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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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) 1-2, 5-12, 15-16, 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over XING (US 11,649,444) in view of ASHRAF et al. (US 2018/0191473 A1), hereinafter ASHRAF.
Regarding claim 1, XING discloses a method of operating a base station, the method comprising:
receiving latency information indicating a latency on a backhaul communications link used to couple the base station to a network device (the latency manager 122 may also receive core latency data 128 reported by, and/or associated with, one or more elements of the core network 108, see col. 10 lines 43-53, the latency manager 122 is part of base station 104, see figure 1);
operating the base station to use the first subcarrier spacing (SCS) for wireless communications during said first amount of time (the latency manager 122 may also dynamically change subcarrier spacing values associated with one or more of the connections, dynamically adjust performance load balancing between spectrum bands, dynamically adjust scheduling and/or resource assignment associated with one or more UEs, dynamically change attributes associated with the connections at one or more protocol layers, such as the physical layer, the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, the Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, and/or the Packet Data Convergence Control (PDCP) layer, and/or take other actions to adjust RAN latencies associated with one or more connections, see col. 12 lines 41-65).
XING fails to explicitly disclose that determining the first amount of time for which a first subcarrier spacing is to be used.
In the same field of endeavor, ASHRAF discloses at the first time interval, allocating a first and second carrier spacings, and at the second time interval, allocating the third and fourth subcarrier spacings in a LTE network (see ¶ 0012, and 0014).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement ASHRAF’s teaching in the network taught by XING for providing dynamic operations to efficiently support different services. In an example, a base station decides, depending upon the type of scheduling request (SR), whether or not to allocate a dedicated resource.
Regarding claim 2, ASHRAF discloses determining a new subcarrier spacing to be used prior to expiration of said first amount of time (at the first time interval, allocating a first and second carrier spacings, and at the second time interval, allocating the third and fourth subcarrier spacings in a LTE network, see ¶ 0012, and 0014).
Regarding claim 5, XING discloses determining the first amount of time includes: comparing the latency on the backhaul to a latency threshold value (based on target threshold or goals, see col. 2 lines 50 to col. 3 lines 16).
Regarding claim 6, XING discloses determining the first amount of time further includes: setting the first amount of time to a first time period in response to determining that the latency on the backhaul being below the latency threshold value (based on target threshold or goals, see col. 2 lines 50 to col. 3 lines 16).
Regarding claim 8, ASHRAF discloses determining if a point in time preceding an end of the first amount of time has been reached; and in response to determining that the point in time preceding the end of the first amount of time has been reached, determining a new SCS to be used by the base station (for a first time interval, allocating first and second non-overlapping portions of a frequency band to first and second multicarrier modulation schemes, respectively. The first and second multicarrier modulation schemes have first and second subcarrier spacings, respectively, and the first and second subcarrier spacings differ from one another… for a second time interval, allocating third and fourth non-overlapping portions of a frequency band to third and fourth multicarrier modulation schemes, respectively. The third and fourth multicarrier modulation schemes have third and fourth subcarrier spacings, respectively, and the third and fourth subcarrier spacings differ from one another… see ¶ 0012; where the first time interval and second interval have fixed duration).
Regarding claim 9, XING discloses the new SCS to be used based on latency information indicating a transmission latency on a backhaul connection corresponding to the base station (the latency manager 122 may attempt to lower the RAN latency 114 of an end-to-end connection by changing the subcarrier spacing values used to transmit data from a lower value to a higher value, see col. 13 lines 49-67).
Regarding clam 10, ASHRAF discloses the base station is a Citizens Broadband Radio Services Device (CBSD) (the network access node 30 and/or the UE 50 support MBB or mobile broadband type traffic, see ¶ 0084).
Regarding claim 11, XING discloses a base station connected by a backhaul communications link to a network device, the base station comprising:
an interface including a receiver and a transmitter; and a processor configured to:
receive latency information indicating a latency on a backhaul communications link used to couple the base station to a network device (the latency manager 122 may also receive core latency data 128 reported by, and/or associated with, one or more elements of the core network 108, see col. 10 lines 43-53, the latency manager 122 is part of base station 104, see figure 1);
operating the base station to use the first subcarrier spacing (SCS) for wireless communications during said first amount of time (the latency manager 122 may also dynamically change subcarrier spacing values associated with one or more of the connections, dynamically adjust performance load balancing between spectrum bands, dynamically adjust scheduling and/or resource assignment associated with one or more UEs, dynamically change attributes associated with the connections at one or more protocol layers, such as the physical layer, the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, the Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, and/or the Packet Data Convergence Control (PDCP) layer, and/or take other actions to adjust RAN latencies associated with one or more connections, see col. 12 lines 41-65).
XING fails to explicitly disclose that determining the first amount of time for which a first subcarrier spacing is to be used.
In the same field of endeavor, ASHRAF discloses in the first time interval a first and second carrier spacings and the second time interval the third and fourth subcarrier spacings in a LTE network (see ¶ 0012, and 0014).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement ASHRAF’s teaching in the network taught by XING for providing dynamic operations to efficiently support different services. In an example, a base station decides, depending upon the type of scheduling request (SR), whether or not to allocate a dedicated resource.
