DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to application number 18/780,070 filed on July 22nd 2024. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statements
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS), submitted on July 22nd 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Regarding Claim 1:
Step 1: Yes. The claim is directed towards a statutory category as the claim recites a process.
Step 2A – Prong 1 Judicial Exception Recited? Yes. The claim recites an operation to process data based on transmission requirements. The claim does not define what the processing operation is. Given the broadest reasonable interpretation, a processing operation would include mathematical operations. Thus, the claim recites a processing operation which falls within the mathematical concepts grouping of abstract ideas.
Step 2A – Prong 2: Integrated into a Practical Application? No. The claim recites the additional elements of a terminal device in claim 1 and a processor and memory in claim 10. The components are mentioned at a high level of generality and thus the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
.
Step 2B: Claim provides an Inventive Concept? No. Additional requirements are not provided for further consideration.
Regarding Claim 10; Claim 10 follows the analysis of claim 1.
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) as being anticipated by Sachs et al. (US 20200259896 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 10, Sachs et al A method for wireless communication, comprising: performing, by a terminal device, a processing operation on data based on transmission requirement information of the data (Paragraph 1619 discloses “Action 203: The UE 10 prioritizes UL transmission of the configured periodic UL grant over UL transmission of the dynamic UL grant under the condition that there is UL data to be transmitted on the configured periodic UL grant according to a logical channel prioritization procedure. The configured periodic UL grant may be for the first type of transmissions such as URLLC transmission, and the dynamic UL grant may be for the second type of transmissions such as MBB transmission.” Paragraph 0849 discloses “Whether a feature is required depends on the specific URLLC QoS demand in terms of latency and reliability”. Additionally Paragraph 1993).
Regarding claim 2, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein the transmission requirement information of the data comprises at least one of: a quality of service (QoS) requirement of the data, importance of the data, a QoS requirement of a path of the data, or importance of a path of the data (Paragraph 1372 discloses “In some embodiments, the information related to the transmission schedule includes one or more of the following: an identifier of the first UE; identifiers of one or more quality-of-service, QoS, flows associated with the data stream; and a QoS requirement associated with each of the QoS flows. In some of these embodiments, each QoS requirement comprises one or more time windows during which the data stream is required to be transmitted and/or an initial time window and a periodicity that identifies subsequent time windows. In some of these latter embodiments, if the response indicates that radio resources cannot be allocated to meet the transmission schedule of the data stream, the response further comprises an indication of one or more further time windows during which radio resources can be allocated. In some embodiments, the response indicates whether the QoS requirement associated with each of the QoS flows can be met, and the method further comprises determining whether the transmission schedule can be met based on the indication of whether the QoS requirement associated with each of the QoS flows can be met.”).
Regarding claim 3, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the terminal device, first configuration information from a network device, wherein the first configuration information comprises logical channel (LCH) parameters corresponding to the data (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCH are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY. There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCH to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH’s data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”).
Regarding claim 4, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 3, wherein the first configuration information comprises second LCH parameters, or the first configuration information comprises first LCH parameters and second LCH parameters; wherein the first LCH parameters are configured for data with a specific transmission requirement, and the second LCH parameters are configured for data with a non-specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1062-1063 disclose “In this sub-section, we address the problem that arises when non-critical traffic is accommodated using a robust configured grant (i.e. intended for critical traffic). We assume the existence of non-critical traffic with sporadic available. Such traffic would be scheduled on robust configured grant resources that needed to be provided for sporadic critical traffic with short periodicity….”. “New LCH restrictions on the logical channel (LCH) holding non-critical traffic, as shown in FIG. 78, can be introduced to mitigate this issue. For example, applying restrictions like “ConfiguredGrantType2Allowed” or “max ReliabilityAllowed” to a LCH supporting critical traffic enable the UE to avoid data from a non-critical LCH being sent using too robust resources.”).
