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 12/14/2023 and 01/26/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7, 9, and 18 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.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 8, 10-17, 19 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sung et al. (US Patent 10,291,541).
As per claim 1, Sung teaches a method performed by a network node for dynamic adjustment of a target Block Error Rate, (BLER), (Sung, see column 10 line 8-10, scheduler 210 may dynamically modify the “target BLER” value setting at the RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack) the method comprising:
determining whether a Physical Channel, (PCH) blocking has occurred for a plurality of consecutive Transmission Time Intervals, (TTIs) on a cell controlled by the network node, wherein the PCH blocking occurs when one or more Wireless Communication Devices, (WCDs) served by the cell cannot be scheduled for transmission in the cell due to unavailability of PCH resources in one or more consecutive TTIs; (Sung, see column 9 line 39-47, At step 304, a number of packets in the packet buffer when the discard packet timer expires is determined. For example, when the discard packet timer is “stopped” or expires, the residual data packets remaining in the packet buffer 248, 252, e.g., the data packets not transferred from the packet buffer 248, 252 to transmitter 254 while the discard packet timer is running, are discarded. A number of the discarded data packets can be periodically or inclemently counted by, for example, a discarded packet counter. Note: Column 7 line 35 mentions LTE which uses consecutive TTIs) and
adjusting a target BLER for link adaptation for a plurality of WCDs served by the cell based on whether PCH blocking has occurred for the plurality of consecutive TTIs on the cell to obtain a modified target BLER for link adaptation for the plurality of WCDs served by the cell (Sung, see column 9 line 56-65, At step 308, the aggregated queuing delay may be compared to the target Block Error Rate (BLER). For example, if a level of data transmission error (e.g., noise, interference, and/or fading) in system 200 is determined to be, for example, “low” by active link controller 250, scheduler 210 may implement a higher “target BLER” value setting. Scheduler 210 may use the higher “target BLER” value to change, for example, a minimum HARQ/ARQ re-transmission count for packet buffer 248, 252 at an RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack (Note: the target BLER is adjusted here)).
As per claim 8, Sung teaches the method of claim1 wherein the modified target BLER is less than or equal to a maximum BLER and greater than or equal to a minimum BLER (Sung, see column 9 line 66-67 and 10 line 1-9, “target BLER” value may be modified when the aggregated queuing delay and the number of data packets exceed a target threshold. For example, an initial “target BLER” value setting may be configured for packet buffer 248, 252 at an RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack. In an exemplary embodiment, when a number of residual data packets “counted” at packet buffer 248, 252 by the discard packet counter, as determined at step 304, exceed a count threshold and the aggregated queuing delay, determined at step 306, exceeds a delay threshold).
As per claim 10, Sung teaches the method of claim 1 wherein adjusting the target BLER used for link adaptation for the plurality of ECDs served by the cell comprises adjusting the target BLER every TTI pf the plurality of TTIs (Sung, see column 9 line 56-65, At step 308, the aggregated queuing delay may be compared to the target Block Error Rate (BLER). For example, if a level of data transmission error (e.g., noise, interference, and/or fading) in system 200 is determined to be, for example, “low” by active link controller 250, scheduler 210 may implement a higher “target BLER” value setting. Scheduler 210 may use the higher “target BLER” value to change, for example, a minimum HARQ/ARQ re-transmission count for packet buffer 248, 252 at an RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack (Note: the target BLER is adjusted here)).
As per claim 11, Sung teaches the method of claim 1 wherein the method further comprises performing based at least in part on the modified target BLEM link adaptation for the PCH transmission on the cell to a particular WCD of the plurality of WCDs served by the cell (Sung, see column 9 line 56-65, At step 308, the aggregated queuing delay may be compared to the target Block Error Rate (BLER). For example, if a level of data transmission error (e.g., noise, interference, and/or fading) in system 200 is determined to be, for example, “low” by active link controller 250, scheduler 210 may implement a higher “target BLER” value setting. Scheduler 210 may use the higher “target BLER” value to change, for example, a minimum HARQ/ARQ re-transmission count for packet buffer 248, 252 at an RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack (Note: the target BLER is adjusted here)).
As per claim 12, Sung teaches the method of claim 11, wherein performing the link adaptation for the PCH transmission on the cell to the particular WCD comprises: adjusting at least one of a modulation or coding scheme or a transmission power of the PCH transmission on the cell to the particular WCD based on the modified target BLER (Sung, see column 8 line 58-65, Aggregating the queuing delay associated with a buffer delay and using a “counted” number of discarded packets to modify and/or adjust a “target BLER” value, e.g., queuing delay-based active link quality control, improves a perceived end-user performance in terms of system responsiveness without sacrificing throughput).
