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 .
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it has two pages. It should be limited to a single paragraph within the range of 50 to 150 words in length, and without a drawing. Correction is required. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(B) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
4. Claims 6, 30-32 and 33-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 6, the occurrence of “a deadline per a quality of service (QoS) requirement” in the limitation “does not meet a deadline per a quality of service (QoS) requirement associated with the type-A PDU set during the delivery to the higher layer” at lines 6-8, is vague and indefinite as the metes and bounds of what associating with the deadline and QoS is unknown.
Regarding claim 30, a “layer 2 (L2) deadline” in the limitation “when the RLC data packet reaches a layer 2 (L2) deadline” at line 4 is vague and indefinite. The same remark applies to claim 33.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
5. 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)(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.
6. Claims 1-2, 4-5, 7, 38-39, 41 and 50 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lyu et al. (US 2024/0381177), hereinafter Lyu.
Regarding claim 1, Lyu discloses: (1) a receiving device 1200-fig.12, which could be a terminal or a network device, see 0417. The apparatus 1600-fig.16 may be a terminal device or a network device comprising memory and processor to perform the claimed steps, see 0460; (2) A wireless communication method and apparatus are provided. The method includes: determining, by a receiving device, a first transmission policy, where the first transmission policy is used to determine whether a first protocol layer submits a data packet in a first PDU set to an upper layer, and the first transmission policy is related to a type of the first PDU set, see abstract, 0132 and 0141; (3) among data packets corresponding to a same service, data packets 1, 2 and 3 belongs to a PDU set A, and data packets 4, 5 and 6 belong to a PDU set B, see 0129;
(4) taking FIG. 3 as an example. It is assumed that the receiver has successfully received data packets 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, and has not properly received the data packet 3, and the receiver decoder requires that data packets in the PDU set A are useful only in a case that all data packets in the PDU set A are received. In this case, the receiver should try to submit (or transmit) data packets in the PDU set A to an upper layer first, see 0132.
Regarding claim 2, for a class-A PDU set, if a part of data in the PDU set is not successfully received, a receiver (or a receiver device or a receiving device) receives only a part of data packets in the PDU set, which is of no use to the receiver, and the receiver may not be able to obtain a corresponding image by decoding by using the part of data packets. Therefore, for the class-A PDU set, the receiver usually needs to receive all data packets in the class-A PDU set before it can obtain the corresponding image by decoding, see 0130.
Regarding claim 4, Lyu discloses one or more PDU sets comprises at least one of: type-A PDU set or type-B PDU set, see 0130.
Regarding claim 5, Lyu discloses a policy indicating a type of each PDU set of the one or more PDU sets, and the receiver node to determine whether an PDU set of the one or more PDU sets is a type-A PDU set or a type-B PDU set based on the policy, see 0099, 0130.
Regarding claim 7, Lyu discloses for a class-B PDU set, if a part of data packets in the PDU set is unsuccessfully received, the receiver can still obtain a corresponding image through decoding, that is, even if the receiver receives only a part of data packets in the PDU set, the receiver can obtain the corresponding image through decoding, but with lower image quality, see 0130.
Regarding claim 38, Lyu discloses: (1) a receiving device 1200-fig.12, which could be a terminal or a network device, see 0417. The apparatus 1600-fig.16 may be a terminal device or a network device comprising memory and processor to perform the claimed steps, see 0460; (2) among data packets corresponding to a same service, data packets 1, 2 and 3 belongs to a PDU set A, and data packets 4, 5 and 6 belong to a PDU set B, see 0129; (2) Data packets generated by the encoder (transmitter node) have a characteristic of PDU sets. Taking FIG. 3 as an example. Among data packets corresponding to a same service, data packets 1, 2, and 3 belong to a PDU set A, and data packets 4, 5, and 6 belong to a PDU set B, see 0129; (3) a receiver (or a receiver device or a receiving device) receives only a part of data packets in the PDU set. For a class-B PDU set, if a part of data packets in the PDU set is unsuccessfully received, the receiver can still obtain a corresponding image through decoding, that is, even if the receiver receives only a part of data packets in the PDU set, the receiver can obtain the corresponding image through decoding, but with lower image quality, see 0130. In other words, a receiver receives data packet belongs to PDU set A and PDU set B, and the receiver applies processing procedure of Class-B to one or more data packets within the same PDU set to obtain the corresponding image through decoding, but with lower image quality.
