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 § 112
Claim 1 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. The term “far” lacks an objective standard or boundary in the claim and therefore renders the scope of the claim indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112(b).
For the purpose of examination, and as informed by specification, “far” is understood to refer to the distance between the base station and individual user equipments and/or associated communication quality metrics, such as (SNRs) or similar radio conditions.
Claim 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 20 recites “a base station” multiple times without differentiation or clear antecedent basis, making it unclear whether the same base station or different base station are being referred to. As a result, one of ordinary skill in the art cannot determine with reasonable certainty whether the recited functions are performed by a single base station or by multiple base stations. Accordingly, the scope of claim 20 is unclear and indefinite.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6, 10-13, 15, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Harrang et al. (US 20110047287 A1).
Claim 1:
Harrang et al. teach,
A communication control device comprising a processor
[Para 0046, “The SPD 200 may include, but is not limited to, one or more processors devices including a central processing unit (CPU) 204"]
the processor being configured to perform communication throttling on a first user equipment determined to be located far from a base station out of a plurality of user equipments connected to the base station
[Para 0048,“In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the SPD 200 data transfer agent 210 may be logically linked to the link profiler 214 and the optional network link monitor 212 (or alternately to an external network link monitor component 312), such that the data transfers between a sender and receiver device (e.g., between a SPD 200 or a media content provider, and a user equipment 300) may be optimally managed (e.g., by throttling a data transfer rate or selecting preferred periods for data content delivery) based on real time evaluations of network traffic and radio communications quality for communications links that are part of the communications path between (and optionally including) the sending and receiving devices”]
[Para 0057, “FIG. 4A depicts a network topology 400 with a user equipment 404a-b (which may be representative of any of the user equipment 108a-c, 124, 126a-c, 128, 130, and 132 of FIG. 1) positioned within various regional locations (Regions A: encompassed by coverage area 402b, or Region B: encompassed by coverage area 402c) that have characteristics associated with different network communications states, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. Within the network topology 400, a network base station 402a (which may be representative of any of the network base stations 106a-b, 118, 120, and 122 of FIG. 1) may supply wireless communication service to one or more regional user equipment 404a-b. Initially, the user equipment 404a may be located in an area of relatively good radio communications link quality 402b (i.e., Region A), however, sometime later the user equipment 404b may be relocated to another location within the cell that is characterized by poor radio communications link quality 402c (i.e., Region B). For the purpose of illustration the single user equipment is represented by references numbers 404a and 404b, which indicate a change in the physical location of the device; this is also represented by the dotted line with an arrowhead indicating the direction of movement for the device between Regions A and B”]
Claim 2:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to perform the communication throttling on the first user equipment when the communication control device makes at least one of a determination that the number of user equipments connected to the base station is equal to or greater than a threshold, a determination that congestion has occurred in the base station and a determination that traffic congestion has occurred in an area to which the base station belongs
a determination that congestion has occurred in the base station
[Para 0052, “One or more network devices (e.g., user equipment 300 or SPDs 200) employing the communications protocol may sense a state of network channel congestion (e.g., using a network link monitor 212, 312) by: monitoring the performance of the media content file delivery over one or more network specific segments (e.g., by measuring/analyzing one or more network communications metrics), measuring and end-to-end link throughput performance for the combined network segments (e.g., with a receiver device, such as user equipment 300), and then comparing individual segment throughput with total end-to-end link throughput. By following these procedures, not only can network congestion be detected (via the comparison), but it can also be determined which network segment(s) may be the source of a congestion bottleneck”]
Claim 3:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control device according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to perform the communication throttling on the first user equipment determined to be located far from the base station based on information indicating either or both of a distance between the base station and each of the user equipments and a communication quality between the base station and each of the user equipments
[Para 0048,“In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the SPD 200 data transfer agent 210 may be logically linked to the link profiler 214 and the optional network link monitor 212 (or alternately to an external network link monitor component 312), such that the data transfers between a sender and receiver device (e.g., between a SPD 200 or a media content provider, and a user equipment 300) may be optimally managed (e.g., by throttling a data transfer rate or selecting preferred periods for data content delivery) based on real time evaluations of network traffic and radio communications quality for communications links that are part of the communications path between (and optionally including) the sending and receiving devices”]
