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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 21, 22, 27, 30-32, 37 and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. (US Pub. 2020/0359244) in view of Han et al. (US Pub. 2019/0246310).
Regarding claims 21 and 31, Yao teaches an apparatus to be used in a base station, the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry, wherein to configure the base station for 5G-New Radio (NR) delay monitoring and reporting in a 5G-NR network, the processing circuitry is to: encode a first data frame for transmission from a centralized unit (CU)-user plane (UP) of the base station to a distributed unit (DU) of the base station (“sending the same packet to gNB-DU at the GTP ingress termination” in [0123], see also “GTP packet delay DL on the F1-U interface” in [0121] and F1-U interface between CU-UP and DU in Figure 4); encode a second data frame for transmission from the DU to the CU-UP of the base station (“receiving a GTP packet delivery status message from the gNB-DU at the egress GTP termination” in [0123]), the second data frame including a feedback delay measured at the DU, the feedback delay indicating time between reception of the first data frame by the DU and transmission of the second data frame by the DU (“feedback delay time in gNB-DU” in [0123]); and determine a downlink delay associated with an F1-U interface between the DU and the CU-UP of the base station based on the feedback delay (“calculating the DL delay on F1-U for a GTP packet by: the time when receiving a GTP packet delivery status message from the gNB-DU at the egress GTP termination, minus time when sending the same packet to gNB-DU at the GTP ingress termination, minus feedback delay time in gNB-DU, obtained result is divided by two” in [0123], see also “GTP packet delay DL on the F1-U interface” in [0121]); and a memory coupled to the processing circuitry and configured to store the downlink delay (“the memory is configured to store the packet delay distribution” in claim 1). Yao, however, does not teach the first data frame including an indicator with a request for a delivery status of the first data frame and encoding the second data frame in response to the request for the delivery status of the first data frame. Han teaches the first data frame including an indicator with a request for a delivery status of the first data frame and encoding the second data frame in response to the request for the delivery status of the first data frame (see “Report Delivered1” in DL USER DATA (PDU Type 0) frame in [0041] and “The Report Delivered1 parameter may indicate that the node hosting the NR PDCP entity requests providing the DL delivery status report when the NR PDCP PDU carried together with the DL User Data frame has been successfully delivered or transmitted” in [0042]). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yao to have the first data frame including an indicator with a request for a delivery status of the first data frame and encoding the second data frame in response to the request for the delivery status of the first data frame as taught by Han in order to use the user plane to trigger DDDS feedback [0040].
Regarding claims 22 and 32, Yao teaches the processing circuitry is configured to: encode the first data frame as a Downlink User Data frame (“DL USER DATA (PDU Type 0) frame” in [0041]); and encode the second data frame as a Downlink Data Delivery Status frame (see “DDDS feedback” in [0040] and “DL delivery status report” in [0042]).
Regarding claims 27 and 37, Yao teaches the processing circuitry is configured to: perform QoS reporting associated with a QoS flow between a user equipment (UE) and a User Plane Function (UPF) of the 5G-NR network, the QoS reporting including the downlink or uplink delay (“Monitoring of Round-Trip Delay Between PSA UPF and UE” in [0439]).
Regarding claim 30, Han teaches transceiver circuitry coupled to the processing circuitry (see “network interface device 220” in Figure 2); and one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry (“the network interface device 220 may include one or more physical jacks (e.g., Ethernet, coaxial, or phone jacks) or one or more antennas” in [0023]).
