DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in reply communication filed on 09/24/2024.
Claims 1-16 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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 2-8 and 10-15 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 2-8 recited, “A scheduling method as claimed…” in line 1. For clarity, it is suggested to change to “The scheduling method as claimed…”.
Claims 10-15 recited, “An apparatus as claimed…” in line 1. For clarity, it is suggested to change to “The apparatus as claimed…”.
Appropriate corrections are required.
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.
Claims 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, the applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 9 recited “the largest portion of data units”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims.
Claims 1 and 9 recited “the smallest remaining transmission delay budget”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims.
Claims 1 and 9 recited “which set of data units”. It is unclear whether this “set of data units” is the same as the set of data units that organized for the transmission of data units. Thus, the claims are indefinite.
Claims 10, 11, 13, and 15 recited, “An apparatus as claimed in claim 8” in line 1. Claim 8 is claiming the scheduling method. It is confusing whether these claims 10, 11, 13, and 15 are correctly depended to since they are claiming “an apparatus” not “the scheduling method”. Thus, these claims 10, 11, 13, and 15 are indefinite.
Claim 16 is also rejected since the claim is recited features as of rejected claim 1.
All other dependent claims 2-8, 12, 14 are also rejected since they are depended to rejected claims 1 and 9.
For the purpose of examination, examiner will interpret the claims as best understood.
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 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.
Claims 1, 9, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lutchoomun et al. (US 2026/0230910) (with an earlier priority date to Provisional App. # 63/445,509 filed on 02/14/2023).
Regarding claim 1, Lutchoomun discloses a scheduling method for use in a radio access network [see Fig. 2, ¶¶ 83-92; a process 200, of the scheduling inefficiencies resulting from dependencies not being met for various PDU Sets]
to allocate frequency resources to a user device for the transmission of data units organized in a set of data units, the set of data units being assigned an initial transmission delay budget which decreases over time [see ¶ 82; dependencies exist between PDUs (within PDU Sets or data bursts), between PDU Sets, between data bursts, and/or across multiple flows, which defined by data type, transmission/arrival time, and/or other dependency parameters],
the scheduling method comprising at a given transmission time:
prioritizing scheduling the user device with the largest portion of data units already successfully transmitted within the set of data units [see Fig. 2, ¶ 83; at step 201, scheduling with dependencies between PDUs (e.g., PDUs 1-4) of a PDU Set, referred to as Intra-PDU Set dependencies, each PDU within PDU Set 1 may be successfully delivered within a PDU Set delay budgets (PSDB), such as PSDB 1 (see Provisional, ¶ 75)], and
prioritizing scheduling the user device which set of data units has the smallest remaining transmission delay budget [see Fig. 2, ¶ 83; at step 202, scheduling with dependencies between one or more PDU Sets, referred to as Inter-PDU Set dependencies, each PDU within PDU Set 2 may be successfully delivered within PSDB 2 to decode PDU Set 1, or vice versa (see Provisional, ¶ 75)].
Regarding claim 9, refers to claim 1 set forth above.
Regarding claim 16, refers to claim 1 set forth above.
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 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) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1, 9, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Lyu et al. (US 2024/0414593) in view of Malik et al. (US 2024/0121663).
Regarding claim 1, Lyu discloses a scheduling method for use in a radio access network [see Fig. 2B, 4, ¶¶ 104-112; a method 400 to determine scheduling of traffic flow packets based on correspondence of the traffic flow packets to a priority indication or a latency budget indication],
the scheduling method comprising at a given transmission time:
prioritizing scheduling the user device with the largest portion of data units already successfully transmitted within the set of data units [see Fig. 2B, ¶ 89; determine scheduling of traffic corresponding to user equipment of group 215 based on at least one quality parameter that may be, for example, a latency budget parameter, a reliability parameter, or a priority parameter], and
prioritizing scheduling the user device which set of data units has the smallest remaining transmission delay budget [see Fig. 2B, ¶ 89; determine scheduling of traffic corresponding to user equipment of group 220 according to a lower priority, as shown by the lighter line weight corresponding to wireless link 125-220].
Lyu discloses all aspects of claim invention set forth above but does not explicitly disclose to allocate frequency resources to a user device for the transmission of data units organized in a set of data units, the set of data units being assigned an initial transmission delay budget which decreases over time.
However, Malik discloses to allocate frequency resources to a user device for the transmission of data units organized in a set of data units, the set of data units being assigned an initial transmission delay budget which decreases over time [see Fig. 4, ¶¶ 59-63; the RAN node 1814 could allocate resources with enhanced reliability configurations or could prioritize resource scheduling for transmission of such critical data in a PDU set that configured with a max_delay at the beginning of a PDU set transmission which decreases over time (track elapsed time duration); also see ¶¶ 27, 65, QoS aware scheduling].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to provide “to allocate frequency resources to a user device for the transmission of data units organized in a set of data units, the set of data units being assigned an initial transmission delay budget which decreases over time” as taught by Malik in the system of Lyu, so that it would to provide more efficient resource allocation and scheduling for XR service characteristics (e.g., periodicity, multiple flows, jitter, latency, reliability, and the like), with focus on the following mechanisms: SPS and CG enhancements; and dynamic scheduling/grant enhancements [see Malik; ¶ 25].