Claim 4:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control device according to claim 1 wherein the communication throttling includes increasing a data transfer interval in communication of the first user equipment
[Para 0048, “…data transfers between a sender and receiver device (e.g., between a SPD 200 or a media content provider, and a user equipment 300) may be optimally managed (e.g., by throttling a data transfer rate or selecting preferred periods for data content delivery) based on real time evaluations of network traffic and radio communications quality for communications links that are part of the communications path between (and optionally including) the sending and receiving devices”]
Claim 6:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control device according to claim 1, wherein the communication throttling is performed within a range in which a quality of service determined for the first user equipment is maintained
[Para 0131, “In an embodiment, when a user equipment is performing a content file delivery, if the delivery throughput is at or near the calculated peak link capacity, then the end-to-end delivery path may be considered to be uncongested and the transfer can proceed unthrottled. If the delivery throughput is lower than the calculated peak link capacity (within a predetermined tolerance level), then the end-to-end delivery path may be determined to be congested and the transfer may be slowed to avoid impacting unrelated cross traffic using the channel. In an embodiment, as the user equipment moves between locations of varying radio coverage, the calculated wireless peak link capacity may vary so that a benefit of the invention is that by communicating the current peak link capacity, the end-to-end throughput variation is not confused by the throttling algorithm with shared channel congestion that similarly slows content file delivery performance”]
[Para 0132, “In an embodiment, the invention may address the amount of throughput throttling or backoff the system should apply in order to minimally affect concurrent unrelated cross traffic using a shared wireless channel. In an embodiment, a software algorithm/module running on a base station (or alternately, a base station controller, or any other well known SPD) periodically determines the aggregate volume of unrelated cross traffic using the channel. The algorithm may also periodically determine the aggregate channel throughput available to user traffic. The difference between these two measurements indicates the remaining surplus capacity on the channel that is available for content file transfers. In scenarios where an aggregate shared channel is congested, the surplus capacity indication may be fed back into the bandwidth throttling algorithm to adjust the volume of offered content delivery traffic to just equal the surplus bandwidth”]
Claim 10:
Harrang et al. teach,
A communication control method comprising performing, by a communication control device
[Para 0021, “In accordance with yet a further aspect of the invention, is a computer-implemented method for optimizing a media content delivery to a user equipment, the method including the following processes: determining one or more user equipment metrics, comparing the one or more user equipment metrics to one or more device thresholds, and then generating an instruction to throttle a media content delivery when at least one resource metric has exceeded a resource threshold value or a local policy metric has achieved a local policy threshold”]
communication throttling on a first user equipment determined to be located far from a base station out of a plurality of user equipments connected to the base station
[Para 0048,“In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the SPD 200 data transfer agent 210 may be logically linked to the link profiler 214 and the optional network link monitor 212 (or alternately to an external network link monitor component 312), such that the data transfers between a sender and receiver device (e.g., between a SPD 200 or a media content provider, and a user equipment 300) may be optimally managed (e.g., by throttling a data transfer rate or selecting preferred periods for data content delivery) based on real time evaluations of network traffic and radio communications quality for communications links that are part of the communications path between (and optionally including) the sending and receiving devices”]
[Para 0057, “FIG. 4A depicts a network topology 400 with a user equipment 404a-b (which may be representative of any of the user equipment 108a-c, 124, 126a-c, 128, 130, and 132 of FIG. 1) positioned within various regional locations (Regions A: encompassed by coverage area 402b, or Region B: encompassed by coverage area 402c) that have characteristics associated with different network communications states, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. Within the network topology 400, a network base station 402a (which may be representative of any of the network base stations 106a-b, 118, 120, and 122 of FIG. 1) may supply wireless communication service to one or more regional user equipment 404a-b. Initially, the user equipment 404a may be located in an area of relatively good radio communications link quality 402b (i.e., Region A), however, sometime later the user equipment 404b may be relocated to another location within the cell that is characterized by poor radio communications link quality 402c (i.e., Region B). For the purpose of illustration the single user equipment is represented by references numbers 404a and 404b, which indicate a change in the physical location of the device; this is also represented by the dotted line with an arrowhead indicating the direction of movement for the device between Regions A and B”]
Claim 11:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control method according to claim 10, wherein the communication throttling is performed on the first user equipment when at least one of a determination that the number of user equipments connected to the base station is equal to or greater than a threshold, a determination that congestion has occurred in the base station and a determination that traffic congestion has occurred in an area to which the base station belongs, is made
