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 .
(note: the priority date of the application is given Mar. 4, 2020 with foreign application priority KR 10-2020-0027391 since KR 10-2019-0091556 filed on 07/29/2019 and KR 10-2019-0115657 filed on 09/19/2019 do not provide support for the claims)
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/29/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 4, 5, 8, 9 ,12, 13, 15 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 9 ,12, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over R2-2000732 (“Draft CR for 38.323 on ROHC failure issue”) in view of R2-1904646 (“LTE mobility enhancements for eMBB HO using dual active protocol stack”).
Regarding claims 1, 9, R2-2000732 teaches a method performed by a first base station associated with a first cell in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
identifying that a robust header compression (ROHC) protocol is configured for a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) entity associated with a data radio bearer (DRB) established with a user equipment (UE) (section 5.7.4, For downlink transmission of DAPS bears in target cell, the header compression for the PDCP SDU in transmitting PDCP entity shall start with and keep an IR state in U-mode until the source cell is released in UE);
in case that the ROHC protocol operates in an unidirectional mode (U-mode) or a bidirectional optimistic mode (0-mode) during the DAPS handover before release of a-the second cell, maintaining an initialization and refresh (IR) state for the ROHC protocol used for downlink data transmission of the first cell (section 5.7.4, For downlink transmission of DAPS bears in target cell, the header compression for the PDCP SDU in transmitting PDCP entity shall start with and keep an IR state in U-mode until the source cell is released in UE), and transmitting IR packets to the UE (section 5.7.4; page 1, generate/transmit IR packets to the receiver until the target node sends the source release indication to UE).
However, R2-2000732 does not teach receiving, from a second base station associated with a second cell, a handover request message for the UE;
transmitting, to the second base station, a handover request acknowledge message indicating a dual active protocol stack (DAPS) handover;
but, R2-1904646 in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches receiving, from a second base station associated with a second cell, a handover request message for the UE (fig. 2, step 4 HO Request);
transmitting, to the second base station, a handover request acknowledge message indicating a dual active protocol stack (DAPS) handover (fig. 2, step 6 HO Request Ack; section 2.2, Dual stack dual active protocol stack based MBB HO enhancements);
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by R2-1904646 in the system of R2-2000732 to request handover.
The motivation would have been to provide make before break handover in standard implement and easier to implement.
Regarding claims 4, 12, R2-2000732 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first cell is a target cell and the second cell is a source cell of the DAPS handover (section 5.7.4, “For downlink transmission of DAPS bears in target cell, the header compression for the PDCP SDU in transmitting PDCP entity shall start with and keep an IR state in U-mode until the source cell is released in UE” for handover).
Claim(s) 5, 8, 13, 15, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over R2-1904646 (“LTE mobility enhancements for eMBB HO using dual active protocol stack”) in view of R2-2000732 (“Draft CR for 38.323 on ROHC failure issue”).
Regarding claims 5, 13, R2-1904646 teaches a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
identifying a data radio bearer (DRB) configured as a dual active protocol stack (DAPS) bearer established with a base station associated with a first cell (section 2.2, the LTE MBB HO (non-split bearer architecture, dual stack dual active protocol stack) procedures…UE has established SRBs and DRBs with target eNB);
identifying that a robust header compression (ROHC) protocol is configured for a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) entity associated with the DRB configured as the DAPS bearer (section 2.2, UE has established SRBs and DRBs with target eNB …target eNB will perform remaining PDCP functions (i.e ROHC, Security, PDCP header operation)…UE common PDCP will have to maintain separate ROHC context for each eNB during HO);
receiving, from the base station, radio resource control (RRC) reconfiguration message indicating a DAPS handover (fig. 2, step 7; section 2.2, a RRC connection Reconfiguration Request); and
during the DAPS handover before release of a second cell, maintain separate ROHC context for each eNB (fig. 2, section 2.2).
However, R2-1904646 does not teach in case that the ROHC protocol operates in an unidirectional mode (U-mode) or a bidirectional optimistic mode (0-mode) during the DAPS handover before release of a second cell, receiving initialization and refresh (IR) packets from the base station maintaining an IR state for the ROHC protocol of the first cell.
But, R2-2000732 in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches
identifying a data radio bearer (DRB) configured as a dual active protocol stack (DAPS) bearer established with a base station associated with a first cell (section 5.7.4, For downlink transmission of DAPS bears in target cell, the header compression for the PDCP SDU in transmitting PDCP entity shall start with and keep an IR state in U-mode until the source cell is released in UE);
identifying that a robust header compression (ROHC) protocol is configured for a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) entity associated with the DRB configured as the DAPS bearer (section 5.7.4, For downlink transmission of DAPS bears in target cell, the header compression for the PDCP SDU in transmitting PDCP entity shall start with and keep an IR state in U-mode until the source cell is released in UE);
in case that the ROHC protocol operates in an unidirectional mode (U-mode) or a bidirectional optimistic mode (0-mode) during the DAPS handover before release of a second cell, receiving initialization and refresh (IR) packets from the base station maintaining an IR state for the ROHC protocol of the first cell (section 5.7.4, For downlink transmission of DAPS bears in target cell, the header compression for the PDCP SDU in transmitting PDCP entity shall start with and keep an IR state in U-mode until the source cell is released in UE; page 1, generate/transmit IR packets to the receiver until the target node sends the source release indication to UE).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by R2-2000732 in the system of R2-1904646 to maintain IR state.
The motivation would have been to prevent ROHC decompression failure issue.
Regarding claims 8, 15, R2-2000732 teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the first cell is a target cell and the second cell is a source cell of the DAPS (section 5.7.4, “For downlink transmission of DAPS bears in target cell, the header compression for the PDCP SDU in transmitting PDCP entity shall start with and keep an IR state in U-mode until the source cell is released in UE” for handover).
Conclusion
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/THINH D TRAN/for /Thinh Tran/, Patent Examiner of Art Unit 2466 01/24/2026