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 .
This is a Non-final action for application number 18/832,939 in response to an original application filed on 07/25/2024.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8-18, 37, 40, 42, 47 and 55 are currently pending and have been considered below.
Claims 1, 37 and 55 are independent claims.
Claims 3, 5, 7, 19-36, 38, 39, 41, 43-46 and 48-54 have been cancelled.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on 07/25/2024, 10/29/2025, 02/13/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 on 07/25/2024.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 17, 18, 37, 40, 42 and 55 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo et al. (US 2020/0145884 A1) in view of Pan et al. (WO 2022/088833 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 37 and 55, a communication method, comprising:
receiving a first data stream by a first network device, [Step 3: transmitting, by the SMF, the packet filter information and the corresponding QFI of the service to the UPF, wherein the UPF receives data stream as shown in Paragraph 70, (Guo et al., Paragraph 122)],
adding, by the first network device, first information into at least one media unit in the first data stream according to media unit information, [After receiving the downlink data, the UPF matches the downlink data packet according to the packet filter information, and adds the QFI to the packet header of the matched downlink data packet, and sends the QFI to the UE through the AN, (Guo et al., Paragraph 122)], and/or obtaining a second data stream by adding or modifying a quality of service (QoS) profile, [the AN performs the corresponding QoS configuration according to the QFI in the downlink data packet header, (Guo et al., Paragraph 122)],
the first information comprising identification information configured for identifying a data packet belonging to a first media unit, and the first media unit being any one of the at least one media unit, [The SMF aggregates different PCC rules according to the QoS requirements, and the PCC rules with the same QoS requirements are aggregated to a same QoS data stream, and a QoS Flow ID (QFI) is assigned to this QoS data stream, (Guo et al., Paragraph 70)],
wherein the first network device is an access network device or a user plane function (UPF), , [Step 3: transmitting, by the SMF, the packet filter information and the corresponding QFI of the service to the UPF, See figure 6, (Guo et al., Paragraph 122)],
Guo et al. fails to explicitly teach that the first data stream comprising at least one media unit, each of the at least one media unit comprising one or more data packets,
Pan et al. teaches transmitting a data packet of a media stream, and a communication apparatus. The method comprises: a network element of an access network receiving M data packets of a media stream from a network element of a user plane, (Pan et al., Abstract),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Guo et al. by including that the first data stream comprising at least one media unit, each of the at least one media unit comprising one or more data packets, (Pan et al., Abstract), in order to drop N data packets with relatively low priorities from among the M data packets when a network resource of the network element of the access network cannot meet a transmission requirement of a terminal device, (Pan et al., Abstract).
Regarding claims 2, the method according to claim 1, wherein the media unit is any one of a data frame, an application data unit (ADU), a group of pictures (GOP), a slice, a tile, or a slice segment (SS), [the N data packets include one or more of the following: data packets corresponding to the last Q B frames or P frames in a group of pictures (group of pictures, GOP); The data packet corresponding to the background stream data of , and the data packet corresponding to the enhancement layer data of the media stream, Q is a positive integer, Pan et al.].
Regarding claims 4 and 40, the method wherein the media unit information comprises an identifier indicative of adding the first information to the first media unit, and/or, adding or modifying the QoS profile, [Figure 6, After receiving the downlink data, the UPF matches the downlink data packet according to the packet filter information, and adds the QFI to the packet header of the matched downlink data packet, and sends the QFI to the UE through the AN, (Guo et al., Paragraph 122)].
Regarding claims 6 and 42, the method further comprising: obtaining the media unit information by the first network device from an application function (AF) network element, a session management function (SMF) network element, or a policy control function (PCF) network element, [Please see Figure 6, AMF, SMF, and PCF].
Regarding claim 17, the method according to claim 1, wherein the adding first information into at least one media unit in the first data stream comprises: adding the first information into each data packet of the first media unit; or adding the first information into a first data packet of the first media unit; or adding the first information into a last data packet of the first media unit; or adding the first information into the first data packet and the last data packet of the first media unit, [Figure 6, After receiving the downlink data, the UPF matches the downlink data packet according to the packet filter information, and adds the QFI to the packet header of the matched downlink data packet, and sends the QFI to the UE through the AN, (Guo et al., Paragraph 122)].
Regarding claim 18, the communication device according to claim 17, wherein the first information is added into a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol (GTP-U) packet header or an Internet Protocol (IP) layer packet header of a user plane of the data packet, [If it is determined that the reflective QoS applies, the UE applys the reflective according to the IP header and QFI of the downlink data packet, and generates the QoS policy for the uplink data, (Guo et al., Paragraph 124)].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-16 and 47 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Shukri Taha whose telephone number is 571-270-1921. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri.
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/SHUKRI TAHA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
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