a determination that congestion has occurred in the base station
[Para 0052, “One or more network devices (e.g., user equipment 300 or SPDs 200) employing the communications protocol may sense a state of network channel congestion (e.g., using a network link monitor 212, 312) by: monitoring the performance of the media content file delivery over one or more network specific segments (e.g., by measuring/analyzing one or more network communications metrics), measuring and end-to-end link throughput performance for the combined network segments (e.g., with a receiver device, such as user equipment 300), and then comparing individual segment throughput with total end-to-end link throughput. By following these procedures, not only can network congestion be detected (via the comparison), but it can also be determined which network segment(s) may be the source of a congestion bottleneck”]
Claim 12:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control method according to claim 10, wherein the first user equipment is determined to be located far from the base station based on information indicating either or both of a distance between the base station and each of the user equipments and a communication quality between the base station and each of the user equipments
[Para 0048,“In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the SPD 200 data transfer agent 210 may be logically linked to the link profiler 214 and the optional network link monitor 212 (or alternately to an external network link monitor component 312), such that the data transfers between a sender and receiver device (e.g., between a SPD 200 or a media content provider, and a user equipment 300) may be optimally managed (e.g., by throttling a data transfer rate or selecting preferred periods for data content delivery) based on real time evaluations of network traffic and radio communications quality for communications links that are part of the communications path between (and optionally including) the sending and receiving devices”]
Claim 13:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control method according to claim 10, wherein the communication throttling includes increasing a data transfer interval in communication of the first user equipment
[Para 0048, “…data transfers between a sender and receiver device (e.g., between a SPD 200 or a media content provider, and a user equipment 300) may be optimally managed (e.g., by throttling a data transfer rate or selecting preferred periods for data content delivery) based on real time evaluations of network traffic and radio communications quality for communications links that are part of the communications path between (and optionally including) the sending and receiving devices”]
Claim 15:
Harrang et al. teach,
The communication control method according to claim 10, wherein the communication throttling is performed within a range in which a quality of service determined for the first user equipment is maintained
[Para 0131, “In an embodiment, when a user equipment is performing a content file delivery, if the delivery throughput is at or near the calculated peak link capacity, then the end-to-end delivery path may be considered to be uncongested and the transfer can proceed unthrottled. If the delivery throughput is lower than the calculated peak link capacity (within a predetermined tolerance level), then the end-to-end delivery path may be determined to be congested and the transfer may be slowed to avoid impacting unrelated cross traffic using the channel. In an embodiment, as the user equipment moves between locations of varying radio coverage, the calculated wireless peak link capacity may vary so that a benefit of the invention is that by communicating the current peak link capacity, the end-to-end throughput variation is not confused by the throttling algorithm with shared channel congestion that similarly slows content file delivery performance”]
[Para 0132, “In an embodiment, the invention may address the amount of throughput throttling or backoff the system should apply in order to minimally affect concurrent unrelated cross traffic using a shared wireless channel. In an embodiment, a software algorithm/module running on a base station (or alternately, a base station controller, or any other well known SPD) periodically determines the aggregate volume of unrelated cross traffic using the channel. The algorithm may also periodically determine the aggregate channel throughput available to user traffic. The difference between these two measurements indicates the remaining surplus capacity on the channel that is available for content file transfers. In scenarios where an aggregate shared channel is congested, the surplus capacity indication may be fed back into the bandwidth throttling algorithm to adjust the volume of offered content delivery traffic to just equal the surplus bandwidth”]
Claim 19:
Harrang et al. teach,
A non-transitory storage medium storing instructions that are executable by a processor of a computer and that cause the computer to operate as the communication control device according to claim 1
[Para 0045, “In an embodiment, any of the SPDs 110, 112, and 114 (including any of the network base stations 106a-b, 118, 120, and 122), the router, gateway, switch device(s) 116, or any of the remote or local user equipment 108a-c, 124, 126a-c, 128, 130, and 132, may be configured to include one or more computer-readable media (e.g., any common volatile or non-volatile memory type) encoded with a set of computer readable instructions, which when executed, performs a portion of one or more of the network traffic and radio communications quality monitoring or data content transfer optimization processes associated with various embodiments of the present invention”]
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 5 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harrang et al. (US 20110047287 A1) in view of Lu et al. (US 12408082 B2).
