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 .
1. This action is in response to the amendment filed on April 20, 2026. Claims 1-30 are pending. Claims 1-30 represent QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS) DIFFERENTIATION IN USER-PLANE PROCEDURES.
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.
2. Claims 1-13, 15-28 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cakulev U..S. 20200236578 (referred to hereby as Cak) in view of Agiwal et al. U.S. 20200213894, further in view of Ould-Brahim et al. U.S. 8289964 (referred to hereby as Ould).
Cak teaches substantial feature of the invention including Allocation of Data Radio Bearers for Quality of Service Flows (see abstract).
As to claim 1, Cak teaches a method for wireless communications by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
receiving a configuration of at least one quality of service (QoS) profile identifier (QPI) from a network entity (abstract).
Cak teaches substantial features of the claimed invention, but fails to explicitly teach a plurality of QoS flows are within a data radio bearer (DRB) and the at least one QPI is associated with the a plurality of QoS flows within the DRB, and wherein each of the plurality of QoS flows is associated with at least one protocol data unit (PDU).
However, Agiwal teaches method and apparatus for managing data communication in wireless communication network. Agiwal teaches a plurality of QoS flows are within a data radio bearer (DRB) and the at least one QPI is associated with the a plurality of QoS flows within the DRB a data radio bearer (DRB) (paragraph 16), and wherein each of the plurality of QoS flows is associated with at least one protocol data unit (PDU) (paragraph 26).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the method of Cak to include the teaching of “ QoS flow is mapped to the DRB based on the QPI associated with the at least one QoS flow”, and “associated with the PDU session and the QoS flow identifier of the packet” of Agiwal with the motivation being allow mapping the packet to a default DRB associated with the PDU session of the packet if none of the established non-default DRBs is associated with the PDU session and the QoS flow identifier of the packet (abstract).
Cak and Agiwal substantial features of the claimed invention, but fails to explicitly teach performing one or more layer 2 (L2) procedures, based on the received configuration.
However, Ould teaches Layer-2 To MPLS Service Mediation Architecture. Ould teaches performing one or more layer 2 (L2) procedures, based on the received configuration (column 7, lines 40-41)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the method of Cak and Agiwal to include the teaching of “Layer-2 procedures” of Ould with the motivation being to allow providing service mediation in a network having a Layer-2 domain (abstract).
As to claim 2, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the configuration further indicates a mapping of one or more of the plurality of QoS flows within the DRB to the at least one QPI (abstract).
As to claim 3, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the mapping is performed at a service data adaption protocol (SDAP) layer (paragraph 8).
As to claim 4, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises using separate discard timers for different PDUs associated with different QPIs (paragraph 14-15).
As to claim 5, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises allowing out of order delivery for different PDUs associated with different QPIs while applying in-order delivery for other PDUs associated with a same QPI (paragraph 14-15).
As to claim 6, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises using separate reordering timers for different PDUs associated with different QPIs (paragraph 14-15).
As to claim 7, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises allowing different primary paths for different PDUs associated with different QPIs (paragraph 18).
As to claim 8, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises applying duplication only on one or more PDUs associated with the at least one QPI (paragraph 14-15)
As to claim 9, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises using separate reassembly timers for different PDUs associated with different QPIs (paragraph 14-15).
As to claim 10, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises using separate status prohibit timers for different PDUs associated with different QPIs (paragraph 14-15).
As to claim 11, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the performing further comprises performing a separate set of prioritized bit rate (PBR), bucket size duration (BSD) and logical channel prioritization (LCP) restrictions for different PDUs associated with different QPIs (paragraph 14-15).
As to claim 12, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the configuration corresponds to a first configuration enabling an individual differentiated L2 procedure on top of at least one of default packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) configuration, radio link control (RLC) configuration, or logical channel configuration (paragraph 8).
As to claim 13, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the configuration corresponds to a second configuration indicating a separate default packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) configuration, a radio link control (RLC) configuration, or a logical channel configuration for the at least one QPI (paragraph 25).
As to claim 15, Cak, Agiwal and Ould teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the at least one QPI has associated sequence numbers, when an inter-QPI out of order delivery is configured, based on the received configuration (paragraph 8).
Claims 16-28 and 30 did not teach anything different form the above rejected claims, therefore are rejected similarly.
Allowable Subject Matter
3. Claims 14 and 29 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
4. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/EL HADJI M SALL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
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