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 .
This action is in response to the application filed on 05 April 2024.
Claims 1-20 are under examination.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Ohta et al. (US Publication 2019/0297530).
With respect to claims 1 and 20, Ohta teaches An apparatus for wireless communication, (transmission apparatus, figure 3) comprising:
at least one memory comprising computer-executable instructions; (memory, Figure 24) and
one or more processors configured to execute the computer-executable instructions (processor, Figure 24) and cause the apparatus to:
generate an element with information identifying a first set of one or more discarded protocol data units (PDUs) associated with a first protocol layer; (the MAC layer that is notified that the PDCP-PDU A2 is discarded not only generates the MAC CE, but also adds the MAC subheader to the MAC CE, thereby generating a MAC-subPDU C21, paragraph 77) and
output the element for transmission via a PDU associated with a second protocol layer. (the transmission apparatus 100 according to the second embodiment notifies the reception apparatus 200 of the discarding notification information that is, the discarding notification information that possibly specifies the discarded data indicating that the data is discarded, Paragraph 76. as the discarding notification information, a MAC control element (CE) is used, paragraph 77)
With respect to claims 2 and 13, Ohta teaches wherein at least one of: the first protocol layer comprises a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer; or the second protocol layer comprises a medium access control (MAC) layer. (first layer PDCP and second layer MAC layer, paragraph 77)
With respect to claims 3 and 14, Ohta teaches wherein the information identifies one or more sequence numbers (SNs) of the first set of one or more discarded PDUs. (The initial sequence number in the RLC layer, of sequence numbers of multiple pieces of discarded data is set to be in the FMS that is illustrated in FIG. 5A. Furthermore, the last sequence number in the RLC layer, of the sequence numbers of the multiple pieces of discarded data is set to be in the LMS. For example, in FIG. 6, as an example, because pieces of data having sequence numbers 2 and 3 in the RLC layer are discarded, 2 (which, when expressed in a 2-octet format, is 0000000000000010) is set to be in the FMS in this case, and 3 (which, when expressed in a 2-octet format, is 0000000000000011) is set to be in the LMS, paragraph 83)
With respect to claims 4 and 15, Ohta teaches wherein the information comprises a list or a bitmap that identifies one or more sequence numbers (SNs) of the first set of one or more discarded PDUs. (the discarding or non-discarding of data that corresponds to each sequence number in the RLC layer is specified. At this point, for example, “0” can be set for a bit that corresponds to the sequence number of the data that is discarded, and “1” can be set for a bit that corresponds to the sequence number of the data that is not discarded. As an example, in FIG. 4, because pieces of data having sequence numbers 2 and 4 in the RLC layer are discarded, “1010” is set to be in first four bits in the bitmap in this case (the discarding or non-discarding of pieces of data having sequence numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 is indicated starting from the most significant bit in the bitmap). With the discarding notification information that is illustrated in FIG. 9, the discarding of non-contiguous (randomly-distributed) pieces of data can be efficiently dealt with, paragraph 103)
With respect to claim 5 and 18, Ohta teaches wherein the element comprises a MAC control element (CE). (as the discarding notification information, a MAC control element (CE) is used, paragraph 77)
With respect to claim 6, Ohta teaches wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to, after outputting the MAC CE, output one or more PDUs with one or more SNs higher than one or more SNs of the one or more discarded PDUs. (MAC CE C41 that corresponds to the discarding notification information is added in the front, and that the MAC-subPDU C41 is concatenated to C41, C1, C3, C4 in this order. Accordingly, the reception apparatus 200 according to the fourth embodiment can initially receive the MAC CE C41 that corresponds to the discarding notification information, and because of this, it is possible that the reception apparatus 200 performs subsequent reordering processing without latency, paragraph 104)
With respect to claims 7 and 19, Ohta teaches wherein the MAC CE includes a type field indicating the MAC CE conveys information that identifies one or more SNs of the one or more discarded PDUs. (a 5-bit LCID is set for the MAC subheader. The LCID, as described above, denotes an identifier of the logical channel to which data normally belongs, and a value that is stipulated in advance for every type of MAC CE is set for the LCID in a MAC-header that is added to the MAC CE. For example, in the 4G system as of the present application filing data, LCIDs for the MAC CE, 11000 to 11110 had been already used, and 01011 to 10111 had been reserved values. Therefore, as an example, a maximum value among the reserved values can be employed for the MAC CE that is the discarding notification information, paragraph 78)
With respect to claims 8, Ohta teaches wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to output a second set of one or more PDCP PDUs with or after outputting the MAC CE. (When generating a MAC-subPDU C21 that is based on the MAC CE which is the discarding notification information, the MAC layer of the transmission apparatus 100, as illustrated in FIG. 4, concatenates this to any other MAC-subPDUs C1, C3, and C4, and generates one MAC-PDU D21. In this concatenation, in FIG. 4, as an example, the MAC-subPDU is concatenated to C1, C21, C3, C4 in this order. However, this is only an example, and for example, it is also possible that the MAC CE C21 that corresponds to the discarding notification information is added in the front and that the MAC-subPDU is concatenated to C21, C1, C3, C4 in this order, paragraph 85)
