DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims:
Claims 1, 3, 5 – 8, 14 – 16, 18, and 21 – 26 are pending.
Claims 2, 4, 9 – 13, 17, and 19 – 20 are canceled.
Claims 1, 3, and 21 are amended.
Claims 23 – 26 are new.
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) was submitted on 08/26/2026. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 5 – 8, 14 – 16, 18, and 21 – 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as anticipated by Zhu (US 12160377).
As per claim 1, a wireless communication method for use in a master node, the wireless communication method comprising:
transmitting, to a wireless terminal, a message comprising quality of experience (QoE) information associated with at least one QoE report visible to at least one wireless network node (At 325, base station 105-a may transmit, to UE 115-a, a request for one or more MDT measurements to be reported by UE 115-a in accordance with (e.g., according to) the first MDT trace request, See Col. 21, Lines 26 - 33),
wherein the QoE information comprises QoE report resource information comprising a radio bearer resource located at a secondary node connected to the wireless terminal (The request for MDT measurements may include measurement configuration information associated with base station 105-a and measurement configuration information associated with base station 105-b (secondary node), See Col. 21, Lines 26 - 33),
wherein the QoE information further comprises QoE configuration information of the at least one QoE report, the QoE configuration information comprising at least one measurement triggering configuration of the at least one QoE report (The measurement configuration information may include information related to the RAT associated with the MN and/or the SN. In some cases, the measurement configuration information may include one or more fields indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE for performing the MDT measurements, and/or indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE or by a base station for transmitting the resulting report(s) … the MDT measurements may include various QoS or quality of experience (QoE) measurements, See Col. 21, Lines 34 - 56).
As per claim 3, the wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the QoE configuration information further comprises at least one services type associated with the at least one QoE report (The MDT measurements may include various QoS or quality of experience (QoE) measurements. For example, the MDT measurements may include UE statistics on a per quality of service class identifier (QCI) basis, which may include: throughput as measured by a base station 105 at a MAC upper service access point (SAP), packet loss as measured by a base station 105 at a PDCP upper SAP, uplink and/or downlink data volume measured by a base station 105 at a PDCP upper SAP, downlink delay measured by a base station 105 at PDCP upper SAP, uplink delay measured by the UE 115 at PDCP, See Col. 21, Lines 46 - 56).
As per claim 5, the wireless communication method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from a core network or an operations, administration and maintenance (OAM) function, at least one of a QoE allowed indication or a transparent QoE container configured by the core network or the OAM function for the wireless terminal (The MDT measurements may include RAN measurements, which may be transparent to the UE, See Claim 21, Lines 61 - 64).
As per claim 6, the wireless communication method of claim 5, further comprising: allocating QoE resource information comprising a radio bearer resource for the at least one QoE report, wherein the QoE information comprises the radio bearer resource for the at least one QoE report (The measurement configuration information may include information related to the RAT associated with the MN and/or the SN. In some cases, the measurement configuration information may include one or more fields indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE for performing the MDT measurements, and/or indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE or by a base station for transmitting the resulting report(s), See Col. 21, Lines 34 - 45).
As per claim 7, the wireless communication method of claim 5, further comprising: transmitting, to a secondary node connected to the wireless terminal, a QoE resource request for the at least one QoE report, and receiving, from the secondary node, QoE resource information comprising a radio bearer resource which locates at the secondary node for the at least one QoE report, wherein the QoE information comprises the QoE resource information (At 315, base station 105-b may transmit a second MDT trace request to base station 105-b. In some cases, the second MDT trace request may be transmitted as a separate trace start request. In some cases, the second MDT trace request may be included in an SN addition request, an SN modification request, or a handover request, See Col. 21, Lines 14 - 21).
As per claim 8, the wireless communication method of claim 5, further comprising: transmitting, to a secondary node connected to the wireless terminal, a QoE activation indication, and receiving, from the secondary node, QoE configuration information comprised in the QoE information (Entering the RRC connected mode (e.g., including RRC setup/resume complete) may include transmitting an indication, to base station 105-a, that an MDT log is available for base station 105-a (e.g., a report including information indicative of the measurements associated with base station 105-a), base station 105-b (e.g., a report including information indicative of the measurements associated with 105-b), or both, See Col. 22, Line 64 – Col. 23, Line 8).
As per claim 14, the wireless communication method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the wireless terminal, the at least one QoE report (At 345, UE 115-a may transmit a report to base station 105-a. The report may include information indicative of the first portion of measurements, information indicative of the second portion of measurements, or both. The UE 115-a may transmit the report via RRC signaling and/or using X2/Xn messages, for example, See Col. 23, Lines 9 - 14).