As per claim 13, Sung teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the PCH blocking is either a Physical Uplink Shared Channel, (PUSCH)blocking, a Physical Downlink Control Channel, (PDCCH) blocking, or a Physical Downlink Shared Channel, (PDSCH) blocking (Sung, see column 4 line 7-14, A logical channel typically describes different flows of information, such as bearer data and/or signaling information, and can be organized differently for uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) portions of a communication)
As per claim 14, Sung teaches the method of claim 1 wherein adjusting the BLER for the link adaptation for the plurality of WCDs further comprises modifying one or more parameters associated with link adaptation for the cell controlled by the network node. (Sung, see column 9 line 56-65, At step 308, the aggregated queuing delay may be compared to the target Block Error Rate (BLER). For example, if a level of data transmission error (e.g., noise, interference, and/or fading) in system 200 is determined to be, for example, “low” by active link controller 250, scheduler 210 may implement a higher “target BLER” value setting. Scheduler 210 may use the higher “target BLER” value to change, for example, a minimum HARQ/ARQ re-transmission count for packet buffer 248, 252 at an RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack (Note: the target BLER is adjusted here)).
As per claim 15, Sung teaches the method of claim 14, wherein the one or more parameters comprise one or more input parameters, comprising: a Channel Quality Indicator (CQI); and, a Rank Indicator (RI) (Sung, see column 7 line 66 to column 8 line 4, can select an MCS based on Channel Quality Indicators (CQIs) reported by wireless devices 220, 222, 224 and adapt the MCS to tune the measured BLER so that the “target BLER” value is reached).
As per claim 16, Sung teaches the method of claim14, wherein the one or more parameters comprise one or more internal parameters, comprising: an estimated Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR); and an estimated SNR generation function (Sung, see column 9 line 50-55, the “counted” number of discarded data packets determined at step 304 are used by active link controller 250 to determine a level, e.g., low, medium, high, of data transmission error (e.g., noise, interference, and/or fading) and/or congestion of system).
As per claim 17, Sung teaches the method of claim 14 wherein the one or more parameters comprise one or more output parameters, comprising: a decision output; and a number of Control Channel Elements (CCEs), allocated to Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), resources of the PCH resources. (Sung, see column 4 line 7-14, A logical channel typically describes different flows of information, such as bearer data and/or signaling information, and can be organized differently for uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) portions of a communication).
As per claim 19, Sung teaches a network node for dynamic adjustment of a target Block Error Rate BLER, (Sung, see column 10 line 8-10, scheduler 210 may dynamically modify the “target BLER” value setting at the RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack)the network node adapted to:
determine whether a Physical Channel(PCH), blocking has occurred for a plurality of consecutive Transmission Time Intervals(TTIs), on a cell controlled by the network node[[ 200]], wherein PCH blocking occurs when one or more Wireless Communication Devices(WCDs), served by the cell cannot be scheduled for transmission in the cell due to unavailability of PCH resources in one or more consecutive TTIs; (Sung, see column 9 line 39-47, At step 304, a number of packets in the packet buffer when the discard packet timer expires is determined. For example, when the discard packet timer is “stopped” or expires, the residual data packets remaining in the packet buffer 248, 252, e.g., the data packets not transferred from the packet buffer 248, 252 to transmitter 254 while the discard packet timer is running, are discarded. A number of the discarded data packets can be periodically or inclemently counted by, for example, a discarded packet counter. Note: Column 7 line 35 mentions LTE which uses consecutive TTIs) and
adjust a target BLER for link adaptation for a plurality of WCDs served by the cell based on whether PCH blocking has occurred for the plurality of consecutive TTIs on the cell to obtain a modified target BLER for link adaptation for the plurality of WCDs served by the cell. (Sung, see column 9 line 56-65, At step 308, the aggregated queuing delay may be compared to the target Block Error Rate (BLER). For example, if a level of data transmission error (e.g., noise, interference, and/or fading) in system 200 is determined to be, for example, “low” by active link controller 250, scheduler 210 may implement a higher “target BLER” value setting. Scheduler 210 may use the higher “target BLER” value to change, for example, a minimum HARQ/ARQ re-transmission count for packet buffer 248, 252 at an RLC sub-layer of the user-plane protocol stack (Note: the target BLER is adjusted here)).
As per claim 21,
[Rejection rational for claims 1 and 19 is applicable].
Conclusion
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/HERMON ASRES/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2449
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