Regarding claim 39, Yao teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a base station, the instructions to configure the base station for 5G-New Radio (NR) delay monitoring and reporting in a 5G-NR network, and to cause the base station to perform operations comprising: encoding a first data frame for transmission from a centralized unit (CU)-user plane (UP) of the base station to a distributed unit (DU) of the base station (“sending the same packet to gNB-DU at the GTP ingress termination” in [0123], see also “GTP packet delay DL on the F1-U interface” in [0121] and F1-U interface between CU-UP and DU in Figure 4); encoding a second data frame for transmission from the DU to the CU-UP of the base station (“receiving a GTP packet delivery status message from the gNB-DU at the egress GTP termination” in [0123]), the second data frame including a feedback delay measured at the DU, the feedback delay indicating time between reception of the first data frame by the DU and transmission of the second data frame by the DU (“feedback delay time in gNB-DU” in [0123]); and determining a downlink delay associated with an F1-U interface between the DU and the CU-UP of the base station based on the feedback delay (“calculating the DL delay on F1-U for a GTP packet by: the time when receiving a GTP packet delivery status message from the gNB-DU at the egress GTP termination, minus time when sending the same packet to gNB-DU at the GTP ingress termination, minus feedback delay time in gNB-DU, obtained result is divided by two” in [0123], see also “GTP packet delay DL on the F1-U interface” in [0121]). Yao, however, does not teach the first data frame including an indicator with a request for a delivery status of the first data frame and encoding the second data frame in response to the request for the delivery status of the first data frame wherein the first data frame is a Downlink User Data frame and the second data frame is a Downlink Data Delivery Status frame. Han teaches the first data frame including an indicator with a request for a delivery status of the first data frame and encoding the second data frame in response to the request for the delivery status of the first data frame (see “Report Delivered1” in DL USER DATA (PDU Type 0) frame in [0041] and “The Report Delivered1 parameter may indicate that the node hosting the NR PDCP entity requests providing the DL delivery status report when the NR PDCP PDU carried together with the DL User Data frame has been successfully delivered or transmitted” in [0042]) wherein the first data frame is a Downlink User Data frame (“DL USER DATA (PDU Type 0) frame” in [0041]) and the second data frame is a Downlink Data Delivery Status frame (see “DDDS feedback” in [0040] and “DL delivery status report” in [0042]). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yao to have the first data frame including an indicator with a request for a delivery status of the first data frame and encoding the second data frame in response to the request for the delivery status of the first data frame wherein the first data frame is a Downlink User Data frame and the second data frame is a Downlink Data Delivery Status frame as taught by Han in order to use the user plane to trigger DDDS feedback [0040].
Claims 23, 24, 33, 34 and 40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. in view of Han et al. further in view of Han et al. (US Pub. 2019/0150224, hereinafter Han224).
Regarding claims 23, 33 and 40, Yao in view of Han teaches the limitations in claims 22, 32 and 39 as shown above. Han also teaches a Report Polling Flag in the Downlink User Data frame (see “Report Polling” in DL USER DATA (PDU Type 0) frame in [0041]). Yao in view of Han, however, does not teach the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the indicator based on setting a Report Polling Flag in the Downlink User Data frame, the Report Polling Flag requesting communication of the Downlink Data Delivery Status frame. Han224 teaches the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the indicator based on setting a Report Polling Flag in the Downlink User Data frame, the Report Polling Flag requesting communication of the Downlink Data Delivery Status frame (“The receiving node may send the DDDS message if the Report Polling Flag is set” in [0124]). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yao in view of Han to have the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the indicator based on setting a Report Polling Flag in the Downlink User Data frame, the Report Polling Flag requesting communication of the Downlink Data Delivery Status frame as taught by Han224 in order to send the DDDS message [0124].
Regarding claims 24 and 34, Yao teaches the processing circuitry is configured to: initiate measurement of the feedback delay at the DU, based on the second data frame from the DU to the CU-UP (“calculating the DL delay on F1-U for a GTP packet by: the time when receiving a GTP packet delivery status message from the gNB-DU at the egress GTP termination” in [0123]); Han teaches the second data frame as a Downlink Data Delivery Status frame (see “DDDS feedback” in [0040] and “DL delivery status report” in [0042]) and Han224 teaches transmitting the Downlink Data Delivery Status frame when the Report Polling Flag is set (“The receiving node may send the DDDS message if the Report Polling Flag is set” in [0124]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 25, 26, 28, 29, 35, 36 and 38 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 CLEMENCE S HAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3158. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM EST.
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/CLEMENCE S HAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2414