Regarding claims 5 and 11, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 4, wherein the first LCH parameters comprise parameters corresponding to a first processing operation, wherein the first processing operation comprises at least one of: performing logical channel prioritization (LCP) processing on the data using a first LCP rule (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCHs are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY.”); packetizing the data using a first medium access control (MAC) packetization mode; and performing LCH mapping and/or resource selection on the data using a first LCH mapping restriction (Paragraph 1047 discloses “There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCHs to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH's data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”).
Regarding claim 6, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 4, wherein the second LCH parameters comprise parameters corresponding to a second processing operation, wherein the second processing operation comprises at least one of: performing logical channel prioritization (LCP) processing on the data using a second LCP rule; packetizing the data using a second medium access control (MAC) packetization mode (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCHs are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY. There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCHs to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH's data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”); and performing LCH mapping and/or resource selection on the data using a second LCH mapping restriction (Paragraph 1048-1052 discloses “The selection of LCHs is called LCP restriction procedures. Such procedure is controlled by several restrictions configured via RRC. Each of these restrictions allow/forbid the LCH to be included in the constructed MAC PDU. The following are the existing LCO restrictions in Release 15: [1049] allowedSCS-List which sets the allowed Subcarrier Spacing(s) for transmission; [1050] maxPUSCH-Duration which sets the maximum PUSCH duration allowed for transmission; [1051] configuredGrantType1Allowed which sets whether a configured grant Type 1 can be used for transmission; [1052] allowedServingCells which sets the allowed cell(s) for transmission.”).
Regarding claim 7, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein performing, by the terminal device, the processing operation on the data based on the transmission requirement information of the data comprises: performing a first processing operation on the data in response to a first condition being met, wherein the first processing operation comprises at least one of (Paragraph 1619 discloses “Action 203: The UE 10 prioritizes UL transmission of the configured periodic UL grant over UL transmission of the dynamic UL grant under the condition that there is UL data to be transmitted on the configured periodic UL grant according to a logical channel prioritization procedure. The configured periodic UL grant may be for the first type of transmissions such as URLLC transmission, and the dynamic UL grant may be for the second type of transmissions such as MBB transmission.” Additionally paragraph 0849 discloses Whether a feature is required depends on the specific URLLC QoS demand in terms of latency and reliability.“): performing logical channel prioritization (LCP) processing on the data using a first LCP rule (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCHs are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY.”); acquiring a medium access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU) by packetizing the data using a first MAC packetization mode; and performing logical channel (LCH) mapping and/or resource selection on the data using a first LCH mapping restriction (Paragraph 1047 discloses “There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCHs to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH's data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”).
Regarding claim 8, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 7, wherein the first condition comprises at least one of the following items: the data is data with a specific transmission requirement; a MAC layer of the terminal device receives second indication information from a first layer of the terminal device, wherein the second indication information indicates that the data is data with a specific transmission requirement, or the second indication information is designed to instruct to perform the first processing operation (Paragraph 1619 discloses “Action 203: The UE 10 prioritizes UL transmission of the configured periodic UL grant over UL transmission of the dynamic UL grant under the condition that there is UL data to be transmitted on the configured periodic UL grant according to a logical channel prioritization procedure. The configured periodic UL grant may be for the first type of transmissions such as URLLC transmission, and the dynamic UL grant may be for the second type of transmissions such as MBB transmission.”); a buffer of the terminal device contains data with a specific transmission requirement; transmission of data with a specific transmission requirement is not completed; a quantity of available resources is less than an amount of data with a specific transmission requirement; LCH parameters corresponding to data with a specific transmission requirement are not matched with an amount of the data with the specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 0991 discloses “In a nutshell, one of the major differences between SR and BSR is that the SR is a one-bit indication in PUCCH which signals that the UE has data for transmission, while the BSR explicitly provides an approximate value of the amount of data that the UE has in its buffer on a per logical channel group basis. The BSR is transmitted in a MAC Control Element (CE) which is transmitted in the PUSCH.”); currently used LCH parameters are not matched with an amount of data with a specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1011 discloses “ On the other hand, LCH with non-predictable traffic (packet sizes are unknown) would then be mapped to a generic SR configuration, a generic SR shared by a number of other LCH. In this case, the SR configuration cannot assist the network to identify the traffic and, therefore, the LCH needs to rely on the BSR indications to provide relevant information to the network which could assist to the scheduling decisions. Thus, Buffer Status Reporting will also be a key feature especially in scenarios in which non-predictable traffic is expected.”); a transmission delay of data with a specific transmission requirement is greater than a first delay threshold; a transmission delay of data with a non-specific transmission requirement is greater than a second delay threshold; a duration of disabling the first processing operation reaches a third duration; and a duration of enabling a second processing operation reaches a second duration (Paragraph 0997 discloses “Dynamic scheduling introduces a delay to the data transmissions, as shown in FIG. 67. This delay depends on the periodicity/offset of the SR configuration and the time the network takes to allocate resources and transmit a grant.”).
