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 § 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 1-7, 9-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claims 1-7, and 9-10 are drawn to a method therefore falls under one of four categories of statutory subject matter (process/method, machines/products/apparatus, manufactures and compositions of matter)
Nonetheless, claim 1 is directed to a judicially recognized exception of an abstract idea without significantly more. Claim 1 recites “a wireless communication method, wherein the method comprises: measuring, by a first network device, a first rate of a first group, wherein the first group comprises at least two terminal devices, the first rate is formed by rates of at least two first connections, and the first connection is used for transmitting data of a first group service”. However, the measuring of the rate does lead anything significant more since claim 1 does not recite any additional elements and/or steps that would integrate a practical application.).
The claim contains only generic measuring step and does not recite additional elements amounting to significantly more. The additional steps/elements are a form of collecting/receiving of data over a network and obtaining information are well-understood, routine and conventional functions when it is claimed in a merely generic manner (See MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(IV)).
Therefore, claim 1 is not patent eligible.
Claims 11-17 and 19-20 recite similar limitations as claim 1, and therefore similar analysis applies to claims 11-17 and 19-20 for similar reason as above.
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, 8-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Chae et al. (US Patent 12604233 B2).
In regards to claims 1 and 11 Chae et al. (US Patent 12604233 B2) teaches, a wireless communication method, wherein the method comprises: measuring, by a first network device, a first rate of a first group (see column 20, lines 61-63; The UPF 805 may measure, count packets, and/or provide packet metrics to one or more other entities in the network (e.g., a NF such as a PCF)), wherein the first group comprises at least two terminal devices (see figure 1B, network 150 has two wireless devices 151), the first rate is formed by rates of at least two first connections (see column 12, lines 25-33; The UPF 405 may provide/send usage reports to the SMF 414 in accordance with a URR. The URR may indicate one or more triggering conditions for generation and/or reporting of the usage report. The reporting may be based on immediate reporting, periodic reporting, a threshold for incoming uplink traffic, and/or any other suitable triggering condition. The URR may indicate a method for measuring usage of network resources (e.g., data volume, duration, and/or event); the network resources and data volume read on two first connections; see figure 21 for the two connections themselves), and the first connection is used for transmitting data of a first group service (see column 12, lines 34-41; The DNs 408, 409 may comprise public DNs (e.g., the Internet), private DNs (e.g., private, internal corporate-owned DNs), and/or intra-operator DNs. A DN (e.g., each DN) may provide an operator service and/or a third-party service. The service provided by a DN may be an Internet service, an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), an augmented or virtual reality network, an edge computing or mobile edge computing (MEC) network, and/or any other service).
In regards to claims 2 and 12, Chae teaches, wherein the at least two first connections comprise first connections for the at least two terminal devices (see column 12, lines 25-33; The UPF 405 may provide/send usage reports to the SMF 414 in accordance with a URR. The URR may indicate one or more triggering conditions for generation and/or reporting of the usage report. The reporting may be based on immediate reporting, periodic reporting, a threshold for incoming uplink traffic, and/or any other suitable triggering condition. The URR may indicate a method for measuring usage of network resources (e.g., data volume, duration, and/or event); the network resources and data volume read on two first connections; see figure 21 for the two terminals and two connections themselves).
In regards to claims 3 and 13, Chae teaches, wherein the first connection is a protocol data unit (PDU) session (column 12, lines 47-48; the first PDU session and the second PDU session) or a (quality of service) QoS flow.
In regards to claims 4 and 14, Chae teaches, wherein the first group service is federated learning (FL) (see column 46, lines 35-41; The one or more wireless devices may send (e.g., transmit) one or more model parameters to the edge node, for example, in a federated ML application. Without direct exchanging data between devices, privacy issue may be mitigated. The edge node may average out the model parameters to get an averaged and/or a federated model. This procedure may be referred to as a federated averaging).
