DETAILED ACTION
This application has been examined. Claims 1-20 are pending.
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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 .
Priority
This application claims benefits of priority from Provisional Application 63/586194 filed September 28, 2023.
The effective date of the claims described in this application is September 28, 2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9/30/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1,3-9,11-17,19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lohr (USPGPUB 2025/0088895) further in view of Cheng (US PGPUB 2024/0114380)
Regarding Claim 1
Lohr Paragraph 37,Paragraph 54 disclosed avoiding unnecessary DSR reporting for the case where PSI-based discarding is applied due to congestion in the UL interface. The UE 104 determines whether to transmit DSR reports based on various criteria, such as whether congestion is present in the wireless communications system 100, whether DSR is enabled or disabled, PSI levels of PDU sets in a buffer of the UE 104 waiting to be transmitted to the NE 102, discard timer values associated with the different PSI levels
Lohr Figure 9,Paragraph 197-198 disclosed transmitting, to a UE, a first signaling indicating whether congestion is present in a wireless communications system and receiving, from the UE based at least in part on the first signaling indicating congestion is not present in the wireless communications system and on DSR being enabled, a second signaling indicating a DSR report for the UE.
Lohr disclosed (re. Claim 1) a method performed by a User Equipment (UE) for Delay Status Reporting (DSR), the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station (BS), configuration information related to a Logical Channel Group (LCG) via Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling;(Lohr-Figure 9,Paragraph 197-198, transmitting, to a UE, a first signaling indicating whether congestion is present in a wireless communications system )
triggering a DSR procedure; (Lohr-Figure 9,Paragraph 197-198, receiving, from the UE based at least in part on the first signaling indicating congestion is not present in the wireless communications system and on DSR being enabled, a second signaling indicating a DSR report for the UE)
While Lohr substantially disclosed the claimed invention Lohr does not disclose (re. Claim 1) generating a DSR Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE) comprising a first field indicating a buffer size for the LCG; transmitting the DSR MAC CE to the BS, wherein: the buffer size indicates a total amount of delay-critical data for the LCG, and the delay-critical data for the LCG comprises:
a first Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) Service Data Unit (SDU) for which a first discard timer has a remaining time value less than a time threshold associated with the LCG; and a second PDCP SDU belonging to a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) set that includes at least one PDCP SDU for which a second discard timer has a remaining time value less than the time threshold.
Cheng Figure 7,Paragraph 69,70 disclosed generating DSR signals and DSR formats with timing information.
Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 1) generating a DSR Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE) comprising a first field indicating a buffer size for the LCG; (Cheng-Figure 10,Paragraph 69,Paragraph 70, DSR 1000 including a LCG ID 1010, a buffer size field 1020 indicating the BSR index (which can refer to the index value in the index field 810 as shown in FIG. 8 or any BSR table), and a timing information field 1030 indicating timing information to be reported by the UE 710 to the base station 720)
and
transmitting the DSR MAC CE to the BS,(Cheng-Paragraph 77, the UE reports, to the base station, a DSR to indicate a buffer size for data to be transmitted to the base station. The DSR includes timing information.)
Lohr and Cheng are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding DSR signaling mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Cheng into Lohr. The motivation for the said combination would have been to enable wherein a UE reports, to the base station, a delay status report (DSR) to indicate a buffer size for data to be transmitted to the base station.
