DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The instant First Office Action on the merits is in response to claims filed on 2/20/2026.
Claims 1-9 are pending. Claim 1 is the base independent claim.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/29/2023 was filed before the mailing of a first Office action on the merits. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97(b). Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copies of papers required under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) have been filed.
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.
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 1, 4-5 and 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamamoto (US 2025/0184110) in view of Shapira et al (US 2023/0163869).
Regarding claim 1, Yamamoto a communication system with enhanced user datagram protocol support for precision time protocol (PTP) (par 39; the synchronization plane is a protocol for establishing time synchronization and a precision time protocol), the communication system comprising:
a base station configured to provide communication services for user equipment (UE) located within a cell (fig. 1 & par 32-38; e.g. a communication system 1000 includes a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), and a radio terminal), the base station including, a network service orchestrator (NSO) (par 37; e.g. Service management and orchestration (SMO)),
a PTP pod in communication with the NSO to receive the PTP service instructions (par 72, par 87, par 92; e.g. instruction form the communication management device SMO); and at least one distributed unit (DU) pod in communication with the PTP pod (fig. 13 & par 117; e.g. each of the respective O-DUs corresponds to the PTP node), the PTP pod configured to provide timing configuration information to the at least one DU pod (fig. 16 & par 123; e.g. the O-DU1 selects the time source PRTC1, and the O-DU2 selects the time source PRTC2; also par 115).
Although the reference discloses PTP service instructions in the communication system, the reference dose not explicitly disclose:
automatically deploy a PTP daemon.
However, it is obvious in view of Shapira because Shapira discloses:
In par 94, the PTP daemon to control the internal controller; also par 81; a program runs as a background process, hence the PTP daemon is automatically deployed.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching configured for the electronic system of Shapira with the electronic system of Yamamoto. One is motivated as such to perform tasks at boot time (Shapira, par 81).
Regarding claim 4, Yamamoto discloses:
a PTP management client (PMC) interface used to provide communications between the PTP POD and the at least one DU pod (par 117; e.g. the PTP procedure is executed in an interface coupling the master port M and the slave port S).
Regarding claim 5, Shapira discloses:
wherein the PMC interface is a Unix domain socket (par 110; e.g. open a socket for management packets on the time provider’s associated port, hence it could be a Unix domain socket obviously).
Regarding claim 7, Yamamoto discloses:
a plurality of nodes serving a client, at least one of the plurality of nodes including the PTP pod and the at least one DU pod (par 72; e.g. PTP nodes).
Regarding claim 8, Yamamoto discloses:
wherein one of the plurality of nodes is control node with a boundary clock master (par 73; boundary clocks and grandmaster; also see par 91).
Regarding claim 9, Yamamoto discloses:
wherein each node of the plurality of nodes selectively enables a PTP boundary clock slave role (par 73; time slave clock; also see par 91).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3 and 6 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YAOTANG WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-4023. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-18:00 ET (M, W, TH & alternate F).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, HADI ARMOUCHE can be reached at 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YAOTANG WANG/SCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409