DETAILED ACTION
This is in response to RCE dated 3/5/26. Claims 42-43, 46-47, and 50-53 have been examined. Claims 44-45 and 48-49 have been cancelled.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/5/26 has been entered.
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 . 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.
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) 42-43, 46-47, and 50-51 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable by Huang (WO 2020/034319) in view of Ou et al. (US 2021/0259021; hereafter Ou) and further in view of Lee (US 2020/0068442).
Regarding Claim 42 (Currently Amended),
A method performed by a terminal device, the method comprising:
determining whether a size of uplink data is less than or equal to a threshold [Huang: 0095; the RA type selection is based on the buffer size, e.g. whether the buffer size is above (or “above or equal” ) or below (or “below or equal” ) a threshold; the threshold is configured through RRC signaling (e.g. system information or dedicated RRC signaling); 0099; for the machine type communication (MTC) device in INACTIVE state, if all the data in the buffer can be transmitted through one RA procedure, then the UE can determine to process the 2-step RA without state transition ; 0093; the payload transmitted in step 1 may be a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) , and the MAC PDU may include one or more elements of the following: a common control channel (CCCH) message; a dedicated control channel (DCCH) message; a MAC service data unit (SDU) from data radio bearer (DRB) ; and a MAC control element (CE); 0057; the random access procedure selector 526 in this example may select a random access (RA) procedure between a 2-step RACH and a 4-step RACH based on information related to at least one of: … a comparison between a buffer size and a threshold; 0050; the random access message generator 520 may generate a first message comprising a preamble and a payload for an access to the BS],
the threshold being configured for the terminal device … determining that the size of the uplink data is larger than the threshold [Huang: 0095; in a sixth alternative, the RA type selection is based on the buffer size, e.g. whether the buffer size is above (or “above or equal” ) or below (or “below or equal” ) a threshold; the threshold is configured through RRC signaling (e.g. system information or dedicated RRC signaling); 0099; for the machine type communication (MTC) device in INACTIVE state, if all the data in the buffer can be transmitted through one RA procedure, then the UE can determine to process the 2-step RA without state transition; besides the MTC small data transmission, another use case is that the UE can select 4-step RACH in case the CCCH message size is larger than a threshold; ; 0093; the payload transmitted in step 1 may be a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) , and the MAC PDU may include one or more elements of the following: a common control channel (CCCH) message; a dedicated control channel (DCCH) message; a MAC service data unit (SDU) from data radio bearer (DRB) ; and a MAC control element (CE);] ….
in response to determining that the size of the uplink data is less than or equal to the threshold: performing a selection of an uplink carrier, from a normal uplink (NUL) carrier and a supplement uplink (SUL) carrier, for transmission of uplink data in an inactive state in a SDT procedure; and initiating the SDT procedure in response to using random access resources for SDT on a selected uplink carrier [Huang: 0095; in a sixth alternative, the RA type selection is based on the buffer size, e.g. whether the buffer size is above (or “above or equal” ) or below (or “below or equal” ) a threshold; the threshold is configured through RRC signaling (e.g. system information or dedicated RRC signaling); 0099; for the machine type communication (MTC) device in INACTIVE state, if all the data in the buffer can be transmitted through one RA procedure, then the UE can determine to process the 2-step RA without state transition; besides the MTC small data transmission, another use case is that the UE can select 4-step RACH in case the CCCH message size is larger than a threshold; 0112; different RA-RNTI will be used by UE to monitor the Msg2 of 2-step RACH vs. the Msg2 of 4-step RACH; 0113; the RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH (physical random access channel), in which the RAP (random access preamble) is transmitted; 0114; RA-RNTI= 1 + s_id + 14 × t_id + 14 × 80 × f_id + 14 × 80 × 8 × ul_carrier_id where s_id is the index of the first orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol of the specified PRACH (0 ≤ s_id < 14) , t_id is the index of the first slot of the specified PRACH in a system frame (0 ≤ t_id < 80) , f_id is the index of the specified PRACH in the frequency domain (0 ≤ f_id < 8) , and ul_carrier_id is the UL carrier used for Msg1 transmission (0 for NUL carrier, and 1 for SUL carrier)].
Note:
Selection between NUL carrier and SUL carrier is done via ul_carrier_id.