Lohr-Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 1) wherein: the buffer size indicates a total amount of delay-critical data for the LCG, (Cheng-Paragraph 68 , for the XR traffic (with the latency requirement) ) and the delay-critical data for the LCG comprises:
a first Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) Service Data Unit (SDU) (Lohr-Paragraph 135, the amount of data associated with the remaining delay information includes only PDCP PDUs or service data units (SDUs) which have not been delivered to lower layer for transmission ) for which a first discard timer has a remaining time value less than a time threshold associated with the LCG; (Lohr-Paragraph 9, the UE triggers the transmission of the third signaling indicating a DSR report in response to a remaining delay of data for which the first discard timer configuration is applied becoming less than a predefined threshold ) and
a second PDCP SDU belonging to a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) set that includes at least one PDCP SDU (Lohr-Paragraph 9, DSR report indicates delay information for a first PDU set and delay information for a second PDU set that is inter-dependent on the first PDU set ) for which a second discard timer (Lohr-Paragraph 9, UE applies the second discard timer configuration for data that is associated with a low importance level ) has a remaining time value less than the time threshold. (Lohr-Paragraph 9, the UE triggers the transmission of the third signaling indicating a DSR report in response to a remaining delay of data for which the first discard timer configuration is applied becoming less than a predefined threshold )
Regarding Claim 9
Claim 9 (re. User Equipment) recites substantially similar limitations as Claim 1. Claim 9 is rejected on the same basis as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 17
Claim 17 (re. Base Station) recites substantially similar limitations as Claim 1. Claim 17 is rejected on the same basis as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 3,11
Lohr-Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 3,11) triggering the DSR procedure upon determining that a remaining time value of a discard timer associated with a PDCP SDU belonging to the LCG has become less than the time threshold and no DSR procedure has been triggered. (Lohr-Paragraph 9, the UE triggers the transmission of the third signaling indicating a DSR report in response to a remaining delay of data for which the first discard timer configuration is applied becoming less than a predefined threshold )
Regarding Claim 4,12
Lohr-Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 4,12) determining the buffer size for the LCG based on either a first predefined table or a second predefined table. (Cheng-Figure 10,Paragraph 69,Paragraph 70, DSR 1000 including a LCG ID 1010, a buffer size field 1020 indicating the BSR index (which can refer to the index value in the index field 810 as shown in FIG. 8 or any BSR table), and a timing information field 1030 indicating timing information to be reported by the UE 710 to the base station 720)
Regarding Claim 5,13
Lohr-Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 5,13) wherein the first predefined table is for eXtended Reality (XR) services. (Cheng-Paragraph 68 , for the XR traffic (with the latency requirement), Paragraph 75, the UE 710 reports the DSR to the base station 720 in a connection supporting the XR application service. )
Regarding Claim 6,14
Lohr-Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 6,14) determining the buffer size for the LCG based on the first predefined table in response to receiving a table indication from the BS via the RRC signaling; (Cheng-Paragraph 71, The table index field 1080 is used to indicate or select, from the BSR tables available at the base station 720, a corresponding BSR table to be used.) and determining the buffer size for the LCG based on the second predefined table in a case that the table indication is not received from the BS. (Cheng-Paragraph 71, The table index field 1080 is used to indicate or select, from the BSR tables available at the base station 720, a corresponding BSR table to be used.)
Regarding Claim 7,15,19
Lohr-Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 7,15,19) wherein the DSR MAC CE further comprises a second field indicating a minimum remaining time of the delay-critical data for the LCG. (Lohr-Paragraph 9, the UE triggers the transmission of the third signaling indicating a DSR report in response to a remaining delay of data for which the first discard timer configuration is applied becoming less than a predefined threshold …UE applies the second discard timer configuration for data that is associated with a low importance level )
Regarding Claim 8,16,20
Lohr-Cheng disclosed (re. Claim 8,16,20) transmitting, to the BS, a Scheduling Request (SR) for requesting uplink resources for the transmission of the DSR MAC CE.(Cheng-figure 7,Paragraph 64, the UE 710 may send a scheduling request (SR) to the base station 720, and in response to the SR, at operation 750, the base station 720 sends a UL grant back to the UE 710 to configure the UE 710 with the UL resources)
Claim(s) 2,10,18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lohr (USPGPUB 2025/0088895) further in view of Cheng (US PGPUB 2024/0114380) further in view of Kuo (USPGPUB 20260059357)
Regarding Claim 2,10,18
While Lohr-Cheng substantially disclosed the claimed invention Lohr-Cheng does not disclose (re. Claim 2,10,18) receiving, from the BS, the time threshold associated with the LCG via the RRC signaling.
Kuo Paragraph disclosed wherein user equipment (UE) may be pre-configured by a base station to manage the buffer via RRC signaling while in the RRC connected state.
Kuo disclosed (re. Claim 2,10,18) receiving, from the BS, the time threshold associated with the LCG via the RRC signaling.(Kuo-Paragraph 21, pre-configuration may include one or more expiry timers specifying one or more durations to store QoE measurements in the buffer before discarding. The one or more expiry timers may be used to determine when data is outdated and can be discarded.)
Lohr and Kuo are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding XR service reporting/signaling mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Kuo into Lohr-Cheng. The motivation for the said combination would have been to enable UE may discard the measurements if they are determined to be expired. (Kuo-Paragraph 23)
Conclusion
Examiner’s Note: In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREG C BENGZON whose telephone number is (571)272-3944. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 8 AM - 4:30 PM.
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/GREG C BENGZON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444