DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to amendment filed on June 3rd, 2026.
Claims 1~20 are examined.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/03/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Lyon was relied upon to teach the upstream device 30 responsible for receiving packets and marking them as having experienced congestion based on the congestion present at the node 20e. The upstream device 30 performs OSI layer 3 processing however, it also received updates comprising congestion information from the queuing device 70, which is representative of congestion at layer 2 [¶40]. Lyon also taught CNIB 31 carries requests for congestion state information in the forward direction, as well as units of congestion state and aggregate congestion level information in the reverse direction (i.e. from queuing device 70 to upstream device 30) [¶39]. The queuing device 70 is also responsible for maintaining congestion state information reflective of congestion at each of the queues 72 of the device 70. The queuing device 70 updates the upstream device 30 with this information on an ongoing basis to effect the caching of information in memory 54 (FIG. 4) [¶49].
Ilhan was relied upon to teach that the marking request is a L4S marking request having the ECN field marked to indicate congestion experienced [¶39; ¶42; ¶43; ¶51]. The combination of Lyon and Ilhan therefore, taught that layer 2 entity of a sending device (“queuing device 70”) determines congestion and provides the layer 3 entity (“upstream device 30”) with the information in order to request an L4S marking request having the ECN field marked to indicate congestion experienced (ECN flag set to “11”) made by the UPF 10 (layer 3 entity). Since Applicant’s arguments amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references, Examiner maintains that the prior art combination of Lyon and Ihlar teaches the amended claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 6~8, 13~15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyon et al. hereinafter Lyon (U.S 2005/0147032) in view of Ihlar et al. hereinafter Ihlar (U.S 2025/0030640).
Regarding Claim 1,
Lyon taught a system for authorizing caregivers to manage healthcare of patients comprising:
determining, by a layer 2 entity of a sending device, that a packet is experiencing congestion at layer 2 [¶40, upstream device 30 device responsible for receiving packets and marking them as having experienced congestion based on the congestion present at the node 20e. Device 30 also receive updates comprising congestion information from the queuing device 70, which is representative of congestion at layer 2; ¶39; ¶49],
generating, by the layer 2 entity, marking request for the packet [¶42, forwarder 40 maintains a “shadow” copy of status information which was computed by the queuing device 70 for use by the upstream device 30 for marking purposes; ¶49, queuing device 70 is responsible for maintaining congestion state information reflective of congestion at each of the queues 72 of the device 70; ¶40],
marking, by the co-located layer 3 entity of the packet to indicate the congestion experienced [¶53, congestion state information includes congestion indication state which is determinative of whether or not a packet should be marked as having experienced congestion at OSI layer 3; ¶40].
Lyon did not specifically teach generating a Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) marking request, the L4S marking request identifying the packet and indicating that the packet is to be marked for congestion experienced, sending the L4S marking request from the layer 2 entity to a co-located layer 3 entity to request congestion marking of the packet; marking, by the co-located layer 3 entity in response to receiving the L4S marking request, an Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) field of the packet to indicate the congestion experienced and sending, from the co-located layer 3 entity, a L4S marking response comprising the packet having the ECN field marked to indicate congestion experienced to the layer 2 entity.
Ihlar taught generating a Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) marking request, the L4S marking request identifying the packet and indicating that the packet is to be marked for congestion experienced [¶45~¶46, a device (UPF 10) configured to monitor congestion for incoming data packets; ¶34, UPF 10 when performing traffic policing monitors incoming data packets and concludes whether the incoming data packet rate complies with requirements set forth; ¶35, such information is typically supplied to the UPF 10 by the PCF 16 over interface N7 to the SMF 21 and further over interface N4];
sending the Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) marking request [¶51, UPF 10 in 5GC will apply traffic policing to flows of packets that are matched by packet detection information];
marking, by the co-located layer 3 entity in response to receiving the L4S marking request, an Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) field of the packet to indicate the congestion experienced [¶41, signal congestion by setting a flag thereby indicating that the UPF 10 will reach a buffering limit within short; ¶42, L4S repurposes the ECN flag (“11” Congestion Experienced) as illustrated in Table 1; ¶51, L4S policing will be performed]; and
sending, from the co-located layer 3 entity, a L4S marking response comprising the packet having the ECN field marked to indicate congestion experienced to the layer 2 entity [¶55, this is communicated by setting the ECN flag to “11” in the header of the outgoing data packets to the gaming server 22, whereby the gaming server 22 subsequently informs the original sending node, i.e. the UE 11, that there is a risk of congestion].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made, to combine, Ihlar’s teaching of limitations with the teachings of Lyon, because the combination provide an improved method of monitoring congestion for incoming data packets [¶6].
