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 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 20claimed 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Centonza (WO 2022005379, hereinafter Centonza) in view of Lunardi et al. (US 2023/0319616, hereinafter Lunardi).
Regarding claims 1 and 18, Centonza discloses a terminal device (page 01; Abstract; UE) comprising: at least one processor (2838 of Fig. 28; processing circuitry); and
at least one memory (page 06; line 2; UE memory) including computer program code (page 10; lines 15-20; UE memory for storing instructions), the at least one memory and the computer program code being configured to, with the at least one processor (page 8; lines 21-26; computer readable media storing program instructions executed by processing circuitry), cause the terminal device at least to: perform Quality of Experience, QoE, measurement on a service received via a source
network device (page 01; Abstract; UE receives QoE measurement configuration
associated with one or more services from RNN in the wireless network, page 06; lines 20-25; and page 07; lines 13-20); and upon detection of an indication indicative of a mobility procedure for handing over the terminal device from the source network device to a target network device for the service (page 15; para 02; page 19; lines 1-7; temporarily stop and restart the QoE measurement reporting if UE leaves measured area due to handover; maintaining full session reports to avoid fragmentation, it implies handling during and after handover/mobility by ensuring reports are stored and available after the handover), transmit, to the target network device a buffer status report associated with a buffer for storing one or more QoE measurement reports (page 32; lines 19-23; BSR).
Centonza does not explicitly disclose transmitting the buffer status report during or after the mobility procedure.
In an analogous art, Lunardi discloses transmitting the buffer status report during or after the mobility procedure (para 0048; 0053; and 0057; 0096; and 0292-0295 – BSR). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Centonza’s method/system by having Lunardi’s disclosure in order to improve resource allocation by enabling optimization and reconfiguration of a communications system.
Regarding claim 11, Centonza discloses a network device (2820 of fig. 28) comprising: at least one processor (2828; processing circuitry); and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code being configured to, with the at least one processor (page 10, ; lines 21-26), cause the network device at least to:
receive from a terminal device a buffer status report associated with a buffer for storing
one or more Quality of Experience, QoE, measurement reports (page 32; lines 19-23; BSR), during or after a mobility procedure by which the terminal device hands over from a source network device to the network device, the network device operating as a target network device for the terminal device (page 15; para 02; page 19; lines 1-7; temporarily stop and restart the QoE measurement reporting if UE leaves measured area due to handover; maintaining full session reports to avoid fragmentation, it implies handling during and after handover/mobility by ensuring reports are stored and available after the handover); and transmit a QoE reporting request message or QoE reporting resume command to the terminal device (page 04; lines 16-20; a request for QoE), the QoE reporting request message or QoE reporting resume command being determined at least partially based on the received buffer status report (page 32; lines 19-23; BSR and page 04; lines 16-20; a request for QoE – UE transmits BSR/availability for QoE reports first, then network responds with a request).
Centonza does not explicitly disclose receiving the buffer status report during or after the mobility procedure.
In an analogous art, Lunardi discloses receiving the buffer status report during or after the mobility procedure (para 0048; 0053; and 0057; 0096; and 0292-0295 – BSR). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Centonza’s method/system by having Lunardi’s disclosure in order to improve resource allocation by enabling optimization and reconfiguration of a communications system.
Regarding claims 2 & 19, Centonza discloses wherein the indication indicative of the mobility procedure is detected from a handover command when the terminal device is in a connected state or from channel quality measurement when the terminal device is in an idle or inactive state (page 17; lines 1-7; handover procedure).
Regarding claims 3 & 20, Centonza discloses wherein the one or more QoE measurement reports are stored in the buffer before timing for transmission of the one or more QoE measurement reports is triggered (page 05; lines 13-27) or when the terminal device receives a QoE reporting pause command from the source network device which indicates the terminal device to pause transmitting the one or more QoE measurement reports to the source network device (page 27; lines 11-19; temporarily stopping).
Regarding claims 4 and 12, Centonza discloses wherein the buffer status report is transmitted/received to the target network device via an RRC Reconfiguration Complete message (page 23;lines 10-15; RRCConnectionReconfigurationComplete message), an RRC Connection Resume Request message, an RRC Connection Setup Request message or an RRC Connection Setup Complete message.
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Centonza discloses wherein the buffer status report comprises at least one of: size of the one or more QoE measurement reports stored in the buffer (Page 04; lines 32-35; page 05; line 1; amount of data comprising QoE measurement reports); left space in the buffer; left time before overflow of the buffer (page 5; line 2); and initial time for the buffer to store the one or more QoE measurement reports (page 05; lines 7-12; elapsed time).