Claim 5:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control device according to claim 1, but fail to teach, wherein the processor is configured to give the first user equipment an instruction or request regarding the communication throttling. However, Lu et al. teach this.
Lu et al. disclose:
[Para 0052, “If the base station 630 determines that it can provide throughput intensive communication at the desired downlink and uplink throughput, the base station 630 can provide extended reality content to the UE 650. However, if the base station 630 determines that it cannot provide throughput intensive communication at the desired downlink and uplink throughput, the base station can send a message 680 to the UE 650 indicating that throughput intensive communication 610 is not available or of low-quality”]
[Para 0064, “upon receiving the first message, the processor can wait for a predetermined criterion to be satisfied before attempting to engage in the throughput intensive communication, thereby reducing network traffic associated with the throughput intensive communication by eschewing sending repeated requests for the throughput intensive communication”]
Examiner note:
The message sent from the base station to the UE constitutes an instruction or request regarding communication throttling, as the UE is directed to refrain from repeated communication attempts and to wait before re-engaging in throughput-intensive communication, which results in throttling of the UE’s communications.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Harrang et al. to incorporate the instruction mechanism of Lu et al. in order to notify a user equipment of throttling conditions and cause the user equipment to adjust its communication behavior, thereby improving network efficiency and congestion management.
Claim 14:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control method according to claim 10, but fail to teach, further comprising giving, from the communication control device to the first user equipment, an instruction or request regarding the communication throttling. However, Lu et al. teach this.
Lu et al. disclose:
[Para 0052, “If the base station 630 determines that it can provide throughput intensive communication at the desired downlink and uplink throughput, the base station 630 can provide extended reality content to the UE 650. However, if the base station 630 determines that it cannot provide throughput intensive communication at the desired downlink and uplink throughput, the base station can send a message 680 to the UE 650 indicating that throughput intensive communication 610 is not available or of low-quality”]
[Para 0064, “upon receiving the first message, the processor can wait for a predetermined criterion to be satisfied before attempting to engage in the throughput intensive communication, thereby reducing network traffic associated with the throughput intensive communication by eschewing sending repeated requests for the throughput intensive communication”]
Examiner note:
The message sent from the base station to the UE constitutes an instruction or request regarding communication throttling, as the UE is directed to refrain from repeated communication attempts and to wait before re-engaging in throughput-intensive communication, which results in throttling of the UE’s communications.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Harrang et al. to incorporate the instruction mechanism of Lu et al. in order to notify a user equipment of throttling conditions and cause the user equipment to adjust its communication behavior, thereby improving network efficiency and congestion management.
Claim(s) 7 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harrang et al. (US 20110047287 A1) in view of Jadallah et al. (US 9398347 B2).
Claim 7:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control device according to claim 1. But fail to teach, wherein the processor is configured to exclude communication of non-real-time data from the communication throttling. However, Jadallah et al. teach this.
