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 Objections
Claims 1-20, 23, 33 and 37 are objected to because of the following informalities: All the independent claims cite the phrase “the method comprising or initiating the steps of…” This can cause confusion and is not considered a proper transitional phrase (MPEP 2111.03). Appropriate correction is required.
Because the term “comprising” would in its nature include “initiating,” the examiner interprets the claim as “comprising the steps of” and recommends amending to delete the “initiating” phrase.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 5-7, 9-10, 12-20, 23, 33, 37 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Yao et al. (2024/0,121,658).
For claims 1, 3, 33, Yao teaches a method (abstract) of forwarding (col. 14, lines 5-45) an application data unit (ADU) (col. 3, line 25 – col. 8, line 40; PDU equivalence) within a telecommunications system comprising a radio access network (RAN) (col. 13, lines 50-65; sometimes called “(R)AN”) for transmission to an end terminal through the RAN (col. 8, line 50 – col. 9, line 30), wherein the transmission of the ADU to the end terminal is subject to a quality of service (QoS) requirement (col. 3, lines 15-45; col. 18, lines 5-25), the method comprising or initiating (background, summary and claims) the steps of:
Receiving at least one internet protocol (IP) packet (col. 9, lines 40-65; IP packets) comprising at least one information unit of the ADU (col. 19, lines 20-65), wherein the at least one IP packet further comprises a first information element indicative of a packaging of information units of the ADU into IP packets (col. 13, line 50 – col. 14, line 10; info re missing, i.e. sequence numbers);
Reading the first information element of the received at least one IP packet (col. 17, lines 20-35);
Generating at least one extended IP packet comprising a second information element indicative of the QoS requirement of the at least one extended IP packet based on the first information element, wherein the at least one extended IP packet further comprises the received at least one IP packet (col. 37, lines 15-55); and
Forwarding the at least one extended IP packet to the RAN (col. 14, lines 5-45).
For claim 3, Yao teaches that at least one information unit and/or a payload of the received at least one IP packet is encrypted (col. 9, lines 40-65; encrypt packets).
For claim 5, Yao teaches receiving a message indicative of a presence of the first information element in relation to the at least one IP packet (col. 15, lines 40-60).
For claim 6, Yao teaches that the received message is indicative of a location of the first information element within the received at least one IP packet (col. 15, lines 40-60).
For claim 7, Yao teaches that the packaging of the information units of the ADU into IP packets comprises at least one of: a size of the ADU (col. 12, lines 25-60; col. 13, line 40 – col. 14, line 10); an indication of a boundary of the ADU; a start and/or end of the ADU; a number of IP packets comprising information units of the ADU (col. 13, lines 10-40); a time of generating and/or sending the ADU (col. 11, lines 35-60) at an application layer of an E2E protocol stack, optionally wherein the E2E protocol stack comprises an E2E encryption protocol stack; a latency requirement of the ADU (col. 21, lines 5-25); a retransmission regulation associated to the ADU; and a periodicity of generating ADUs (col. 18, lines 25-60). (Any items not cited are considered as not needed since it is an at least one claim.)
For claim 9, Yao teaches that the statistical information is received out of band, optionally wherein the statistical information is received through at least one of a network exposure function, NEF (col. 19, line 65 -col. 20, line 15), and a policy control function, PCF (col. 20, lines 25-45).
For claim 10, Yao teaches that the packaging of the information units of the ADU is indicative of a provision of discarding the at least one IP packet and/or any further IP packet associated with the ADU if the at least one IP packet and/or any one of the further IP packets is not transmitted to the end terminal within a predetermined latency tolerance time span according to the QoS requirement (col. 37, lines 15-30; discarding of data).
For claim 12, Yao teaches sending a message indicative of a capability of reading the first information element (col. 39, lines 30-40; col. 40, line 55 – col. 41, line 10).
For claim 13, Yao teaches that the first information element is indicative of a sequence number of the ADU (col. 37, line 15-30).
For claim 14, Yao teaches that the QoS requirement comprises at least one QoS flow identifier (QFI) (col. 37, lines 30-55).
For claim 15,Yao teaches sending a message indicative of a presence of the second information element in relation to the at least one extended IP packet (col. 15, lines 40-60; col. 38, line 40 – col. 39, line 55).
For claim 16, Yao teaches that generating the at least one extended IP packet comprises encapsulating the received at least one IP packet (col. 9, lines 40-65).
For claim 17, Yao teaches that the at least one extended IP packet comprises at least one general packet radio service Tunneling Protocol, GTP, packet (col. 39, line 55 – col. 40, line 40).
For claim 18, Yao teaches that the method is performed by a core network, CN, of the telecommunications network (col. 14, lines 40-67; core network), optionally wherein the method is performed by a user plane function, UPF, of the CN (col. 15, lines 10-20; UPF).