Regarding claim 39, according to a third aspect, a wireless communication method is provided, including: receiving, by a terminal device, first indication information, where the first indication information is used to indicate a type of a PDU set, see also fig.5 and par. 0130.
Regarding claim 41, if the indication information is carried in a data PDU, the data PDU may be any one or more data packets in a PDU set. The indication information may be carried in a header of the data packet, see 0394.
Regarding claim 50, this claim has similar limitations as those of claim 38. Therefore, it is rejected under Lyu for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 38.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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 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.
8. The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Claims 40, 42, 51 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyu in view of Tooher et al. (US 2023/0189055 A1), hereinafter Tooher.
Regarding claim 40, Lyu discloses all claimed limitations, except processing procedures corresponds to procedures associated with at least a discard timer and a MAC layer enhancement.
Tooher from the same field of endeavor teaches: (1) a MAC layer may indicate QoS status, see 0140; (2) discard timer, see 0122.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to employ a discard timer and MAC layer taught by Tooher into the system of Lyu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to provide a layer in which a status report as to where loss detection for SDU or PDU is received, and a duration of time expiring or passing or a start of a tracking of time, especially in eXtended Reality (XR) application, where real-and-virtual combined environment and human-machine interactions being implemented.
Regarding claim 42, Lyu discloses all claimed limitations, except a common discard timer.
Tooher from the same field of endeavor teaches an event may be related to a failure detection. An event may be related to the detection of at least one instance of failure, e.g., as described below or otherwise herein. An instance of failure may include, for example, at least one of the following: (i) an SDU or PDU loss for at least one SDU or PDU (e.g., PDCP, RLC or MAC SDU, or PDU), where loss detection may occur, for example, based on a reception of a status report (e.g., at MAC, RLC, PDCP or higher layers) or based on a duration of time expiring (e.g., an expiry of a timer such as a discard timer), and where an instance of failure may occur, for example, if the SDU or PDU pertains to a QoS flow or radio bearer part of a QoS adaptation group; (ii) an SDU or PDU error for at least one SDU or PDU (e.g., a PDCP, an RLC, or an MAC SDU or PDU), where loss detection may occur, for example, based on a reception or a lack of reception of a NACK, where the instance of failure may occur if the SDU or PDU pertains to a QoS flow or radio bearer part of the QoS adaptation group or the instance of failure may occur if an SDU or PDU (e.g., one, some, or all SDUs or PDUs) in a set of associated SDUs or PDUs are in error or are lost; (iii) an occurrence of power scaling for at least one transmission; (iv) a beam failure detection or other radio link problems; (v) a random access procedure failure; and/or (vi) a maximum number of retransmissions reached for scheduling request or for an RLC PDU. An event may occur, for example, if a specific number of instances of failure occurs within a time period. A time period may be defined, for example, as described herein (e.g., above) for events based on a metric, see 0122.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to employ a discard timer taught by Tooher
into the system of Lyu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to provide a duration of time expiring or passing or a start of a tracking of time, especially in eXtended Reality (XR) application, where real-and-virtual combined environment and human-machine interactions being implemented.
Regarding claim 51, this claim has similar limitations as those of claim 42. Therefore, it is rejected under Lyu-Teyeb for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 42.
12. Claims 17-18 and 43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyu in view of Teyeb et al. (WO 2024/173516 A1), hereinafter Teyeb.
Regarding claim 17, Lyu discloses all claimed limitations, except the receiver further comprises receive the plurality of data packets at a service data adaptation protocol (SDAP) layer.