Jadallah et al. disclose:
[Para 0031, “As data becomes available, the media flow recognition module attempts to determine various attributes and information about the flow 402 and filters the flows 404 if the flow is not a media flow… The QoE system may also take corrective action 418 to improve the perceived QoE. This corrective action may take various forms, including for example, an alert via email or an automatic adjustment of the media flow”]
[Para 0032, “…Flows not matching these criteria are generally no longer examined by the media flow recognition module”]
Examiner Note:
Jadallah et al.’s filtering of non-media flows and application of corrective action exclusively to media flows teaches the functional equivalent of excluding non-real-time data from throttling or traffic shaping.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Harrang et al.’s communication throttling device to incorporate the traffic filtering teachings of Jadallah et al., such that throttling is applied only to real-time traffic and non-real-time traffic is excluded from throttling in order to improve network efficiency and quality of service by preventing non-real-time data from interfering with real-time communication control.
Claim 16:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control method according to claim 10, but fail to teach, further comprising excluding, by the communication control device, communication of non-real-time data from the communication throttling. However, Jadallah et al. teach this. Jadallah et al. disclose:
[Para 0031, “As data becomes available, the media flow recognition module attempts to determine various attributes and information about the flow 402 and filters the flows 404 if the flow is not a media flow… The QoE system may also take corrective action 418 to improve the perceived QoE. This corrective action may take various forms, including for example, an alert via email or an automatic adjustment of the media flow”]
[Para 0032, “…Flows not matching these criteria are generally no longer examined by the media flow recognition module”]
Examiner Note:
Jadallah et al.’s filtering of non-media flows and application of corrective action exclusively to media flows teaches the functional equivalent of excluding non-real-time data from throttling or traffic shaping.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Harrang et al.’s communication throttling device to incorporate the traffic filtering teachings of Jadallah et al., such that throttling is applied only to real-time traffic and non-real-time traffic is excluded from throttling in order to improve network efficiency and quality of service by preventing non-real-time data from interfering with real-time communication control.
Claim(s) 8 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harrang et al. (US 20110047287 A1) in view of CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. (WO 2020148116 A1).
Claim 8:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control device according to claim 1, but fail to explicitly teach, wherein the processor is configured to perform a process of improving efficiency of communication of a second user equipment that is not subject to the communication throttling out of the user equipments. However, CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. teach this.
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. disclose:
[Page 2 para 5, “…a method of managing a telecommunications network, the telecommunications network having a first user and a second user, and the telecommunications network comprising a first network slice onto which the first user is allocated, the method comprising the step of: measuring network performance in respect of the first user and in respect of the second user; comparing network performance associated with the first user and the second user; identifying whether there is a disparity between the network performance associated with the first user and the second user that exceeds a threshold; and if it is identified that the disparity exceeds the threshold, adapting the network configuration of the first network slice so as reduce the disparity in the network performance associated with the first user and the second user”]
CUEVAS RAMIREZ is analogous to the claimed invention as they both relate to throttling devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Jeffrey Paul et al.’s teachings to incorporate the teachings of CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. and provide selective throttling of user equipment in order to improve network fairness by preventing disproportionate resource consumption and equalizing communication performance among multiple user equipments.
Claim 17:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control method according to claim 10, but fail to explicitly teach, further comprising performing, by the communication control device, a process of improving efficiency of communication of a second user equipment that is not subject to the communication throttling out of the user equipments. However, CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. teach this.
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. disclose:
[Page 2 para 5, “…a method of managing a telecommunications network, the telecommunications network having a first user and a second user, and the telecommunications network comprising a first network slice onto which the first user is allocated, the method comprising the step of: measuring network performance in respect of the first user and in respect of the second user; comparing network performance associated with the first user and the second user; identifying whether there is a disparity between the network performance associated with the first user and the second user that exceeds a threshold; and if it is identified that the disparity exceeds the threshold, adapting the network configuration of the first network slice so as reduce the disparity in the network performance associated with the first user and the second user”]
CUEVAS RAMIREZ is analogous to the claimed invention as they both relate to throttling devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Jeffrey Paul teachings to incorporate the teachings of CUEVAS RAMIREZ and provide selective throttling of user equipment in order to improve network fairness by preventing disproportionate resource consumption and equalizing communication performance among multiple user equipments.
Claim(s) 9, 18, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harrang et al. (US 20110047287 A1) in view of CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. (WO 2020148116 A1) and Back et al. (US 12035391 B2).