In regards to claims 5 and 15, Chae teaches, wherein the measuring, by a first network device, a first rate of a first group comprises: measuring rates of the first connections for the at least two terminal devices in the first group (see column 20, lines 61-63; The UPF 805 may measure, count packets, and/or provide packet metrics to one or more other entities in the network (e.g., a NF such as a PCF));see figure 1B, network 150 has two wireless devices 151)) and adding measurement results of the at least two first connections, to obtain a measurement value of the first rate.
In regards to claims 6 and 16, Chae teaches, wherein the first connection is configured with a guaranteed bit rate (GBR); or the first connection is not configured with a GBR (see column 11, lines 50-53; One or more QoS flows may be associated with a guaranteed bit rate (e.g., guaranteed bit rate (GBR) QoS flows). One or more QoS flows may have bit rates that are not guaranteed (non-GBR QoS flows)).
In regards to claims 8 and 18, Chae teaches, wherein the method further comprises: transmitting, by the first network device, first information to a second network device, when the measurement value of the first rate is greater than a first rate threshold, wherein the first information is used for indicating the measurement value of the first rate (see column 12, lines 25-33; The UPF 405 may provide/send usage reports to the SMF 414 in accordance with a URR. The URR may indicate one or more triggering conditions for generation and/or reporting of the usage report. The reporting may be based on immediate reporting, periodic reporting, a threshold for incoming uplink traffic, and/or any other suitable triggering condition. The URR may indicate a method for measuring usage of network resources (e.g., data volume, duration, and/or event); the network resources and data volume read on two first connections; see figure 21 for the two terminals and two connections themselves; see column 7, lines 51-57 for exceeding of the threshold).
In regards to claims 9 and 19, Chae teaches, wherein an adjustment manner of the first rate comprises at least one of following: limiting a rate of at least one of the first connections (see column 53, lines 62-67 and column 54, line 1; a base station and/or a wireless device may effectively determine/control/adjust one or more transmission parameters. The one or more transmission parameters may comprise a size of radio resource and/or a transmission power parameter to satisfy a target QoS requirement. The one or more transmission parameters may be effectively determined/controlled/adjusted); limiting a rate of a (data radio bearer) DRB corresponding to at least one of the first connections; deactivating at least one of the first connections; deactivating a DRB corresponding to at least one of the first connections (see column 24, lines 50-52; The network may deactivate a user plane connection of a PDU session of the wireless device); deleting at least one of the first connections; or deleting a DRB corresponding to at least one of the first connections.
In regards to claims 10 and 20, Chae teaches, wherein the first network device is a user plane function network element (UPF) (see column 20, lines 61-63; The UPF 805 may measure, count packets, and/or provide packet metrics to one or more other entities in the network (e.g., a NF such as a PCF)) or a first base station.
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) 7 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chae et al as stated above further in view of Li et al. (US Publication 2023/0319622 A1).
In regards to claims 7 and 17, Chae teaches all the limitations of the parent claims as stated above.
However, Chae fails to teach, wherein a sum of GBRs of the at least two first connections is greater than an aggregate maximum bit rate (AMBR) of the first group.
Li however teaches, wherein a sum of GBRs of the at least two first connections is greater than an aggregate maximum bit rate (AMBR) of the first group (see paragraph 97; determining the rate sum of the current user plane active up-link/down-link data streams is greater than the slice UL/DL-AMBR and there is a demand of a new GBR data stream, and decides to cease some GBR data streams with a low priority according to the ARP priority).
Chae and Li are both directed to network traffic management.
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to incorporate the use of the AMBR comparison as taught by Li into the teachings of Chae. The motivation to do so would be to improve quality of service for high priority critical traffic by pausing or ceasing low priority streams.
Relevant Prior Art
Yu et al. (US Publication 2022/0217569 A1) teaches various ways to control service flow transmissions (see for example figures 7-9C).
Dao et al (US Publication 2020/0112907 A1) teaches, in figure 1, in a message flow diagram, an example of a procedure for QoS notification to User Equipments triggered by a Session Management Function, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention; figure 2 shows in a message flow diagram, an example of a procedure to provide statistical network QoS information and short-term QoS information to a User Equipment.
Conclusion
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/JAY P PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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