However, Huang does not teach that the threshold being configured for the terminal device to determine whether to perform a small data transmission (SDT) procedure.
Ou teaches:
the threshold being configured for the terminal device to determine whether to perform a small data transmission (SDT) procedure [Ou: 0596; the small data transmission could be initiated if the uplink data size is less than or equal to a TB size indicated in the related configuration, the system information, the dedicated RRC signaling, and/or the DCI];
However, Huang-Ou does not explicitly teach the limitation, which recites “in response to determining that the size of the uplink data is larger than the threshold, indicating, by a media access control (MAC) layer, to an upper layer, that small data transmission (SDT) is not to be performed.”
Lee teaches:
in response to determining that the size of the uplink data is larger than the threshold, indicating, by a media access control (MAC) layer, to an upper layer, that small data transmission (SDT) is not to be performed [Lee: 0128; specifically, the UE may compare the threshold for EDT with the size of data for transmission; then, the UE may determine whether or not the condition for initiating EDT is satisfied, by comparing the threshold for EDT (i.e. early data transmission) with the size of data for transmission; 0130; Option 2: If the size of data for transmission is higher than the threshold for EDT, the UE may determine that the condition for initiating EDT is not satisfied; in this case, in step S935, the UE may not perform the EDT; namely, the UE may transmit data to the base station after completion of RRC connection establishment or resume procedure. For example, in case that the size of data for transmission is higher than the threshold for EDT, the UE may transmit data to the base station after the UE transits from RRC_IDLE to RRC_CONNECTED. Further, a UE MAC may indicate to UE RRC that EDT is cancelled].
It would have been obvious for POSITA before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Huang, Ou, and Lee in order to reduce signaling overhead in general [Ou: 0460] and that the number of transmissions should be reduced as many as possible [Lee: 0004].
Regarding Claim 43,
wherein the random access resources for SDT are at least one of 2-step random access resources and 4-step random access resources [Huang: 0099; if all the data in the buffer can be transmitted through one RA procedure, then the UE can determine to process the 2-step RA without state transition. Besides the MTC small data transmission, another use case is that the UE can select 4-step RACH in case the CCCH message size is larger than a threshold].
Regarding claims 46-47, which recite the same claim limitations as those in claims 42-43, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claims 42-43 is applicable.
Regarding Claim 50 (Previously Presented),
wherein the uplink data includes data and signalling [Huang: 0093; the payload transmitted in step 1 may be a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) , and the MAC PDU may include one or more elements of the following: a common control channel (CCCH) message; a dedicated control channel (DCCH) message; a MAC service data unit (SDU) from data radio bearer (DRB) ; and a MAC control element (CE); 0050; the random access message generator 520 may generate a first message comprising a preamble and a payload for an access to the BS].
Note:
A message comprising a preamble and a payload has both data and control (i.e. signalling).
Regarding Claim 51, which recites the same claim limitation as those in claim 50, the same rationale of rejection as presented in claim 50 is applicable.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 52-53 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 42 and 46 have been considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues regarding claims 42 and 46 on page 7 of the Remarks section that Huang is used to determine RA type selection between 2-step RACH and 4-step RACH, based on a comparison with a buffer size and, thus, is clearly different from “the threshold being configured for the terminal device to determine whether to perform a small data transmission (SDT) procedure.”
Examiner’s Response:
For purposes of brevity, please see the rejection above where Ou in Huang-Ou-Lee has been cited to teach the limitation at issue.
Applicant argues regarding claims 42 and 46 on page 7 of the Remarks section that Lee relates to an early data transmission (EDT), and the UE performs EDT in an idle state, which is different from the SDT procedure performed in an inactive state.
Examiner’s Response:
Huang has been cited to teach SDT procedure being performed in an inactive state and even for conditional statement that the size of the uplink data being larger than threshold [see Huang: 0095; 0099], whereas Lee in Huang-Ou-Lee has been cited to teach the limitation which recites “in response to determining that the size of the uplink data is larger than the threshold … indicating, by … MAC … to an upper layer … that … data transmission is not to be performed.” Thus, Huang-Ou-Lee combination teaches the limitation at issue.
Conclusion
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SAAD A. WAQAS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2468
/Saad A. Waqas/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468