Claim 9:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control device according to claim 1, but fail to explicitly teach, wherein the processor is configured to send, to a second user equipment that is not subject to the communication throttling out of the user equipment, an instruction or request to send information received from the base station to the first user equipment by direct communication between the user equipments.
Back et al. do teach, wherein the processor is configured to send, to a second user equipment, an instruction or request to send information received from the base station to the first user equipment by direct communication between the user equipments, but fail to teach, that is not subject to communication throttling out of the user equipment.
Back et al. disclose:
[Para 0016, “Sidelink (SL) refers to a communication scheme in which a direct link is established between user equipments (UEs) and the UEs directly exchange voice or data without intervention of a base station (BS). SL is considered as a solution of relieving the BS of the constraint of rapidly growing data traffic”]
[Para 0029, “an operation method of a relay user equipment (UE) related to a sidelink relay in a wireless communication system includes receiving a system information related request from a remote UE by a relay UE, and transmitting system information to the remote UE by the relay UE, wherein the system information is acquired by the relay UE from a base station (BS) based on the system information related request”]
[Para 0098, “Upon receiving the SI information requested by the remote UE on-demand from the gNB, the relay UE may transmit the SI information to the remote UE through unicast or broadcast”]
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. do teach, that is not subject to communication throttling out the user equipment.
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. disclose:
[Page 2 para 5, “…a method of managing a telecommunications network, the telecommunications network having a first user and a second user, and the telecommunications network comprising a first network slice onto which the first user is allocated, the method comprising the step of: measuring network performance in respect of the first user and in respect of the second user; comparing network performance associated with the first user and the second user; identifying whether there is a disparity between the network performance associated with the first user and the second user that exceeds a threshold; and if it is identified that the disparity exceeds the threshold, adapting the network configuration of the first network slice so as reduce the disparity in the network performance associated with the first user and the second user”]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the communication control system of Harrang et al. as further informed by CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al.’s coordinated multi-UE performance management, to instruct a second UE to relay information received from a base station directly to a first UE using sidelink communication as taught by Back et al., in order to improve network efficiency, offload traffic from the base station, and assist disadvantaged or throttled UEs.
Claim 18:
Harrang et al. teach, the communication control method according to claim 10, but fail to explicitly teach, further comprising sending, from the communication control device to a second user equipment that is not subject to the communication throttling out of the user equipments, an instruction or request to send information received from the base station to the first user equipment by direct communication between the user equipments.
Back et al. do teach, further comprising sending, from the communication control device to a second user equipment, an instruction or request to send information received from the base station to the first user equipment by direct communication between the user equipments, but fail to explicitly teach, that is not subject to the communication throttling out of the user equipments.
Back et al. disclose:
[Para 0016, “Sidelink (SL) refers to a communication scheme in which a direct link is established between user equipments (UEs) and the UEs directly exchange voice or data without intervention of a base station (BS). SL is considered as a solution of relieving the BS of the constraint of rapidly growing data traffic”]
[Para 0029, “an operation method of a relay user equipment (UE) related to a sidelink relay in a wireless communication system includes receiving a system information related request from a remote UE by a relay UE, and transmitting system information to the remote UE by the relay UE, wherein the system information is acquired by the relay UE from a base station (BS) based on the system information related request”]
[Para 0098, “Upon receiving the SI information requested by the remote UE on-demand from the gNB, the relay UE may transmit the SI information to the remote UE through unicast or broadcast”]
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. do teach, that is not subject to communication throttling out the user equipment.
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. disclose:
[Page 2 para 5, “…a method of managing a telecommunications network, the telecommunications network having a first user and a second user, and the telecommunications network comprising a first network slice onto which the first user is allocated, the method comprising the step of: measuring network performance in respect of the first user and in respect of the second user; comparing network performance associated with the first user and the second user; identifying whether there is a disparity between the network performance associated with the first user and the second user that exceeds a threshold; and if it is identified that the disparity exceeds the threshold, adapting the network configuration of the first network slice so as reduce the disparity in the network performance associated with the first user and the second user”]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the communication control system of Harrang et al. as further informed by CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al.’s coordinated multi-UE performance management, to instruct a second UE to relay information received from a base station directly to a first UE using sidelink communication as taught by Back et al., in order to improve network efficiency, offload traffic from the base station, and assist disadvantaged or throttled UEs.
