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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent European Application No. 23196388.5, filed on September 8, 2023.
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.
Claims 1 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Mayya et al, U.S. Patent No. 9237103 B2 (hereinafter Mayya).
Regarding Claim 1, Mayya discloses an apparatus, the apparatus comprising: at least one memory configured to store instructions (e.g., Claim 1: apparatus comprising: an output port; a port logic integrated circuit module in communication with the output port, the port logic integrated circuit module having instructions that cause operations to be performed; Column 8, lines 6-17: Modules can provide information to, and receive information from, other modules. For example, the described modules may be regarded as being communicatively coupled. Where multiples of such hardware modules exist contemporaneously, communications may be achieved through signal transmission (e.g., over appropriate circuits and buses) that connect the modules. In embodiments in which multiple modules are configured or instantiated at different times, communications between such modules may be achieved, for example, through the storage and retrieval of information in memory structures to which the multiple modules have access); and at least one processor configured to execute the instructions and cause the apparatus to perform (e.g., Claim 1), receiving, at the apparatus, a plurality of packets of information to be transmitted from the apparatus to a node (e.g., Claim 1: receiving a plurality of data packets destined for the output port that is in communication with a destination apparatus); generating at least one queue of the plurality of packets of information to be transported to the node (e.g., Claim 2: an output queuing module in communication with the port logic integrated circuit module, the output queuing module includes an output queue, and wherein the operation of receiving the plurality of data packets comprises storing the plurality of data packets in the output queue); discarding at least one packet from the queue at a specific time and/or based on a timing characteristic of the at least one packet to be discarded (e.g., Claim 1: recording a time period between receiving the particular data packet and receiving the particular flow control signal; tracking a plurality of time periods comprising the recorded time period for each of the plurality of data packets; calculating an average of the plurality of time periods; comparing the average to a threshold; and dropping at least one of the plurality of data packets in reference to the comparison).
Regarding Claim 14, the claim is directed to a method, comprising operations that are functionally similar to those performed by the apparatus of claim 1. Therefore, the reasoning used in the examination of claim 1 shall be applied to claim 14.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mayya in view of Malik et al, US 20240121663 A1 (hereinafter Malik).
Regarding Claim 3, Mayya discloses all the limitations of the apparatus of claim 1.
Mayya does not expressly disclose wherein the apparatus is further caused to perform: transmitting, to the node from the apparatus, a status report on the queue.
Malik discloses wherein the apparatus is further caused to perform: transmitting, to the node from the apparatus, a status report on the queue (e.g., ¶ [0176] The buffer status reporting (BSR) procedure is used to provide a serving RAN node (e.g., gNB 1814a) with information about UL data volume in the MAC entity (e.g., at the MAC layer of a UE 1802 or another RAN node 1814); e.g., ¶ [0248] Example 1 includes an method to be employed as a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: operating a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) entity to perform a PDCP discard operation to discard, upon expiration of a discard timer, at least one protocol data unit (PDU) set stored in a transmission buffer; and operating a medium access control (MAC) entity to trigger generation and transmission of a buffer status report (BSR) based on the PDCP discard operation).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing date to combine the disclosure of generating discarding at least one packet from a transmit queue at a specific time and/or based on a timing characteristic of the at least one packet to be discarded, as disclosed by Mayya, with the disclosure of transmitting, to the node from the apparatus, a status report on the queue, as disclosed by Malik. The motivation to combine would have been to support efficient buffer status reporting and packet discard mechanisms (Malik: e.g., ¶ [0016]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-13 and 15 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Regarding independent Claim 4, directed to a node, communicating with an apparatus, and independent Claim 15, directed to a method, comprising operations that are functionally similar to those performed by the node of claim 4, prior art of record discloses apparatus, communicating with the node, having a queue of the plurality of packets of information to be transported to the node, as seen in Mayya, above (e.g., Claim 2: an output queuing module in communication with the port logic integrated circuit module, the output queuing module includes an output queue, and wherein the operation of receiving the plurality of data packets comprises storing the plurality of data packets in the output queue). Prior art of record discloses scheduling the transmission of a plurality of packets of information from an apparatus to the node, as may be seen in Huang et al, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20250227537 A1 (e.g., ¶ [0020] In this embodiment of this application, the receiving end can learn, based on the remaining time for discard of the MSDU, that the MSDU in the transmit queue of the TID may be discarded by the transmitting end within the remaining time. Therefore, the receiving end can schedule, by using the trigger frame, the transmitting end to send the MSDU in the transmit queue of the TID, to avoid a case in which the transmitting end discards the MSDU because the transmitting end does not send the MSDU in time).
The prior art of record fails to disclose individually or in combination or render obvious the limitation transmitting, from a node to the apparatus, a request to initiate discarding of at least one packet of information from the queue at a specific time and/or based on a timing characteristic of the at least one packet to be discarded.
Claims 5-13, dependent directly or indirectly from Claim 4, are also allowed.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Claim 2 is 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding Claim 2, dependent from claim 1, prior art of record fails to disclose individually or in combination or render obvious the limitation receiving, at the apparatus from the node, a request to initiate the discarding of the at least one packet from the queue.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. References considered relevant to this application are listed in the attached "Notice of References Cited” (PTO-892).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VLADISLAV Y AGUREYEV whose telephone number is (571)272-0549. The examiner can normally be reached Monday--Friday (9-5).
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/VLADISLAV Y AGUREYEV/Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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