Regarding Claims 6,
Lyon-Ihlar taught wherein the L4S marking request comprises any one of (i) queue information for a corresponding L4S flow, (ii) characteristics of the corresponding L4S flow, (iii) a recommended value for congestion marking, or (iv) any combination of (i)-(iii) [¶53~¶54]. The rationale to combine as discussed in claim 1, applies here as well.
Regarding Claim 7,
Lyon-Ihlar taught further comprising: receiving from the sending device a frame with the ECN field set to indicate congestion, wherein the sending device is operable to predict congestion based on any one of (i) a delay in a transmission queue, (ii) one or more drops, (iii) one or more retries, (iv) a backoff delay, (v) layer 2 Key Performance Indicators, (vi) a prediction generated by a machine learning technique, or (vii) any combination of (i)-(vi) [¶43, Table 1, L4S repurposes the ECN flags such that ECT(1) is used to signal LAS support]. The rationale to combine as discussed in claim 1, applies here as well.
Regarding Claims 8, 13~15, and 20, the claims are similar in scope to claims 1, 6, and 7 and therefore, rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 2~5, 9~12, and 16~19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lyon and Ihlar in view of Nandagopalan et al. hereinafter Nandagopalan (U.S 2003/0093526).
Regarding Claim 2,
Lyon-Ihlar-Nandagopalan taught wherein sending the L4S marking request to the co-located layer 3 entity comprises: sending the L4S marking request from a Medium Access Control (MAC) sublayer to a Link Layer Control (LLC) sublayer; and sending the L4S marking request from the LLC sublayer to layer 3 [¶42, OSI layers; ¶43, MAC Layer 335 is located above the Physical Layer Convergence Protocol (PLCP) 375; ¶44, Logical Link Control Layer (LLC Layer) 325 is located above MAC Layer 335].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made, to combine, Nandagopalan’s teaching of limitations with the teachings of Lyon and Ihlar, because the combination provides improved Quality of Service (QoS) signaling [¶13].
Regarding Claims 3,
Lyon-Ihlar-Nandagopalan taught wherein sending the L4S marking response comprises: sending the L4S marking response from the co-located layer 3 entity to the LLC sublayer; and sending the L4S marking response from the LLC sublayer to the MAC sublayer [¶42, OSI layers; ¶43, MAC Layer 335 is located above the Physical Layer Convergence Protocol (PLCP) 375; ¶44, Logical Link Control Layer (LLC Layer) 325 is located above MAC Layer 335]. The rationale to combine as discussed in claim 2, applies here as well.
Regarding Claim 4,
Lyon-Ihlar-Nandagopalan taught wherein sending the L4S marking request to the co-located layer 3 entity comprises: sending the L4S marking request from a MAC Layer Management Entity (MLME) to a Station (STA) Management Entity (SME); and sending the L4S marking request from the SME to the co-located layer 3 entity [¶43, Station Management Entity (SME) 310 extends from the Application Layer to the Physical Layer; MAC Layer Management Entity (MLME) 340; ¶95, SME 310 communicates to all layers in the OSI stack; ¶99]. The rationale to combine as discussed in claim 2, applies here as well.
Regarding Claim 5,
Lyon-Ihlar-Nandagopalan taught wherein sending the L4S marking response comprises: sending the L4S marking response from layer 3 to the SME; and sending the L4S marking response from the SME to the MLME [¶43, Station Management Entity (SME) 310 extends from the Application Layer to the Physical Layer; MAC Layer Management Entity (MLME) 340; ¶95, SME 310 communicates to all layers in the OSI stack; ¶99]. The rationale to combine as discussed in claim 2, applies here as well.
Regarding Claims 9~12, and 16~19, the claims are similar in scope to claims 2~5 and therefore, rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HEE SOO KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-3229. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-5PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas Taylor can be reached on (571) 272-3889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HEE SOO KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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