DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Amendment
The following is a final office action in response to applicant’s reply, filed on 06/16/2026, to the Non-Final Office Action mailed on 03/26/2026.
Claims 1, 5, 12, 27, 28, 31 and 46 are amended. Claims 2 and 45 are cancelled.
Claims 1, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 18-19, 27-28, 31, 33, 44, 46-48, 55 and 62 are pending and addressed below.
Applicant’s amendment has overcome claim 12 rejection under USC 112(b), previously set forth in the non-final office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 27-28, 31, 33, 44, 46-48, and 62 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Independent Claim 1 recites expression “receiving, in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Inactive state, configuration information sent by a network side;” is not understood. According to Spec. e.g., Figs. 5-7 and corresponding paragraphs in the Spec, discloses configuration information is sent by RRC Reconfiguration message or RRC Release message, which are messages known to be exchanged in RRC Connected state, not as claimed in RRC Inactive state which is a state when there is no RRC connection between the network and the terminal.
Independent Claim 27 recites expression “sending configuration information to a terminal in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Inactive state” is not understood. It is not clear about how a network side device sends the configuration information in RRC Inactive state. According to Spec. e.g., Figs. 5-7 and corresponding paragraphs in the Spec, discloses configuration information is sent by RRC Reconfiguration message or RRC Release message, which are messages known to be exchanged in RRC Connected state, not as claimed in RRC Inactive state which is a state when there is no RRC connection between the network and the terminal.
Dependent claims are subjected to the same rejection because of their dependency on the above rejected claims 1 and 27.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
Claims 18 and 55 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kim; Taehun et al US 20220232659 A1, hereinafter KIM.
Regarding claims 18 and 55, KIM teaches, a method, performed by a terminal, comprising:
determining to perform a preconfigured uplink resource (PUR) data transmission or an early data transmission EDT (KIM [0473] “A UE may determine to perform initiating UP small data transmission for PUR based on PUR conditions being met.”),
performing a data sending and/or a data receiving in Radio Resource Inactive state, according to configuration information (KIM [489] “Based on the determining to perform the initiating UP small data transmission, the UE in an RRC idle state or an RRC inactive may perform the initiating UP small data transmission using the first suspend configuration parameters”),
wherein the configuration information is obtained by the terminal in a connected state from a network side (KIM [489] “A UE in an RRC connected state may communicate with a first base station based on first configuration parameters and first security keys. The first base station may send an RRC release message to the UE. Based on receiving the RRC release message comprising the first suspend configuration parameters, the UE may perform the suspending RRC connection based on the first suspend configuration parameters. The UE may transition to an RRC idle state or an RRC inactive state. The UE may receive PUR configuration parameters via previous RRC release message.”),
wherein the configuration information comprises physical downlink control channel configuration information, the physical downlink control channel configuration information is configured to receive scheduling information for scheduling uplink or downlink data of the terminal (KIM [0457] “The PUR configuration parameters may comprise at least one of: … ; [0466] “physical configuration parameters for PUR”; [0467] “The physical configuration parameters for PUR may comprises at least one of: … “; [0469] “PDCCH configuration parameters for PUR;”; [0101] “a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) for carrying downlink control information (DCI), which may include downlink scheduling commands, uplink scheduling grants, and uplink power control commands;”).
With respect to claim 55, claim recites the identical features of claim 18 for a corresponding terminal. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 1, 14, 27, 44 and 62 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE; Won Seok et al US 20230127054 A1, in view of Kim; Taehun et al US 20220232659 A1, hereinafter KIM.
