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 .
Initial Examination
Applicant's submission filed on 09/27/24 has been entered.
Claims 1-17 are pending.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2/10 and 4/12 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. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the cited references fail to anticipate or render the claimed subject matter (combined with other limitations claimed in the claimed subject matter) obvious over any of the prior art of record, either alone or in combination. Therefore, when taken as a whole application, and incorporating all the respective limitations, none of the prior art discloses the features as claimed. For instance, although Gu and Notargiacomo generally discloses combining and sending commands, they do not disclose the detailed limitations and specific relationships as recited in these claims. Consequently, these claims are allowable.
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 (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 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.
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.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 5, 7-8, 9, 11, 13, 15-16, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gu (US 20250338283 A1) in view of Notargiacomo (US 20230328583 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Gu discloses a method of data transmission in a base station system [fig. 2-3] comprising a baseband unit (BBU) [fig. 2-3, par. 0166] configured to perform at least some baseband processing [par. 0013, 165], and a … radio unit (RU) [fig. 2-3, par. 0166] communicatively coupled with the BBU over a fronthaul network [fig. 3, par. 0166] and configured to wirelessly communicate with a plurality of user equipment (UEs) [fig. 1 no. 120, fig. 2] via a respective set of one or more antennas [fig. 1 no. 110, 120], the method comprising:
generating a plurality of downlink commands corresponding to the … RU for scheduling the plurality of UEs across the … RU, wherein generating the plurality of downlink commands comprises generating a single downlink command per RU (First and second data is time-division multiplexed (i.e., forming a “single DL command”) [fig. 4 no. S402, par. 0203, 143, 227] and/or the first terminal device is actually N terminal devices (i.e., first (i.e., single) data for N terminals) [par. 0011]);
transmitting the generated plurality of downlink commands towards the … RU over the fronthaul network [fig. 3, par. 0018]; and
receiving a plurality of uplink data packets corresponding to the plurality of downlink commands over the fronthaul network, wherein receiving the plurality of uplink data packets comprises receiving a single uplink data packet per RU comprising data associated with all UEs served by the RU (Same message [fig. 7-8 no. S702, 801, par. 0234]).
Although Gu discloses the BBU communicating with the RU, as discussed above, Gu does not explicitly disclose plurality of radio units (RUs). However, these concepts are well known as disclosed by Notargiacomo.
In the same field of endeavor, Notargiacomo discloses:
plurality of radio units (RUs) [fig. 1].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gu with Notargiacomo. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification given the benefit of monitoring and mitigating congestion anomaly [Notargiacomo par. 0012].
Regarding claim 9, it is substantially similar to claim 1, except is in apparatus claim format, and is rejected under substantially similar reasoning, where Gu further discloses a base station system [fig. 1-3, par. 0166].
Regarding claim 17, it is substantially similar to claim 1, except is in non-transitory CRM claim format, and is rejected under substantially similar reasoning, where Gu further discloses a non-transitory computer readable media [fig. 4-5, 7-8, par. 0132].
Regarding claims 3 and 11, Gu and Notargiacomo disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Gu and/or Notargiacomo further discloses:
wherein each of the plurality of downlink commands is a control plane (C-plane) command [Gu fig. 2 “CU-CP”] comprising information related to allocation of radio resources to UEs served by a respective RU (CP commands including RRC, PDCP, RLC, [Gu par. 0159-160] and/or [Notargiacomo fig. 5-7]).
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Gu and Notargiacomo disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Gu and/or Notargiacomo further discloses:
wherein each RU of the plurality of RUs is configured to serve one or more UEs of the plurality of UEs [Gu fig. 1 no. 110b, 120f-h], and wherein the one or more UEs served by the RU are different from one or more UEs served by another RU of the plurality of RUs [Gu fig. 110a, 120a, 120c, Notargiacomo fig. 1].
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Gu and Notargiacomo disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Gu further discloses:
wherein the BBU is configured to operate in a 4th Generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) communication system (Includes LTE (i.e., 4G) [par. 0152, 154, 156]).
Regarding claims 8 and 16, Gu and Notargiacomo disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Gu further discloses:
wherein the BBU comprises at least one distributed unit (DU) configured to operate in a Fifth Generation (5G) communication system (Includes DU [par. 0017, 0152, 154, 156]).
Claims 6 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gu and Notargiacomo as applied to claims 1 and 9 respectively, and further in view of Black (US 20200169312 A1).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Gu and Notargiacomo disclose everything claimed, as applied above.
Although Gu discloses wherein each RU of the plurality of RUs is configured to serve one or more UEs of the plurality of UEs, as discussed above, Gu does not explicitly disclose plurality of radio units (RUs). However, these concepts are well known as disclosed by Black.
In the same field of endeavor, Black discloses:
and wherein at least one UE of the one or more UEs served by the RU is same as at least one UE of one or more UEs served by another RU of the plurality of Rus [fig. 3A, C, E, par. 0038, 102].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gu and Notargiacomo with Black. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification given the benefit of cooperative MIMO [Black par. 0002].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Walter J DiVito whose telephone number is (571)272-2556. The examiner can normally be reached M-R: 8 am - 6 pm (PST).
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/WALTER J DIVITO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465
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