Regarding claim 9, the claim recites an apparatus for use in a radio access network, the apparatus comprising: at least memory configured to store software code; and at least one processor (See Fig. 3, ¶ scheduler 300 comprise downlink (“DL”) resource scheduler 305 and uplink (“UL”) resource scheduler 320) configured to execute the software code and cause the apparatus to perform the scheduling method for use in a radio access network recited as in claim 1; therefore, claim 9 is rejected along the same rationale that rejected in claim 1.
Regarding claim 16, refers to claim 1 set forth above.
Claims 3, 5, 11, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Lyu et al. (US 2024/0414593) in view of Malik et al. (US 2024/0121663), and further in view of BOGGIA et al. (US 2020/0099990).
Regarding claim 3, the combined system of Lyu and Malik discloses the scheduling method as claimed in claim 1 but does not explicitly disclose wherein said prioritizing is implemented after retransmission has been scheduled.
However, BOGGIA discloses wherein said prioritizing is implemented after retransmission has been scheduled [see ¶ 20; video frames of type I are prioritized only during the retransmission procedure].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to provide “wherein said prioritizing is implemented after retransmission has been scheduled” as taught by BOGGIA in the combined system of Lyu and Malik, so that it would capable of allocating radio resources to active users by considering QoS parameters, such as maximum delay and minimum transmission rate, assigned to each active flow [see BOGGIA; ¶ 4].
Regarding claim 5, the combined system of Lyu and Malik discloses the scheduling method as claimed in claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose wherein said prioritizing is based on calculating a priority metric at the given transmission time for user devices in a group of user devices, wherein the priority metric is calculated, for a given set of data units of a given user device, as: a growing function of the number of bits successfully transmitted over the total number of bits to be transmitted in the given set of data units, and a decreasing function of the remaining transmission delay budget assigned to the given set of data units.
However, BOGGIA discloses wherein said prioritizing is based on calculating a priority metric at the given transmission time for user devices in a group of user devices [see ¶ 115; the metric value mij may be calculated as a function of a set of parameters, such as channel quality, quality of service requirements, average transmission rate, and so on)], wherein the priority metric is calculated, for a given set of data units of a given user device, as:
a growing function of the number of bits successfully transmitted over the total number of bits to be transmitted in the given set of data units [see ¶ 117; first priority group P1 comprises radio bearers RB whose queues have the corresponding head of line data packet DP′ which is classified, e.g., labeled, as corresponding to an I-frame], and
a decreasing function of the remaining transmission delay budget assigned to the given set of data units [see ¶ 118; second priority group P2 comprises all the remaining radio bearers].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to provide “wherein said prioritizing is based on calculating a priority metric at the given transmission time for user devices in a group of user devices, wherein the priority metric is calculated, for a given set of data units of a given user device, as: a growing function of the number of bits successfully transmitted over the total number of bits to be transmitted in the given set of data units, and a decreasing function of the remaining transmission delay budget assigned to the given set of data units” as taught by BOGGIA in the combined system of Lyu and Malik, so that it would capable of allocating radio resources to active users by considering QoS parameters, such as maximum delay and minimum transmission rate, assigned to each active flow [see BOGGIA; ¶ 4].
Regarding claims 11 and 13, the claims recite the apparatus as claimed in claim 8 to perform the scheduling method for use in a radio access network recited as in claims 3 and 5; therefore, claims 11 and 13 are rejected along the same rationale that rejected in claims 3 and 5.
Claims 8 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Lyu et al. (US 2024/0414593) in view of Malik et al. (US 2024/0121663), and further in view of Lutchoomun et al. (US 2026/0230910).
Regarding claim 8, the combined system of Lyu and Malik discloses the scheduling method as claimed in claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose wherein the set of data units is also an indicator of whether all data units of the set of data units need to be successfully transmitted for usage of the set of data units by an application at a receiver side, and said indicator is taken into account in said prioritizing.
However, Lutchoomun discloses wherein the set of data units is also an indicator of whether all data units of the set of data units need to be successfully transmitted for usage of the set of data units by an application at a receiver side, and said indicator is taken into account in said prioritizing [see ¶¶ 99, 170; wherein the XR data e.g., PDU Set 1 is also an indicator of whether all PDUs/PDU Sets are successfully delivered for usage of XR data by a XR application at a receiver side/gNB (receiver side, e.g., PDCP entity at gNB), and said indicator is taken into account in the prioritization/expediting of PDUs of PDU Set 1].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention was made to provide “wherein the set of data units is also an indicator of whether all data units of the set of data units need to be successfully transmitted for usage of the set of data units by an application at a receiver side, and said indicator is taken into account in said prioritizing” as taught by Lutchoomun in the combined system of Lyu and Malik, so that it would providing the feeling of being physically and spatially located in the virtual environment. The levels of virtuality may range from partial sensory inputs to fully immersive multi-sensory inputs leading to a virtual reality practically indiscernible from actual reality [see Lutchoomun; ¶ 3].
Regarding claim 15, the claim recites the apparatus as claimed in claim 8 to perform the scheduling method for use in a radio access network recited as in claim 8; therefore, claim 15 is rejected along the same rationale that rejected in claim 8.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 4, 6-7, 10, 12, and 14 would be allowable if rewritten 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 and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
In additional to references cited that are used for rejection as set forth above, Sen et al. (US 2025/0063387) is also considered as relevant prior arts for rejection of in claims 2, 12, 21 and claims 1, 9, and 16 (¶¶ 123-124, 210-212).
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/PHONG LA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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