Teyeb from the same field of endeavor as Lyu teaches the WTRU 402-fig.4(a) may receive one or more PDUs associated with a PDU set 1 and a PDU set 2 in QoS flows identified by QoS Flow Identifier 1 (QFI1) and QoS Flow Identifier 2 (QFI2), respectively. The PDU set 1 includes PDUs P1, P2, . . ., Pm and the PDU set 2 includes PDUs P1, P2, . Pn, where m may or may not equal n The received PDU sets 1 and 2 may be mapped to Data Radio Bearer 1 (DRB1) (e.g., PDCP1) and DRB2 (e.g., PDCP2) (DRB1 and DRB2 are portions of the respective split-bearer paths) at the SDAP sublayer/entity, see 0210.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to employ a mechanism in which packets of the PDU set 1 and set 2 associated with QoS flows identifiers received at the SDAP layer taught by Teyeb into the system of Lyu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to enable the WTRU to perform mapping of the data units received from upper layers/application in one or more QoS flows (e.g. QFIs), to certain forwarding configurations including a combination of different DRBs and/or LCHs, during UL transmission.
Regarding claim 18, Lyu discloses: (1) the base station may send or may not send the first indication information to the terminal device. If the base station sends the first indication information to the terminal device, the base station may modify a format of the first indication information, see 0385; (2) the base station may alternatively use a PDCP header of one or more data packets of the PDU set to carry the indication information, so as to indicate the type of downlink PDU set, see 0404.
Lyu, however, fails to mention the PDU set information indicates at least one of: NPI, CPI, PDU set sequence number (SN) LPI, PDU index, CPT, or PDU set reception information.
Teyeb from the same field of endeavor as Lyu teaches the WTRU may determine the size of the PDU set upon the reception of the first PDU of the PDU set (e.g., information from application layers and/or information from packet headers), see 0237.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to employ the PDU set information to indicate the PDU reception information taught by Teyeb into the system of Lyu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to enable the WTRU to always transmit the PDUs belonging to PDU sets that have a size greater than x Kbytes via a primary path of the split bearer and transmit the PDUs that belong to PDU sets with sizes of X Kbytes or less via a secondary path of the split bearer.
Regarding claim 43, Lyu discloses all claimed limitations, except the transmitter node to route all data packets within the same PDU set to a same uplink split bearer.
Teyeb from the same field of endeavor as Lyu teaches in the UL, the WTRU is configured with one of the split-bearer paths as the primary path, and the other of the split-bearer paths as a secondary path. The network can configure the primary path for a certain bearer to be the MN or the SN, see 0021.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to employ a split bearer in the uplink taught by Teyeb into the system of Lyu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to distribute the load among the two path that the bearer can use.
13. Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyu in view of Gage (US 10,820,192).
Regarding claim 19, Lyu discloses all claimed limitations, except the receiver node to process of each data packet within the same PDU set using one or more packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) procedures for at least one of: sequence numbering, header compression, integrity protection, or ciphering.
Gage from the same field of endeavor as Lyu teaches packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer 308-fig.3 performing header compression for IP packets, see col. 7, lines 8-10.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to employ a PDCP layer to perform header compression for IP packets taught by Gage into the system of Lyu. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to provide QoS flow associating with PDU set an aggregation of user plane traffic that receives the same forwarding treatment (e.g. scheduling policy, queue management policy, rate shaping policy, RLC configuration, PDCP configuration).
Allowable subject matter
14. Claims 3, 8-10, 11-16, 20-29, 36-37, 44-49 and 52-53 are rejected based on its dependency, would be allowable if rewritten or amended to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
15. Claims 6, 30-35 are rejected based on its dependency, but would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
16. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Liu et al. (US 2020/0100256); Rao et al. (US 2025/0119785)
are cited, and considered pertinent to the instant specification.
17. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUC C HO whose telephone number is (571)272-3147. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8am-4pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Gary Mui can be reached on 571-270-1420 (Gary.mui@uspto.gov). The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DUC C HO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465
