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 statement (IDS) submitted on 09/16/2025 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 § 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 (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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable by Wang et, al. (US 11324060 B2, referred to as Wang hereinafter)
Regarding claim 1, Wang teaches User equipment comprising: a transceiver configured to transmit and receive signals over an air interface; a memory configured to store executable instructions; a processor configured to execute instructions stored in the memory, the instructions to manipulate the processor to: (col. 16, lines 28-34)
measure, at a first physical (PHY) layer and a second PHY layer, characteristics of uplink channels of the air interface; (col.18, lines 33-45, determines per-layer transmission power and data rate values.)
and selectively route data from a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer to one or more of a first radio link control (RLC) layer associated with the first PHY layer and a second RLC layer associated with the second PHY layer based upon the characteristics of the uplink channels. (col. 21, lines 62-67, a singular PDCP entity routes data to one of the two RLC layers, the routing decision being driven by the characteristics of the uplink channels.)
Regarding claim 2, Wang teaches the user equipment of claim 1, further comprising: providing information representing the characteristics of the uplink channels of the air interface from the first PHY layer and the second PHY layer to the PDCP layer. (col 28, line 60 to col 29, line 5, per-layer characteristic values are determined, PDCP layer performs selection of RLC layer)
Regarding claim 3, Wang teaches The user equipment of claim 1, wherein the characteristics of the corresponding channels comprise at least one of a frequency of at least one of the uplink channels, a path loss of at least one of the uplink channels, a block error rate (BLER) of at least one of the uplink channels, a transmit power of at least one of the uplink channels, an average uplink modulation and coding scheme (MCS) of at least one of the uplink channels, or an average resource block (RB) size of at least one of the uplink channels. (col. 18, lines 45-53, transmission of power is expressly measured and compared per layer.)
Regarding claim 4, Wang teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the PDCP layer is configured to selectively route the data to the first RLC layer or second RLC layer based on differences in estimated transmission efficiencies of the uplink channels reported by the first and second PHY layers. (col.18, lines 55-62, power efficiency expressed as “power-per-bit” reads on to “estimated transmission efficiencies”, the routing decision relies on the differences in the two layer’s values.)
Regarding claim 5, Wang teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the PDCP layer is configured to selectively route the data to the first RLC layer or the second RLC layer based on differences in an estimated throughput capacity or latency of the uplink channels reported by the first and second PHY layers. (col. 18, lines 17-28, data rate is a direct synonym for throughput capacity, the routing decision is explicitly based on the compared difference between the two layer’s data rates.)
Regarding claim 6, Wang teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the PDCP layer is configured to selectively route the data to the first RLC layer or the second RLC layer based on a combination of differences in estimated transmission efficiencies, estimated throughput capacity, or estimated latency of the uplink channels. (col. 3, lines 11-40, discloses a combination of different uplink transmission modes whose characteristics are transmission-efficiency and data-rate differences.)
Regarding claim 7, Wang teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the PDCP layer is configured to selectively route the data to the first RLC layer or the second RLC layer based upon configuration information received from a network. (col. 18, lines 3-7, the network can instruct the user equipment’s mode selection, which determines the routing logic applied at the PDCP layer.)
Regarding claim 8 Wang teaches the user equipment of claim 7, wherein the PDCP layer is configured to ignore the configuration information received from the network in response to signaling from an external module. (col. 18, lines 3-14, UE selects a mode based on the internal component’s signal rather than the network’s instructed mode, ignoring the received data.)
Regarding claim 9, Wang teaches A method of operating the user equipment of claim 1, the method including: measuring, at the first physical (PHY) layer and the second PHY layer, characteristics of uplink channels of the air interface; (col.18, lines 33-45, determines per-layer transmission power and data rate values.)
and selectively routing data from the packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer to one or more of the first radio link control (RLC) layer associated with the first PHY layer and the second RLC layer associated with the second PHY layer based upon the characteristics of the uplink channels. (col. 21, lines 62-67, a singular PDCP entity routes data to one of the two RLC layers, the routing decision being driven by the characteristics of the uplink channels.)
Regarding claim 10, Wang teaches the method of claim 9, further comprising: providing information representing the characteristics of the uplink channels of the air interface from the first PHY layer and the second PHY layer to the PDCP layer. (col. 28-29, lines 60-5, per-layer characteristic values are determined, PDCP layer performs selection of RLC layer.)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AYAAN AYAZ SHEIKH whose telephone number is (571)272-4643. The examiner can normally be reached MON-FRI 7:30-5pm.
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/AYAAN AYAZ SHEIKH/Examiner, Art Unit 2463
/ASAD M NAWAZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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