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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 11, and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nokia Re-routing enhancements and RLF indications in IAB ‘Nokia’ in view of TALUKDAR US 20160212680 and Ianev US 20170374613.
Regarding claims 1, 12, 17-20, Nokia teaches a method performed by a first wireless device in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
connecting to a second wireless device;
performing a transmission related to one or more data flows to the second wireless device;
detecting a problem of a backhaul connection between the first wireless device and the second wireless device (see section 2.2).
Nokia is silent on transmitting, to a fourth wireless device, a backhaul adaptation protocol (BAP) protocol data unit (PDU) comprising a re-routing notification informing whether the first wireless device switches a routing path for at least one of the one or more data flows from the second wireless device to a third wireless device upon detecting the problem.
Given Nokia teaches detecting a problem of a backhaul connection between the first wireless device and the second wireless device, TALUKDAR makes obvious the limitation a transmitting, to a fourth wireless device / network manager, a backhaul adaptation protocol (BAP) protocol data unit (PDU) comprising a re-routing notification informing whether the first wireless device switches a routing path for at least one of the one or more data flows from the second wireless device to a third wireless device upon detecting the problem given TALUKDAR teaches an access point detects a link failure and transmits a data reroute request to a network manager ([0044]). Note, the functions of a network manager can be implemented in hardware US 7020796 col. 30 lines 22-35). Furthermore, Ianev teaches a first wireless device / default MME 9A sends a rerouting request to another device / base station wherein the rerouting request lists a group of alternative MMEs 9D for possible rerouting.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of Nokia by transmitting, to a fourth wireless device, a backhaul adaptation protocol (BAP) protocol data unit (PDU) comprising a re-routing notification informing whether the first wireless device switches a routing path for at least one of the one or more data flows from the second wireless device to a third wireless device upon detecting the problem, as suggested by the combination of TALUKDAR and Ianev. This modification would benefit the system by enabling fast rerouting in the case of link failure or congestion.
Regarding claim 2, wherein the second wireless device and the third wireless device are a parent node for the first wireless device, and wherein the fourth wireless device is a child node for the first wireless device (Nokia).
Regarding claim 3, the problem comprises at least one of:
a radio link failure (RLF) on the backhaul connection (Nokia: see section 2.2);
a transmission delay over the backhaul connection exceeding a threshold;
an amount of queued packets over the backhaul connection exceeding a threshold; or
a quality of the backhaul connection being lower than a threshold.
Regarding claim 11, the first wireless device (Nokia: fig. 1 IAB1) is in communication with at least one of a user equipment (UE), a mobile device, a network (Nokia: fig. 1 IAB2) or autonomous vehicles.
Regarding claim 12, regarding the limitation switching a routing path for one or more second data flows from the first wireless device to a fifth wireless device based on the re-routing notification informing that the first wireless device does not switch the routing path for the one or more second data flows, this limitation can be viewed as the fourth wireless device / network manager negotiating with the first wireless device on an alternative route.
Claim(s) 4, 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Nokia, TALUKDAR, and Ianev as applied to claims 1, 12 above, and further in view of Orsino US 20240292291.
The combination is silent on the BAP PDU further comprises a backhaul problem notification informing that the problem of the backhaul connection is detected.
Orsino teaches the BAP PDU further comprises a backhaul problem notification informing that the problem of the backhaul connection is detected ([0117] 1> else if the UE initiates transmission of the SCGFailureInformationNR message to provide random access problem indication from SCG MAC, [0130] 1> else if connected as an IAB-node and the SCGFailureInformationNR is initiated due to the reception of a BH RLF indication on BAP entity from the SCG).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of the combination by the BAP PDU further comprises a backhaul problem notification informing that the problem of the backhaul connection is detected, as shown by Orsino. This modification would benefit the system by providing a proven, reliable method for enabling the wireless device to inform the network of a backhaul connection problem.
Claim(s) 5, 7, 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Nokia, TALUKDAR, and Ianev as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Xi US 20120287791.
Regarding claim 5, although Nokia teaches wherein the one or more data flows comprise one or more first data flows for which routing path is switched by the first wireless device and one or more second data flows for which routing path is not switched by the first wireless device, the reference is silent on
wherein the re-routing notification informs that the first wireless device switches a routing path for the one or more first data flows.
Xi teaches wherein the re-routing notification informs that the first wireless device switches a routing path for the one or more first data flows (sending, with the controller, a re-route notification including a path identification of the selected alternative path to the source host, [0017]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of the combination by the re-routing notification informs that the first wireless device switches a routing path for the one or more first data flows, as shown by Xi. This modification would benefit the system by informing the network of the rerouting.
Regarding claim 7, given the fourth wireless device is a network manager, the limitation transmitting, to the fourth wireless device, flow information informing the one or more
first data flows for which routing path is switched by the first wireless device is obvious in view of Xi.
Regarding claim 10, the rerouting information comprises the flow information (Xi: a re-route notification including a path identification of the selected alternative path to the source host, [0117]).
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Nokia, TALUKDAR, and Ianev as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Akl US 20230130693.
Regarding claim 9, the combination is silent on the flow information is included in the BAP PDU.
Akl teaches the flow information is included in the
BAP PDU (a wireless node may receive a configuration for including extended routing information in backhaul adaptation protocol (BAP) headers, abstract).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of the combination by the flow information is included in the BAP PDU, as shown by Akl. This modification would benefit the system by providing a proven, reliable method for informing the network of the current flow.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 8, 13, 15, and 16 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 RONALD B ABELSON whose telephone number is (571)272-3165. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-4:30.
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/RONALD B ABELSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2476