Regarding claim 9, Sachs et al. disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein performing, by the terminal device, the processing operation on the data based on the transmission requirement information of the data comprises: performing a second processing operation on the data in response to a second condition being met, wherein the second processing operation comprises at least one of (Paragraph 1617-1618 disclose “1617] Action 201: The radio network node 12 may configure the UE 10 to prioritize UL transmission of configured periodic UL grant over UL transmission of a dynamic UL grant under a condition that there is UL data to be transmitted on the configured grant according to a logical channel prioritization procedure. The configured periodic UL grant may be for a first type of transmissions e.g. critical data transmissions such as URLLC transmissions, and the dynamic UL grant may be for a second type of transmissions e.g. non-critical data transmissions such as MBB transmissions. [1618] Action 202: The radio network node 12 may schedule the UE 10 with a dynamic grant for UL transmissions of the second type e.g. non-critical data transmissions such as non-latency sensitive transmissions e.g. for a broadband service or similar. This may mean that the radio network node transmits a dynamic UL grant to the UE 10. The UE 10 may thus send a scheduling request for an UL transmission and may subsequently receive a dynamic UL grant for the UL transmission.”): performing logical channel prioritization (LCP) processing on the data using a second LCP rule (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCHs are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY.”); acquiring a medium access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU) by packetizing the data using a second MAC packetization mode; and performing logical channel (LCH) mapping and/or resource selection on the data using a second LCH mapping restriction (Paragraph 1047 discloses “There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCHs to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH's data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”).
Regarding claim 12, Sachs et al. disclose the terminal device according to claim 11, wherein the one or more computer programs, which when executed by the processor, further cause the terminal device to: modify a second LCH mapping restriction, and perform the LCH mapping and/or the resource selection on the data using the modified second LCH mapping restriction, wherein the second LCH mapping restriction is configured for data with a non-specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1066 discloses “To overcome such issue, a new LCH restriction, i.e., “DynamicGrantAllowed”* or “minimumReliabilityRequired” can be introduced. Such restriction will block the critical LCH from being sent on non-robust dynamic grant, as illustrated in FIG. 80.”); and perform the LCH mapping and/or the resource selection on the data using the first LCH mapping restriction, wherein the first LCH mapping restriction is configured for data with a specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1062-1063 disclose “In this sub-section, we address the problem that arises when non-critical traffic is accommodated using a robust configured grant (i.e. intended for critical traffic). We assume the existence of non-critical traffic with sporadic available. Such traffic would be scheduled on robust configured grant resources that needed to be provided for sporadic critical traffic with short periodicity….”. “New LCH restrictions on the logical channel (LCH) holding non-critical traffic, as shown in FIG. 78, can be introduced to mitigate this issue. For example, applying restrictions like “ConfiguredGrantType2Allowed” or “max ReliabilityAllowed” to a LCH supporting critical traffic enable the UE to avoid data from a non-critical LCH being sent using too robust resources.”).