As per claim 15, the wireless communication method of claim 14, further comprising: transmitting, to a secondary node connected to the wireless terminal, the at least one QoE report (At 450, UE 115-b may transmit a report to base station 105-d. The report may include information indicative of the second portion of measurements. The UE 115-b may transmit the report via RRC signaling and/or using X2/Xn messages, for example. In some cases, the report may be transmitted using an RRC container in an uplink RRC transfer, Col. 25, Lines 49 – 55).
As per claim 16, the wireless communication method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from a secondary node connected to the wireless terminal, the at least one QoE report (In some cases, the SN (base station 105-d) may transmit the information indicative of the second portion of measurements to the MN (base station 105-c), and the MN may combine or correlate the information indicative of the second portion of measurements (e.g., received from the SN) with the information indicative of the first portion of measurements, then transmit a combined report to the network entity, Col. 25, Lines 59 – 67).
As per claim 18, a master node, comprising at least one processor and a storage unit, wherein the at least one processor is configured to read a program code from the storage unit and perform: the wireless communication method of claim 1 (See rejection for claim 1).
As per claim 21, a wireless communication method for use in a wireless terminal, the wireless communication method comprising:
receiving, from a master node, a message comprising quality of experience (QoE) information associated with at least one QoE report visible to at least one wireless network node (At 325, base station 105-a may transmit, to UE 115-a, a request for one or more MDT measurements to be reported by UE 115-a in accordance with (e.g., according to) the first MDT trace request, See Col. 21, Lines 26 - 33),
wherein the QoE information comprises QoE report resource information comprising a radio bearer resource located at a secondary node connected to the wireless terminal (The request for MDT measurements may include measurement configuration information associated with base station 105-a and measurement configuration information associated with base station 105-b (secondary node), See Col. 21, Lines 26 - 33),
wherein the QoE information further comprises QoE configuration information of the at least one QoE report, the QoE configuration information comprising at least one measurement triggering configuration of the at least one QoE report (The measurement configuration information may include information related to the RAT associated with the MN and/or the SN. In some cases, the measurement configuration information may include one or more fields indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE for performing the MDT measurements, and/or indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE or by a base station for transmitting the resulting report(s) … the MDT measurements may include various QoS or quality of experience (QoE) measurements, See Col. 21, Lines 34 - 56).
As per claim 22, a wireless terminal, comprising at least one processor and a storage unit, wherein the at least one processor is configured to read a program code from the storage unit and perform the wireless communication method of claim 21 (See rejection for claim 21).
As per claim 23, the wireless communication method of claim 21, further comprising: performing a QoE measurement based on the QoE configuration information (The measurement configuration information may include information related to the RAT associated with the MN and/or the SN. In some cases, the measurement configuration information may include one or more fields indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE for performing the MDT measurements, and/or indicating one or more RATs that may be used by the UE or by a base station for transmitting the resulting report(s) … the MDT measurements may include various QoS or quality of experience (QoE) measurements, See Col. 21, Lines 34 - 56).
As per claim 24, the wireless communication method of claim 21, further comprising: sending, to a secondary node, based on the radio bearer resource located at the secondary node within the QoE report resource information, the at least one QoE report (At 315, base station 105-b may transmit a second MDT trace request to base station 105-b. In some cases, the second MDT trace request may be transmitted as a separate trace start request. In some cases, the second MDT trace request may be included in an SN addition request, an SN modification request, or a handover request, See Col. 21, Lines 14 - 21).
As per claim 25, the wireless communication method of claim 21, wherein the at least one QoE report is used by the secondary node for performing an optimization operation (Some networks rely on minimization of drive tests (MDTs) to evaluate and optimize network performance. A UE may perform an MDT by performing various MDT measurements associated with a base station, for example. MDT measurements may include quality of service measurements, such as throughput and latency, or other types of measurements, See Col. 7, Lines 55 - 61).
As per claim 16, the wireless communication method of claim 21, wherein the at least one QoE report is forwarded to a master node via the secondary node (In some cases, the SN (base station 105-d) may transmit the information indicative of the second portion of measurements to the MN (base station 105-c), and the MN may combine or correlate the information indicative of the second portion of measurements (e.g., received from the SN) with the information indicative of the first portion of measurements, then transmit a combined report to the network entity, Col. 25, Lines 59 – 67).
Conclusion
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/NAZIA NAOREEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458
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