupies a 25G bandwidth, a slot 2 to a slot 5 and a slot 19 of PHY1 are allocated to the service 2, a service 3 occupies a 10G bandwidth, and a slot 1 and a slot 20 of PHY2 are allocated to the service 3. Figure 4 further includes slots occupied by services and idle slots);
step S2: obtaining a user demand, comprising a quantity of users requiring time slots to be allocated and a quantity of time slots required for each user (Li, see paragraph 0172, a service 1 occupies a 5G bandwidth, a slot 1 of PHY1 is allocated to the service 1, a service 2 occupies a 25G bandwidth, a slot 2 to a slot 5 and a slot 19 of PHY1 are allocated to the service 2, a service 3 occupies a 10G bandwidth, and a slot 1 and a slot 20 of PHY2 are allocated to the service 3. Li allocates slots of the FlexE group to each service based on the required demands);
step S3: allocating time slots for the users according to the current network state and the user demand (Li, see paragraphs 0170-0171, The FlexE client corresponds to one block sequence obtained by encoding a service in a specific encoding (for example, 64B/66B encoding) format. At least one of a plurality of slots included in the FlexE group may be allocated to (occupied by) each FlexE client. For example, refer to FIG. 4 . In FIG. 4 , using an example in which a FlexE group includes a 100GE PHY1 link and a 100GE PHY2 link, the FlexE group has a total of 40 slots, and each slot corresponds to a 5G bandwidth. PHY1 corresponds to 20 slots in the 40 slots, and PHY2 corresponds to the other 20 slots), wherein the users have two selective time slot allocation schemes as follows:
scheme a) jitter minimization based time slot allocation, comprising allocating the time slots based only on an objective of global minimization of jitter of time slot allocated to all the users, without requiring a delay of the allocated time slots (Li, see paragraph 0227, When generating a block sequence based on a service, the first communication apparatus 100 may perform rate adaptation on the service at a fine granularity (less than a length of one idle block), to decrease the delays and jitters for processing the service by the first communication apparatus 100 and the second communication apparatus 200, and improve performance of the first communication apparatus 100 and the second communication apparatus 200. The claim does not specify about the detailed method of implementing the jitter minimization based time slot allocation but merely proposes that the allocation of the time slots based only on an objective of global minimization of jitter of time slot allocated to all the users. This does not add any inventive weight more than just considering jitter minimization in time slot allocation for users), and
scheme b) weighted sum of delay and jitter minimization based time slot allocation for each user in a sequence of the quantity of time slots required for the users from large to small, when most user input data in the current time slot allocation period are transmitted in the current time slot allocation period (Li, see paragraph 0227, When generating a block sequence based on a service, the first communication apparatus 100 may perform rate adaptation on the service at a fine granularity (less than a length of one idle block), to decrease the delays and jitters for processing the service by the first communication apparatus 100 and the second communication apparatus 200, and improve performance of the first communication apparatus 100 and the second communication apparatus 200. The claim does not specify about the detailed method of implementing the jitter minimization based time slot allocation but merely proposes that the allocation of the time slots based only on an objective of global minimization of jitter of time slot allocated to all the users. This does not add any inventive weight more than just considering jitter minimization in time slot allocation for users); and
step S4: performing time slot configuration by the FlexE according to a time slot allocation result of the user (Li, see paragraph 0173, when sending a service to a receiving end (for example, the communication apparatus 2 shown in FIG. 4 ), a sending end (for example, the communication apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 4 ) first encodes the service into a block sequence (corresponding to a FlexE client), and then maps, for transmission, the block sequence to a slot that is in a FlexE group and that is allocated to the FlexE client).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHONG G KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-0619. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri @ 9am - 5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas R. Taylor can be reached at 571-272-3889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHONG G KIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2443
/NICHOLAS R TAYLOR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2443