DETAILED ACTION
Applicant amended claims 1-4, 6-7, 89-16, and 18-21, canceled claims 5, 8, 17, and 22-23 and added new claims 24-25 in the preliminary amendment dated 12/2/2024
Claims 1-4, 6-7, 9-16, 18-21and 24-25 are pending.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 12/5/2024 and 1/13/2026 are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-7, 9-16, 18-21and 24-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Clemm (WO 2020191013 A1).
With regards to Claim 1, Clemm teaches a method performed by a time-stamping node (i.e., Paragraph 6, Network sender) for handling communication in a communication network, the method comprising: providing an indication of a required delivery time, DT, to a packet, the DT being related to an upper latency limit of the packet along a path between two end-nodes (i.e., the forwarding header further indicates a maximum latency for the transfer of the packet from the network sender to the network destination, Paragraph 8); and transmitting the packet with the DT towards an end-node in the communication network (i.e., the accumulated delay metadata includes an accumulated delay experienced by the packet since being transmitted by a network sender…, Paragraph 6; transfer of the packet from the network sender to the network destination (end-node))
With regards to Claim 2, Clemm teaches further comprising: determining one or more transmission parameters based on the DT, wherein the packet is transmitted based on the determined one or more transmission parameters (i.e., Figure 3; … The amount of propagation time from node 210a to 210b is 1 ms and the control/management plane 212 provides node 210b with a predicted propagation delay of (500ps+500ps+500ps)=1 5ms and 3 remaining nodes…, Paragraph 72; end-to-end delay is measured from 210a (source node to 210e (destination) and where 210a determines transmission parameters based on the allotted and estimated delays)
With regards to Claim 3, Clemm teaches wherein the indication of the DT comprises an indication of a remaining time budget until a delivery (i.e., Figure 3; latency budget)
With regards to Claim 4, Clemm teaches wherein the DT is provided one of both of as an absolute time with a known reference and as a part of a protocol (i.e., Figure 3; latency budget)
With regards to Claim 6, Clemm teaches wherein the indication of the DT is provided in a field of the packet (i.e., Figure 3; … the node can instead update the remaining SLO, Paragraph 76; Paragraph 71)
With regards to Claim 7; Clemm teaches wherein one or both: the time-stamping node is an end-node out of the two end-nodes, and wherein the packet is transmitted towards another end-node; and the time-stamping node is a user equipment or a network node (i.e., ; Figure 3; Paragraph 3)
With regards to Claim 9, Clemm teaches a method performed by an intermediate node for handling communication in a communication network, the method comprising:
receiving a packet comprising an indication of a required delivery time, DT (i.e., a node for transferring packets over a network includes a network interface configured to receive and forward a plurality of packets over the network and one or more processors coupled to the network interface…, Paragraph 4; the forwarding header further indicates a maximum latency for the transfer of the packet from the network sender to the network destination…, Paragraph 8; Figure 3); determining one or more transmission parameters based on the DT (i.e., determine a maximum delay at the node for the packet based on the maximum latency and the updated indicated accumulated delay experienced by the packet;, Paragraph 8); and
transmitting the packet with the DT towards an end-node in the communication network, based on the determined one or more transmission parameters (i.e., forward the packet at a time based on the minimum delay and the maximum delay, Paragraph 8)
With regards to Claim 10, Clemm teaches wherein the intermediate node decrements the DT by an amount of time that the packet was one or both queued and processed in the intermediate node (i.e. Figure 3; In one set of embodiments for the compute logic used by the node at 309, the fixed latencies and the current delay can be subtracted from the SLO, which can then be divided by the number of remaining nodes, as described above with respect to the local delay budgets of the nodes 210b, 210c, and 210d in FIG. 3, Paragraph 78)
With regards to Claim 11, Clemm teaches wherein the DT is provided as an absolute time with a known reference (i.e., FIG. 3 presents an example where the service level objective (SLO) indicates an end-to-end delay or latency with a lower bound of lb milliseconds and an upper bound of ub milliseconds and where lb and ub are both taken to be the same (an“on-time guarantee”) at 8ms…, Paragraph 71)
With regards to Claim 12, Clemm teaches subtracting a latency value from the indicated DT (i.e. Figure 3; In one set of embodiments for the compute logic used by the node at 309, the fixed latencies and the current delay can be subtracted from the SLO, which can then be divided by the number of remaining nodes, as described above with respect to the local delay budgets of the nodes 210b, 210c, and 210d in FIG. 3, Paragraph 78)
With regards to Claim 13, Clemm teaches wherein subtracting the latency value is based on a local clock of the intermediate node and/or based on a passive link delay estimate (i.e. Figure 3; In one set of embodiments for the compute logic used by the node at 309, the fixed latencies and the current delay can be subtracted from the SLO, which can then be divided by the number of remaining nodes, as described above with respect to the local delay budgets of the nodes 210b, 210c, and 210d in FIG. 3, Paragraph 78; Paragraph 76)
With regards to Claim 14, Clemm teaches wherein the intermediate node is a user equipment or a network node (i.e., a node for transferring packets over a network includes a network interface configured to receive and forward a plurality of packets over the network and one or more processors coupled to the network interface, Paragraph 4)
With regards to Claim 15, Clemm teaches wherein the intermediate node determines an available time until an expected delivery time (i.e., measures the delay that has been incurred by the packet since it was sent by the source; determines the remaining delay budget, based on SLO, delay, and prediction of downstream delay…, Paragraph 56)
With regards to Claim 16, Clemm teaches wherein determining the one or more transmission parameters based on the DT comprises one or both increasing a scheduling weight of packets with decreasing available time until their expected delivery to the end-node, and decreasing a code rate for a transmission of packets with decreasing available time until their expected delivery to the end-node (i.e., In case of a negative budget, depending on the embodiment the node could: discard or drop the packet; mark the packet as late, so that nodes downstream no longer need to prioritize the packet; or record an SLO violation in a statelet (e.g. update counter) of the packet. In other embodiments, the QoS action could include speeding up or slowing down a packet, or forwarding along a slower vs a faster path, Paragraph 79)
The limitations of Claim 18 are rejected in the analysis of Claim 1 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
The limitations of Claim 19 are rejected in the analysis of Claim 2 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
The limitations of Claim 20 are rejected in the analysis of Claim 9 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
The limitations of Claim 21 are rejected in the analysis of Claim 10 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
The limitations of Claim 24 are rejected in the analysis of Claim 3 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
The limitations of Claim 25 are rejected in the analysis of Claim 11 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SURAJ M JOSHI whose telephone number is (571)270-7209. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8-6 ET.
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/SURAJ M JOSHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447 June 24, 2026
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