Regarding claims 1, 27, 44 and 62, LEE teaches, a data transmission method, performed by a terminal, comprising:
receiving, in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Inactive state, configuration information sent by a network side (LEE [0200] “As another example, “SmalldataConfig” may be indicated to the UE 2110 through system information without being transmitted through the RRC release message. For example, “SmalldataConfig” may be included in the system information received from the base station 2120 and the UE 2110 may receive the system information and then enable the small data configuration in the RRC inactive state.”); and
performing a data sending and/or a data receiving in the RRC Inactive state, according to the configuration information, in case that the terminal performs a preconfigured uplink data transmission or an early data transmission (LEE [200] “the UE in the RRC inactive state may perform the small data transmission”, [0037] “FIG. 20 illustrates early data transmission (EDT) to which the present disclosure may apply.”),
wherein the configuration information is carried in an RRC release message or a broadcast message (LEE [200] teaches, the configuration is carried in System Information, which implies a broadcast message (see LEE [0113] “An RRC layer may perform … , system information broadcasting”). Satisfies “or” criteria).
LEE does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, KIM teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises physical downlink control channel configuration information, the physical downlink control channel configuration information is configured to receive scheduling information for scheduling uplink or downlink data of the terminal wherein the configuration information comprises physical downlink control channel configuration information, the physical downlink control channel configuration information is configured to receive scheduling information for scheduling uplink or downlink data of the terminal (KIM [0457] “The PUR configuration parameters may comprise at least one of: … ; [0466] “physical configuration parameters for PUR”; [0467] “The physical configuration parameters for PUR may comprises at least one of: … “; [0469] “PDCCH configuration parameters for PUR;”; [0101] “a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) for carrying downlink control information (DCI), which may include downlink scheduling commands, uplink scheduling grants, and uplink power control commands;”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE to expressly include the features as taught by KIM above in order to provide a method for enhanced small data transmission.
With respect to claim 27, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a method of an interworking network side. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
With respect to claim 44, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding terminal. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
With respect to claim 62, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a device of the interworking network side. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection.
Regarding claim 14, LEE, in view of KIM, teaches the method, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
LEE further teaches, wherein an effective time condition of the configuration information comprises one or more of: the terminal enters the RRC IDLE state or RRC Inactive state (LEE [176] “For example, referring to FIG. 20, a UE 2010 may perform user plane early data transmission (UP-EDT) … Here, in response to generation of MO data in the UE 2010 that shifts to at least one of the idle state and the inactive state, the UE may start a random access procedure.”, teaches an effective time condition when the terminal enters Idle or inactive state. Satisfies “one or more of” and “or” criteria in the claim); a second time offset elapses after receiving the configuration information, wherein the second time offset is carried in the configuration information; a first absolute time elapses after receiving the configuration information, wherein the first absolute time is carried in the configuration information; or a third time offset and a second absolute time elapse after receiving the configuration information, wherein the second absolute time and the third time offset are carried in the configuration information; and/or, wherein an expiration time condition of the configuration information comprises one or more of: a first timer expires, wherein the first timer is started after the terminal receives the configuration information, and when the first timer is started, the terminal listens to a physical downlink control channel to obtain a retransmission scheduling of configured grant by the network side; a first count value is greater than or equal to a preset value, and the first count value indicates that after the terminal receives an RRC release message, when there is no uplink data sent by a configured grant resource, the first count value is increased by one; a timing advance is out-of-sync; a channel quality of a synchronization signal block resource is lower than a first threshold value; or a channel quality of a serving cell is lower than a second threshold value.
Claims 5, 31 and 46 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE, in view of KIM, and further in view of Park; Kyungmin et al US 20200351818 A1, hereinafter Park.
Regarding claims 5, 31 and 46, LEE, in view of KIM, teaches the methods/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1, 27 and 44.
LEE and KIM do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Park teaches, wherein the physical downlink control channel configuration information comprises one or more of: time domain information; frequency domain information; control resource set information; or search space information (These PDCCH parameters are well-known in the art of 3GPP wireless system. For the sake of prosecution, a prior art is presented. Park [251] “The PDCCH configuration parameters may comprise information of a common ControlResourceSet (CORESET), a common search space, and/or necessary PDCCH parameters.”; [226] “The communication may comprise signals associated with at least one of: … small data transmission (e.g., early data transmission, EDT), a random access process, data or small data reception (e.g., early data transmission, EDT), and/or the like.”. Satisfies “one or more of” criteria).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE and KIM to expressly include PDCCH parameters as taught by Park above in order to achieve 3GPP compliance wireless communication.