With respect to claim 9, Ohta teaches wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to output signaling indicating use of the element to indicate discarded PDUs is activated, when one or more conditions are met. (This discarding is performed after a prescribed timer expires in the PDCP layer, and this is performed for the purpose of control of retention time, paragraph 55)
With respect to claim 10, Ohta teaches wherein the one or more conditions involve at least one of: detection of discarded PDUs; traffic congestion; or a quality of service (QoS) policy. (This discarding is performed after a prescribed timer expires in the PDCP layer, and this is performed for the purpose of control of retention time, paragraph 55)
With respect to claim 11, Ohta teaches further comprising at least one transceiver configured to transmit the element, wherein the apparatus is configured as a user equipment (UE) or a network entity. (the transmission apparatus 100 receives the level as information on a UE capability over a PUCCH from the reception apparatus 200, paragraph 183)
With respect to claim 12, Ohta teaches an apparatus for wireless communication, (reception apparatus, figure 3) comprising:
at least one memory comprising computer-executable instructions; (memory, Figure 24) and
one or more processors configured to execute the computer-executable instructions (processor, Figure 24) and cause the apparatus to:
obtain an element, via a protocol data unit (PDU) associated with a second protocol layer, with information identifying a first set of one or more discarded protocol data units (PDUs) associated with a first protocol layer; (the MAC layer that is notified that the PDCP-PDU A2 is discarded not only generates the MAC CE, but also adds the MAC subheader to the MAC CE, thereby generating a MAC-subPDU C21, paragraph 77)
obtain a second set of one or more PDUs associated the first protocol layer; and process the second set of PDUs by using the information obtained in the element. (the transmission apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment transmits the discarding notification information that notifies the discarding of the specific data, to the reception apparatus 200 (S104). At this time, the discarding notification information may be transmitted to the reception apparatus 200 using an in-band (using a data bear). In contrast to this, based on the discarding notification information, the reception apparatus 200 according to the first embodiment causes the multiple pieces of data, which are targets for the reordering processing, not to include the specific data (S105). That is, the reception apparatus 200 skips the reordering processing on the specific data, paragraph 70)
With respect to claim 16, Ohta teaches wherein the second set of PDUs have one or more sequence numbers (SNs) higher than one or more SNs of the discarded PDUs. (MAC CE C41 that corresponds to the discarding notification information is added in the front, and that the MAC-subPDU C41 is concatenated to C41, C1, C3, C4 in this order. Accordingly, the reception apparatus 200 according to the fourth embodiment can initially receive the MAC CE C41 that corresponds to the discarding notification information, and because of this, it is possible that the reception apparatus 200 performs subsequent reordering processing without latency, paragraph 104)
With respect to claim 17, Ohta teaches wherein in order to process the second set of PDUs of the first protocol layer based on the information obtained in the element, the one or more processors are further configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the apparatus to: deliver the second set of PDUs to a third protocol layer independent of a reordering timer; and update a window based on the one or more SNs of the second set of PDUs. (On the other hand, with the discarding notification information, the discarding of the data in the transmission apparatus 100 can be recognized in the reception apparatus 200. For this reason, the reception apparatus 200 can cause the targets for the reordering not to include the data that is discarded in the transmission apparatus 100, and thus, it is possible that the occurrence of the useless reordering is avoided, paragraph 71)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Wang et al. (US Publication 2025/0184816) discloses The receive end updates a value of a first variable maintained by an entity at the receive end to be greater than the maximum serial number, where the first variable may indicate that a data unit whose serial number is greater than or equal to the value of the first variable is to be processed by the entity at the receive end; or updates a value of a first variable maintained by an entity at the receive end to be equal to the maximum serial number, where the first variable may indicate that a data unit whose serial number is greater than the value of the first variable is to be processed by the entity at the receive end.
Uchino et al. (US Publication 2024/0430741) discloses the DU obtains from the CU assistance information indicating an unreceived PDCP SDU at a UE or the CU, and sends downlink data or an uplink grant to the UE based on the assistance information. The CU may deliver the downlink data to the DU prior to sending the assistance information or obtain uplink data from the DU after sending the assistance information. Duplication of PDCP SDU transmissions and unnecessarily extended scheduling delays may thus be minimized.
Any inquiry concerning this communication from the examiner should be directed to ABDULLAHI AHMED whose telephone number is (571) 270-3652. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00AM-4:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Khalid Kassim can be reached on 571-270-3370. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ABDULLAHI AHMED/Examiner Art Unit 2475