Regarding claim 13, Sachs et al. disclose the terminal device according to claim 12, wherein the modified second LCH mapping restriction or the first LCH mapping restriction comprises: in a case that a plurality of LCHs are to be mapped onto a first resource, and a first LCH in the plurality of LCHs is an LCH corresponding to data with a specific transmission requirement, only the LCH corresponding to the data with the specific transmission requirement is allowed to be mapped onto the first resource (Paragraph 1063 discloses “New LCH restrictions on the logical channel (LCH) holding non-critical traffic, as shown in FIG. 78, can be introduced to mitigate this issue. For example, applying restrictions like “ConfiguredGrantType2Allowed” or “max ReliabilityAllowed” to a LCH supporting critical traffic enable the UE to avoid data from a non-critical LCH being sent using too robust resources.”).
Regarding claim 14, Sachs et al. disclose the terminal device according to claim 11, wherein the one or more computer programs, which when executed by the processor, further cause the terminal device to: modify a second LCP rule, and perform the LCP processing on the data using the modified second LCP rule, such that an uplink grant resource comprises the data, wherein the second LCP rule is configured for data with a non-specific transmission requirement; or perform the LCP processing on the data using the first LCP rule, such that an uplink grant resource comprises the data, wherein the first LCP rule is configured for data with a specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1993 discloses “According to some embodiments herein, establishing a communication session based on the QoS of the data stream comprising establishing a new communication session or using an existing communication session or modify an existing communication session to meet the QoS of the data stream.”).
Regarding claim 15, Sachs et al. disclose the terminal device according to claim 10, wherein the one or more computer programs, which when executed by the processor, further cause the terminal device to: receive second configuration information from a network device, wherein the second configuration information comprises logical channel (LCH) parameters corresponding to the data; wherein the second configuration information comprises a first configuration grant (CG) resource configuration, wherein the first CG resource configuration is designed to configure a first CG resource associated with an LCH corresponding to data with a specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1622 discloses “FIG. 164 is a block diagram depicting the UE 10 for handling configuration e.g. handling or enabling communication to the radio network node in the wireless communication network 1 according to embodiments herein. The UE 10 may comprise processing circuitry 801, e.g. one or more processors, configured to perform the methods herein. The UE 10 may comprise a receiving unit 802, e.g. a receiver or a transceiver. The UE 10, the processing circuitry 801, and/or the receiving unit 802 may be configured to receive configuration data from the radio network node 12. The configuration data may define that the UE prioritizes UL transmission of the configured periodic UL grant over UL transmission of a dynamic UL grant under the condition that there is UL data to be transmitted on the configured grant according to a logical channel prioritization procedure. The configured periodic UL grant may be for a first type of transmissions such as URLLC transmission, and the dynamic UL grant may be for a second type of transmissions such as MBB transmission. The UE 10, the processing circuitry 801, and/or the receiving unit 802 is configured to receive a dynamic UL grant for an UL transmission.”).
Regarding claim 16, Sachs et al. disclose a network device, comprising: a processor and a memory storing one or more computer programs, which when executed by the processor, cause the network device to: transmit target configuration information to a terminal device, wherein the target configuration information is designed to configure logical channel (LCH) parameters for the terminal device to perform data processing and/or transmission (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCH are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY. There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCH to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH’s data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”).
Regarding claim 17, Sachs et al. disclose the network device according to claim 16, wherein the target configuration information comprises first configuration information, wherein the first configuration information comprises first LCH parameters and second LCH parameters; wherein the first LCH parameters are configured for data with a specific transmission requirement, and the second LCH parameters are configured for data with a non-specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1062-1063 disclose “In this sub-section, we address the problem that arises when non-critical traffic is accommodated using a robust configured grant (i.e. intended for critical traffic). We assume the existence of non-critical traffic with sporadic available. Such traffic would be scheduled on robust configured grant resources that needed to be provided for sporadic critical traffic with short periodicity….”. “New LCH restrictions on the logical channel (LCH) holding non-critical traffic, as shown in FIG. 78, can be introduced to mitigate this issue. For example, applying restrictions like “ConfiguredGrantType2Allowed” or “max ReliabilityAllowed” to a LCH supporting critical traffic enable the UE to avoid data from a non-critical LCH being sent using too robust resources.”).