Claim 20:
Harrang et al. teach, out of a plurality of user equipments connected to a base station when the communication throttling is performed on a first user equipment determined to be located far from a base station out of the user equipments, but fail to teach, a user equipment that is not subjected to communication throttling, and the user equipment comprising a processor configured to receive information from the base station and to send the information received from the base station to the first user equipment by direct communication between the user equipment.
Harrang et al. disclose:
[Para 0048,“In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the SPD 200 data transfer agent 210 may be logically linked to the link profiler 214 and the optional network link monitor 212 (or alternately to an external network link monitor component 312), such that the data transfers between a sender and receiver device (e.g., between a SPD 200 or a media content provider, and a user equipment 300) may be optimally managed (e.g., by throttling a data transfer rate or selecting preferred periods for data content delivery) based on real time evaluations of network traffic and radio communications quality for communications links that are part of the communications path between (and optionally including) the sending and receiving devices”]
[Para 0057, “FIG. 4A depicts a network topology 400 with a user equipment 404a-b (which may be representative of any of the user equipment 108a-c, 124, 126a-c, 128, 130, and 132 of FIG. 1) positioned within various regional locations (Regions A: encompassed by coverage area 402b, or Region B: encompassed by coverage area 402c) that have characteristics associated with different network communications states, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. Within the network topology 400, a network base station 402a (which may be representative of any of the network base stations 106a-b, 118, 120, and 122 of FIG. 1) may supply wireless communication service to one or more regional user equipment 404a-b. Initially, the user equipment 404a may be located in an area of relatively good radio communications link quality 402b (i.e., Region A), however, sometime later the user equipment 404b may be relocated to another location within the cell that is characterized by poor radio communications link quality 402c (i.e., Region B). For the purpose of illustration the single user equipment is represented by references numbers 404a and 404b, which indicate a change in the physical location of the device; this is also represented by the dotted line with an arrowhead indicating the direction of movement for the device between Regions A and B”]
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. teach, a user equipment that is not subjected to communication throttling, but fail to teach the user equipment comprising a processor configured to receive information from the base station and to send the information received from the base station to the first user equipment by direct communication between the user equipment. However, Back et al, teach this.
CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. disclose:
[Page 2 para 5, “…a method of managing a telecommunications network, the telecommunications network having a first user and a second user, and the telecommunications network comprising a first network slice onto which the first user is allocated, the method comprising the step of: measuring network performance in respect of the first user and in respect of the second user; comparing network performance associated with the first user and the second user; identifying whether there is a disparity between the network performance associated with the first user and the second user that exceeds a threshold; and if it is identified that the disparity exceeds the threshold, adapting the network configuration of the first network slice so as reduce the disparity in the network performance associated with the first user and the second user”]
Back et al. disclose:
[Para 0029, “an operation method of a relay user equipment (UE) related to a sidelink relay in a wireless communication system includes receiving a system information related request from a remote UE by a relay UE, and transmitting system information to the remote UE by the relay UE, wherein the system information is acquired by the relay UE from a base station (BS) based on the system information related request”]
[Para 0098, “Upon receiving the SI information requested by the remote UE on-demand from the gNB, the relay UE may transmit the SI information to the remote UE through unicast or broadcast”]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Harrang et al.’s communication control system, in view of CUEVAS RAMIREZ et al. to utilize a second, non-throttled user equipment to improve the communication of a first, throttled user equipment, and further in view of Back et al., to have the second user equipment receive information from the base station and send that information to the first user equipment by direct user-equipment-to-user-equipment communication, in order to improve communication efficiency, offload traffic from the base station , and improve communication performance for distant or disadvantaged user equipments.
Conclusion
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/MOHAMMAD TARIQ HUSSAIN/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2445
/OSCAR A LOUIE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2445