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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on March 29, 2024 and October 20, 2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings were received on March 29, 2024. These drawings are acceptable.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 6-7, 9-10, 15-16, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Jeon et al. (hereinafter “Jeon”, US 2023/0115400).
Regarding claims 1, Jeon discloses a method of operating a node device in an open radio access network (0-RAN), the method comprising:
receiving messages related to a user-plane from at least one south-node device (i.e., fronthaul multiplexer (FHM) 630 receives Ethernet frames from each of the south-nodes as described in paragraph 0116); and
determining combining operation timing of the messages in an extended antenna-carrier (eAxC) unit (i.e., eAxC as described in paragraph 0086), based on the messages (i.e., FHM 603 identifies a portion of corresponding to a specific radio resource element in the eCPRI message of the received Ethernet frames and combine the identified IQ data as described in paragraphs 0116, and 0140, and Table 7 and its descriptions. Also, see Figs. 7A-7C for the time delay caused by UL combining).
Regarding claims 6 and 15, Jeon discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above. Jeon also discloses wherein the at least one south-node device comprises a plurality of south-node devices (i.e., plurality of south-nodes 620 as shown in Fig. 6A), and the at least one processor is further configured to:
determine the combining operation timing of the messages in the eAxC unit by using messages received from a south-node device with a largest transmission delay to the node device from among the plurality of south-node devices (i.e., a time delay caused by UL combining as shown in Figs. 7A-7C, and the time delay occurs when the number of pakets included in a packet set and the numbers of sections of each packet are different as described in paragraphs 0134-0137).
Regarding claims 7 and 16, Jeon discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above. Jeon also discloses wherein, among the messages, messages in an identical eAxC unit are received consecutively (i.e., packets are received consecutively as shown in Fig. 7A).
Regarding claims 9 and 18, Jeon discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above. Jeon also discloses wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
combine the messages in the eAxC unit according to the determined timing (i.e., UL combining based on a unit defined by a time resource as described in paragraphs 0131-0132); and
control transmission of the combined messages to a north-node device in a combining order (i.e., combining the messages to the north-node as shown in Figs. 7A-7C and as shown in Fig. 6A).
Regarding claim 10, Jeon discloses a node device of O-RAN (i.e., DU 160 as shown in Fig. 2), the node device comprising:
at least one processor (i.e., control unit 230),
wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine combining operation timing of messages related to a user-plane received from at least one south-node device in an eAxC unit (i.e., eAxC as described in paragraph 0086) based on the messages (i.e., fronthaul multiplexer (FHM) 630 receives Ethernet frames from each of the south-nodes, identifies a portion of corresponding to a specific radio resource element in the eCPRI message of the received Ethernet frames and combine the identified IQ data as described in paragraphs 0116, and 0140. Also, see Table 7 and its descriptions).
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) 8 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jeon in view of Amend et al. (hereinafter “Amend”, US 2020/0403928).
Regarding claims 8 and 17, Jeon discloses all limitations recited within claims as described above. Jeon further discloses wherein the at least one south-node device comprises a plurality of south-node devices (i.e., plurality of south-nodes 620 as shown in Fig. 6A), and, in messages received from each of the plurality of south-node devices, a reception based on the eAxC unit is identical (i.e., combining when the same range sections of the first packet set 750 and second packet set 760 are received as described in paragraph 0136) but does not expressly disclose the remaining features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Amend discloses techniques for efficient reordering of data packets in multipath scenarios. Amend also discloses, in messages received from the devices, a reception order is identical (i.e., reorder the packet as described in Abstract).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to detect packets loss more effectively.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5, 11-14 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 WAYNE CAI whose telephone number is (571)272-7798. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, KATHY WANG-HURST can be reached on (571)270-5371. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Wayne H Cai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644
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