Regarding claim 18, Sachs et al. disclose the network device according to claim 17, wherein the first LCH parameters comprise parameters corresponding to a first processing operation, wherein the first processing operation comprises at least one of: performing logical channel prioritization (LCP) processing on data using a first LCP rule (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCHs are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY.”); packetizing the data using a first medium access control (MAC) packetization mode; and performing LCH mapping and/or resource selection on the data using a first LCH mapping restriction (Paragraph 1047 discloses “There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCHs to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH's data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”).
Regarding claim 19, Sachs et al. disclose the network device according to claim 17, wherein the second LCH parameters comprise parameters corresponding to a second processing operation, wherein the second processing operation comprises at least one of: performing logical channel prioritization (LCP) processing on data using a second LCP rule; packetizing the data using a second medium access control (MAC) packetization mode (Paragraph 1047 discloses “The LCP procedures are applied whenever a new transmission is to be performed, and it is mainly used to specify how and what LCHs are going to fill the MAC PDU which is going to be sent over the PUSCH via PHY. There are mainly two parts in LCP procedures, one focuses on selecting the LCHs to be included in the MAC PDU, the other one focuses on the prioritization and the amount of each LCH's data (among the selected ones) to fill the MAC PDU.”); and performing LCH mapping and/or resource selection on the data using a second LCH mapping restriction (Paragraph 1048-1052 discloses “The selection of LCHs is called LCP restriction procedures. Such procedure is controlled by several restrictions configured via RRC. Each of these restrictions allow/forbid the LCH to be included in the constructed MAC PDU. The following are the existing LCO restrictions in Release 15: [1049] allowedSCS-List which sets the allowed Subcarrier Spacing(s) for transmission; [1050] maxPUSCH-Duration which sets the maximum PUSCH duration allowed for transmission; [1051] configuredGrantType1Allowed which sets whether a configured grant Type 1 can be used for transmission; [1052] allowedServingCells which sets the allowed cell(s) for transmission.”).
Regarding claim 20, Sachs et al. disclose the network device according to claim 16, wherein the target configuration information comprises second configuration information, wherein the second configuration information comprises a first configuration grant (CG) resource configuration, wherein the first CG resource configuration is designed to configure a first CG resource associated with an LCH corresponding to data with a specific transmission requirement (Paragraph 1622 discloses “FIG. 164 is a block diagram depicting the UE 10 for handling configuration e.g. handling or enabling communication to the radio network node in the wireless communication network 1 according to embodiments herein. The UE 10 may comprise processing circuitry 801, e.g. one or more processors, configured to perform the methods herein. The UE 10 may comprise a receiving unit 802, e.g. a receiver or a transceiver. The UE 10, the processing circuitry 801, and/or the receiving unit 802 may be configured to receive configuration data from the radio network node 12. The configuration data may define that the UE prioritizes UL transmission of the configured periodic UL grant over UL transmission of a dynamic UL grant under the condition that there is UL data to be transmitted on the configured grant according to a logical channel prioritization procedure. The configured periodic UL grant may be for a first type of transmissions such as URLLC transmission, and the dynamic UL grant may be for a second type of transmissions such as MBB transmission. The UE 10, the processing circuitry 801, and/or the receiving unit 802 is configured to receive a dynamic UL grant for an UL transmission.”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Samuel Dilan Rutnam whose telephone number is 703-756-1374. The examiner can normally be reached between 8:30am-5:00pm Mon-Fri.
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/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/MOHAMMAD S ADHAMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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