Regarding claim 12, ASHRAF discloses determining a new subcarrier spacing to be used prior to expiration of said first amount of time (at the first time interval, allocating a first and second carrier spacings, and at the second time interval, allocating the third and fourth subcarrier spacings in a LTE network, see ¶ 0012, and 0014).
Regarding claim 15, XING discloses determining the first amount of time includes: comparing the latency on the backhaul to a latency threshold value (based on target threshold or goals, see col. 2 lines 50 to col. 3 lines 16).
Regarding claim 16, XING discloses determining the first amount of time further includes: setting the first amount of time to a first time period in response to determining that the latency on the backhaul being below the latency threshold value (based on target threshold or goals, see col. 2 lines 50 to col. 3 lines 16).
Regarding claim 18, ASHRAF discloses determining if a point in time preceding an end of the first amount of time has been reached; and in response to determining that the point in time preceding the end of the first amount of time has been reached, determining a new SCS to be used by the base station (for a first time interval, allocating first and second non-overlapping portions of a frequency band to first and second multicarrier modulation schemes, respectively. The first and second multicarrier modulation schemes have first and second subcarrier spacings, respectively, and the first and second subcarrier spacings differ from one another… for a second time interval, allocating third and fourth non-overlapping portions of a frequency band to third and fourth multicarrier modulation schemes, respectively. The third and fourth multicarrier modulation schemes have third and fourth subcarrier spacings, respectively, and the third and fourth subcarrier spacings differ from one another… see ¶ 0012; where the first time interval and second interval have fixed duration).
Regarding claim 19, XING discloses the new SCS to be used based on latency information indicating a transmission latency on a backhaul connection corresponding to the base station (the latency manager 122 may attempt to lower the RAN latency 114 of an end-to-end connection by changing the subcarrier spacing values used to transmit data from a lower value to a higher value, see col. 13 lines 49-67).
Regarding claim 20, XING discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium including computer executable instructions which when executed by a processor of a base station control the base station to perform the steps of:
receiving latency information indicating a latency on a backhaul communications link used to couple the base station to a network device (the latency manager 122 may also receive core latency data 128 reported by, and/or associated with, one or more elements of the core network 108, see col. 10 lines 43-53, the latency manager 122 is part of base station 104, see figure 1);
determining, based on the received latency information, a first amount of time for which a first subcarrier spacing is to be used; and
operating the base station to use the first subcarrier spacing (SCS) for wireless communications during said first amount of time (the latency manager 122 may also dynamically change subcarrier spacing values associated with one or more of the connections, dynamically adjust performance load balancing between spectrum bands, dynamically adjust scheduling and/or resource assignment associated with one or more UEs, dynamically change attributes associated with the connections at one or more protocol layers, such as the physical layer, the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, the Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, and/or the Packet Data Convergence Control (PDCP) layer, and/or take other actions to adjust RAN latencies associated with one or more connections, see col. 12 lines 41-65).
XING fails to explicitly disclose that determining the first amount of time for which a first subcarrier spacing is to be used.
In the same field of endeavor, ASHRAF discloses in the first time interval a first and second carrier spacings and the second time interval the third and fourth subcarrier spacings in a LTE network (see ¶ 0012, and 0014).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement ASHRAF’s teaching in the network taught by XING for providing dynamic operations to efficiently support different services. In an example, a base station decides, depending upon the type of scheduling request (SR), whether or not to allocate a dedicated resource.
Claim(s) 3-4, 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of XING-ASHRAF in view of ANDREOLI-FANG.
Regarding claims 3, 13, XING fails to explicitly disclose the network device is a cable modem termination system; and wherein the backhaul communications link is a communications link extending between the cable modem termination system and the base station.
In the same field of endeavor, ANDREOLI-FANG discloses the wireless base station 102 connected to MTS 101 via a backhaul connection 106 (see figures 1 and 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement ANDREOLI-FANG’s teaching in the network taught by the combination of XING-ASHRAF to maximizes existing Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial (HFC) cable TV networks to deliver high-speed broadband without new wiring while providing high bandwidth.
Regarding claims 4, 14, ANDREOLI-FANG discloses the latency is a cable modem termination system to cable modem latency (determine latency between the wireless base station and MTS, see figure 1 and ¶ 0020).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7 and 17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding claims 7 and 17, when reading the claims considering the specification, none of the references of record alone or in combination disclose or suggest the combination of limitations specified in the claim limitation of: determining the first amount of time includes: setting the first amount of time to a second time period in response to latency on the backhaul is equal to or greater than the latency threshold value, said second time period being longer than a first time period to which the first amount of time is set when the latency on the backhaul is less than the latency threshold value.
Conclusion
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bob A. Phunkulh whose telephone number is (571) 272-3083. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. (first week of the bi-week) and Monday-Friday (for second week of the bi-week).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor CHARLES C. JIANG can be reach on (571) 270-7191.
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/BOB A PHUNKULH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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