For claim 19, Yao teaches a method (abstract) of sending (col. 14, lines 5-45) an application data unit (ADU) (col. 3, line 25 – col. 8, line 40; PDU equivalence) to a core network (CN) (col. 14, lines 40-67; core network) of a telecommunications system comprising a radio access network (RAN) for transmission to an end terminal through the RAN (col. 8, line 50 – col. 9, line 30), wherein the transmission of the ADU to the end terminal is subject to a quality of service (QoS) requirement (col. 3, lines 15-45; col. 18, lines 5-25), the method comprising or initiating (background, summary and claims) the steps of:
Generating at least one internet protocol (IP) packet (col. 9, lines 40-65; IP packets) comprising at least one information unit of the ADU (col. 19, lines 20-65), wherein the at least one IP packet further comprises a first information element indicative of a packaging of information units of the ADU into IP packets (col. 13, line 50 – col. 14, line 10; info re missing, i.e. sequence numbers); and
Sending the generated at least one IP packet to the CN (col. 17, lines 20-35).
For claim 20, Yao teaches further comprising the steps of:
Receiving a request for a session establishment from the end terminal (col. 37, lines 15-55); and
Establishing at least one transport session to the end terminal responsive to the received request (col. 14, lines 5-45).
For claims 23, 37, Yao teaches a method (abstract) of transmitting (col. 14, lines 5-45) an application data unit (ADU) (col. 3, line 25 – col. 8, line 40; PDU equivalence) via a radio access network (RAN) (col. 13, lines 50-65; sometimes called “(R)AN”) of a telecommunications system to an end terminal (col. 8, line 50 – col. 9, line 30), wherein the transmitting of the ADU to the end terminal is subject to a quality of service (QoS) requirement (col. 3, lines 15-45; col. 18, lines 5-25), the method comprising or initiating (background, summary and claims) the steps of:
Receiving at least one extended internet protocol (IP) packet (col. 9, lines 40-65; IP packets), wherein the at least one extended IP packet (col. 15, lines 40-60; col. 38, line 40 – col. 39, line 55) comprises a second information element indicative of the QoS requirement of the at least one extended IP packet based on a first information element comprised in at least one IP packet (col. 37, lines 15-55), wherein the at least one IP packet is comprised in the at least one extended IP packet (col. 15, lines 40-60; col. 38, line 40 – col. 39, line 55) and wherein the at least one IP packet comprises at least one information unit of the ADU (col. 19, lines 20-65) and the first information element is indicative of a packaging of information units of the ADU into IP packets (col. 13, line 50 – col. 14, line 10; info re missing, i.e. sequence numbers);
Scheduling a transmission opportunity for the at least one IP packet depending on the QoS requirement indicated in the second information element (col. 13, lines 10-25), wherein the transmission opportunity comprises at least one of a time resource and/or a frequency resource of the RAN (col. 11, lines 35-60); and
selectively transmitting the at least one IP packet to the end terminal based on the scheduling (col. 14, lines 5-45).
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.
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Elazzouni et al. (12,250,740).
For claim 2, Yao does not expressly disclose that the first information element is comprised in a bit field comprising one or more bits of a header of the received at least one IP packet. Elazzouni teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes this limitation (col. 26, line 55 – col. 28, line 20). At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added Elazzouni in order to provide improvements to radio communications (col. 1, lines 30-60).
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Li et al. (10,320,705).
For claim 4, Yao does not expressly disclose that the first information element is received without encryption and/or wherein the first information element is received in clear text. Li teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes this limitation (col. 5, lines 25-40). At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added Li in order to provide improvements to application identification (col. 1, lines 40-55).
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Garudadri et al. (8,537,197).
For claim 8, Yao teaches statistical information but none of the potential element choices. Garudadri teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes that the packaging of the information units of the ADU is indicative of statistical information (col. 4, line 45 – col. 5, line 40) comprising at least one of: a mean size of ADUs generated and/or sent over a predetermined ADU generation and/or sending time span; a variance of a size of ADUs generated and/or sent over the predetermined ADU generation and/or sending time span; an average bit rate of an encoder (col. 9, line 55 – col. 11, line 10); and a refresh rate of the encoder (col. 11, lines 10-20). At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added Garudadri in order to provide improvements to radio throughput (col. 1, lines 20-60).
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Rossbach et al. (12,137,368).
For claim 11, Yao does not expressly disclose receiving a feedback indicative of a reception of the at least one IP packet and/or the ADU by the end terminal. Rossbach teaches a method and system (abstract) in the relevant art (background, summary and claims) that includes this limitation (col. 16, line 40 – col. 15, line 15; col. 20, lines 5-40). At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have added Yao in order to provide improvements to the extended reality networks and QFI systems (col. 1, line 40 – col. 2, line 35).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELVIN H POLLACK whose telephone number is (571)272-3887. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:00.
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/MELVIN H POLLACK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445