DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to application number 17/632,564 filed on February 3rd 2022. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Applicant’s Request for Continued Examination filed 02/20/2026 is acknowledged
Claims 1,2,4 and 8 have been amended
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed on February 3rd,2022.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements (IDS), submitted on December 8th, 2023 and October 4th, 2023, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/20/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 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 § 102
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.102(a) as being anticipated by DA Silva et al. (US 20200344019 A1).
Regarding claim 1, DA Silva et al. disclose a terminal apparatus for communicating with a base station apparatus, the terminal apparatus comprising: a receiver configured to receive a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message from the base station apparatus ; and processing circuitry configured to process the RRC message, wherein a first value is a value included in the RRC message and applied to a timer T310, the timer T310 being a timer to detect a physical layer problem, and the processing circuitry changes timing to configure the timer T310 by using the first value based on whether the RRC message includes first information (Paragraph 0016 discloses that the RLF parameters contained in RRC messages through “The RLF parameters are configured in the IEs rlf-TimersAndConstants or radioResourceConfigDedicated IE. The rlf-TimersAndConstants IE can be transmitted in SystemInformationBlockType2 (or SystemInformationBlockType2-NB in Narrowband Internet-of-Things (NB-IoT)). The radioResourceConfigDedicated IE can be within RRC messages such as RRCConnectionReconfguration. RRCConnectionReestablishment or RRCConnectionResume, and RRCConnectionSetup.”. Paragraph 009 and the subsequent table Section 5.3.10.7 discloses “The UE shall: 1> if the received rfl-TimersAndConstant is set to release: 2> use values for timers T301, T310, T311 and constants N310, N311, as included in ue-TimersAndConstants received in SystemInformationBlockType2 (or SystemInformationBlockType2-NBin NB-IoT); 1> else: 2> reconfigure the value of timers and constants in accordance with received rlf-TimersAndConstants;”).
Regarding claim 4, DA Silva et al. disclose a method applied to a terminal apparatus for communicating with a base station apparatus, the method comprising: receiving a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message from the base station apparatus; and processing the RRC message, wherein a first value is a value included in the RRC message and applied to a first timer, and in the processing the RRC message, timing to apply the first value to the first timer is changed, based on whether the RRC message includes first information (The limitations of this claim are rejected on same grounds of rejection as that of claim #1).
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DA Silva et al. (US 20200344019 A1). in view of Yamada (US 20150173047 A1).
Regarding claim 2, DA Silva et al. disclose the terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein in a case that the RRC message includes the first information, the processing circuitry configures the timer T:310 (Paragraph 009 and the subsequent table Section 5.3.10.7 discloses “The UE shall: 1> if the received rfl-TimersAndConstant is set to release: 2> use values for timers T301, T310, T311 and constants N310, N311, as included in ue-TimersAndConstants received in SystemInformationBlockType2 (or SystemInformationBlockType2-NBin NB-IoT); 1> else: 2> reconfigure the value of timers and constants in accordance with received rlf-TimersAndConstants;”).
DA Silva et al. fail to explicitly disclose using the first value after successful completion of a random-access procedure triggered for transmission of an RRC reconfiguration complete message in response to the RRC message.
However in an analogous art Yamada et al teaches using the first value after successful completion of a random-access procedure triggered for transmission of an RRC reconfiguration complete message in response to the RRC message (Paragraph 0054 discloses the RRC message includes the first information through “The UE RRC handover module 126 may receive an RRC connection reconfiguration message (also referred to as RRCConnectionReconfiguration) from a source MeNB 160.” Furthermore paragraph 0093 discloses applying the first value to the first timer after successful completion of a random access procedure through “If the MAC of the MCG successfully completes the random access procedure, the UE 102 may stop the timer (e.g., timer T304) and the RRC connection reconfiguration procedure may end.” The teaching of stopping a timer, as taught by the primary, reads on the limitation "applies" because Applicant's specification discloses "applies" as being "(1) the stoppage of a timer (paragraph 729) that is defining the "processing T" executed after the MAC layer notifies successful completion of the random access procedure (see paragraph 745))
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified DA Silva et al. to incorporate the teachings of Yamada et al. to use the first value after successful completion of a random-access procedure triggered for transmission of an RRC reconfiguration complete message in response to the RRC message., in order to use an optimal value for the T310 timer based upon the state of the UE.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DA Silva et al. (US 20200344019 A1). in view of Kim et al. (US 20210258844 A1).
Regarding claim 8, DA Silva et al. discloses the terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein in a case that the RRC message includes the first information, the processing circuitry configures the timer T310 by using the first value at a first timing (Paragraph 009 and the subsequent table Section 5.3.10.7 discloses “The UE shall: 1> if the received rfl-TimersAndConstant is set to release: 2> use values for timers T301, T310, T311 and constants N310, N311, as included in ue-TimersAndConstants received in SystemInformationBlockType2 (or SystemInformationBlockType2-NBin NB-IoT); 1> else: 2> reconfigure the value of timers and constants in accordance with received rlf-TimersAndConstants;”);
DA Silva et al. fails to explicitly disclose a case that the RRC message does not include the first information, the processing circuitry configures the timer T310 by using the first value at a second timing; wherein the first timing is different from the second timing.
However in an analogous art Kim et al. teaches a case that the RRC message does not include the first information, the processing circuitry configures the timer T310 by using the first value at a second timing; wherein the first timing is different from the second timing. (Paragraph 0136-0138 disclose the sequence of events whereby the first value is applied to the first timer at second timing (before the random access procedure in contrast to after the random access procedure ) when the first information is not included (makeBeforeBreakSCG is not configured): 0136 -“start timer T307 with the timer value set to t307, as included in the mobilityControlInfoSCG, if makeBeforeBreakSCG is not configured.” 0137 –“start synchronising to the DL of the target PSCell;” 0138-“initiate the random access procedure on the PSCell, if rach-SkipSCG is not configured”.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified DA Silva to incorporate the teachings of Kim et al. the processing circuitry configures the timer T310 by using the first value at a second timing; wherein the first timing is different from the second timing., in order to ensure the successful execution of the configuration change.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Samuel Dilan Rutnam whose telephone number is 703-756-1374. The examiner can normally be reached between 8:30am-5:00pm Mon-Fri.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached on 571-272-8586.
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/Samuel Dilan Rutnam/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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