Regarding claim 6, Centonza discloses wherein the at least one memory and the
computer program code are further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the terminal device at least to: receive a QoE configuration for the target network device from the source network device or the target network device (Page 23; lines 5-15; QoE configuration file).
Regarding claim 7, Centonza discloses wherein the QoE configuration is received via a handover command from the source network device or via an RRC Connection Resume message, an RRC Connection Release with Suspend message, an RRC Connection Reconfiguration message or an RRC Connection Setup message from the target network device (page 23; lines 5-15; RRCConnectionReconfiguration message).
Regarding claim 8, Centonza discloses wherein the handover command received
from the source network device or the RRC Connection Resume message, the RRC
Connection Release with Suspend message, the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message or the RRC Connection Setup message received from the target network device further includes a QoE reporting status indication for the terminal device determined at the target network device (page 23; lines 5-15; RRCConnectionReconfiguration message).
Regarding claim 9, Centonza discloses wherein the at least one memory and the
computer program code are further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the terminal device at least to: receive, from the target network device, a QoE reporting request message (page 04; lines 16-20; a request for QoE) or QoE reporting resume command indicating to the terminal device to resume transmitting the one or more QoE measurement reports stored in the buffer to the target network device; and transmit the one or more QoE measurement reports stored in the buffer to the target network device, responsive to the received QoE reporting request message or QoE reporting resume command (page 04; lines 20-26; transmitting QoE measurement reports to the network).
Regarding claim 10, Centonza discloses wherein the QoE reporting request message or QoE reporting resume command is received after transmitting the buffer status report to the target network device (page 32; lines 19-23; BSR and page 04; lines 16-20; a request for QoE – UE transmits BSR/availability for QoE reports first, then network responds with a request).
Regarding claim 14, Centonza discloses wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the terminal device at least to: transmit a QoE configuration for the terminal device to the terminal device or via the source network device to the terminal device (Page 23; lines 5-15; QoE configuration file).
Regarding claim 15, Centonza does not explicitly disclose wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the network device at least to: receive an old QoE configuration for the terminal device from the source network device, the old QoE configuration being configured by the source network device before the mobility procedure.
In an analogous art, Lunardi discloses wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the network device at least to: receive an old QoE configuration for the terminal device from the source network device, the old QoE configuration being configured by the source network device before the mobility procedure (para 0041; 0048; 0270; legacy QoE configuration information). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Centonza’s method/system by having Lunardi’s disclosure in order to improve resource allocation by enabling optimization and reconfiguration of a communications system
Regarding claim 16, Centonza discloses wherein the QoE configuration is
transmitted via a handover request acknowledgement message to the source network device or via an RRC Connection Resume message, an RRC Connection Release with Suspend message, an RRC Connection Reconfiguration message or an RRC Connection Setup message to the terminal device (page 23; lines 5-15; RRCConnectionReconfiguration message).
Centonza does not explicitly disclose that the old QoE configuration for the terminal device is received via a handover request or a retrieve terminal device context response message from the source network device.
In an analogous art, Lunardi discloses that the old QoE configuration for the terminal device is received via a handover request or a retrieve terminal device context response message from the source network device (para 0048; 0270; In case a legacy mobility action is initiated, the second RAN node may receive the QoE measurement configuration in addition to legacy information already defined for the selected mobility action). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Centonza’s method/system by having Lunardi’s disclosure in order to improve resource allocation by enabling optimization and reconfiguration of a communications system.
Regarding claim 17, Centonza discloses wherein the handover request received from the source network device further includes a current QoE reporting status indication for the terminal device (page 27, lines 8-15), and the handover request acknowledgement message transmitted to the source network device further includes a new QoE reporting status indication determined at the target network device (page 29; lines 6-10), wherein the current QoE reporting status is indicative of whether transmitting the one or more QoE measurement reports is paused for the terminal device by the source network device (page 29; lines 11-19; temporarily stop; page 30, lines 22-27) and the new QoE reporting status is indicative of whether transmitting the one or more QoE measurement reports is paused for the terminal device by the target network device (page 29; lines 20-30).
Conclusion
3. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAMINA CHOUDHRY whose telephone number is (571)270-7102. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Thursday (7:30 a.m. to 5.00p.m.).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yemane Mesfin can be reached on (571)272-3927. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SAMINA F CHOUDHRY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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