Claims 7, 33 and 47 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE, in view of KIM and Park, and further in view of IDS Reference, NPL ZTE R2-1903485, 3GPP TSG-RAN2 meeting#105bis, Xi'an, China, 8th - 12th April 2019, hereinafter NPL-Z.
Regarding claims 7, 33 and 47, LEE, in view of KIM and Park, teaches the methods/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 5, 31, and 46.
LEE, KIM and Park do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, NPL-Z teaches, wherein the frequency domain information comprises one or more of: a frequency domain start position of a physical downlink control channel, a frequency domain length of a physical downlink control channel, or frequency hopping information; and/or the search space information comprises one or more of: a period of a search space, a position of a start symbol of a physical downlink control channel in a time slot, a downlink control information format, or a control channel element aggregation level (NPL-Z, chapter 1: "In idle mode, the PUR search space configuration includes at least the following:
- NPDCCH repetitions and aggregation levels
- NPDCCH starting subframe periodicity (variable G)
- Starting subframe position (alpha_offset) ". Satisfies “or” criteria in the claim).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE, KIM and Park to include the features as taught by NPL-Z above in order to achieve improvement on UL aspects of D-PUR in IDLE (NPL-Z Title and Introduction).
Claims 9 and 48 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE in view of KIM, and further in view of IDS Reference, WU; Min et al US 20210298108 A1, hereinafter Wu.
Regarding claims 9, 28 and 48, LEE, in view of KIM, teaches the methods/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1, 27 and 44.
LEE and KIM do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Wu teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process identification (ID) information, the HARQ process ID information comprises a HARQ process number and/or a HARQ process ID; the method further comprises: calculating or selecting the HARQ process ID, according to the HARQ process ID information, and/or sending an uplink data, on a configured grant resource, according to the calculated or selected HARQ process ID (see Wu [323]: " Optionally, the UE is configured with pre-configured uplink resources with a period of T_Period milliseconds, and the number of HARQ processes for the pre-configured uplink transmission is Num_proces. The UE determines the HARQ process number to be used according to the transmitting time of the pre-configured uplink transmission, for example, according to the following equation: HARQ Process ID=[floor(CURRENT_TTI/T_Period)] Num_process, where CURRENT_TTI=[(SFN*10)+subframe number]. ", teaching information about HARQ process with HARQ Process ID determination).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE and KIM to include the features as taught by Wu above in order to achieve UL transmission when the terminal is not in connected mode with the network (Wu [0007]).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE in view of KIM, and further in view of Shi; Jie et al US 20200037298 A1, hereinafter Shi.
Regarding claim 12, LEE, in view of KIM, teaches the method, as outlined in the rejection of claim 1.
LEE and KIM do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Shi teaches, wherein the configuration information comprises physical uplink control channel configuration information included in the configuration information, wherein the physical uplink control channel configuration information comprises a first time offset; the method further comprises: performing an uplink feedback of downlink data, according to the physical uplink control channel configuration information; and/or the terminal performs a feedback on a physical uplink control channel after the first time offset elapses, after receiving a physical downlink control channel or a physical downlink shared channel (Shi [73] teaches, resource configuration information includes time offset for uplink control channel, which is used to send feedback for data received on downlink data channel).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of LEE and KIM to include the features as taught by Shi above in order to provide an uplink control channel resource mapping method to avoid a collision in occupancy of an uplink control channel resource and improve accuracy of transmitting uplink control information (Shi [0005]).
Claims 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KIM, in view of Park; Kyungmin et al US 20200351818 A1, hereinafter Park.
Regarding claims 19, KIM teaches the method, as outlined in the rejection of claim 18.
KIM does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, Park teaches, wherein the physical downlink control channel configuration information comprises one or more of: time domain information; frequency domain information; control resource set information; or search space information; and/or, wherein the configuration information comprises Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process identification (ID) information, the HARQ process ID information comprises: a HARQ process number and/or a HARQ process ID, prior to the performing the data sending and/or the data receiving in the RRC Inactive state, the method further comprises: calculating or selecting the HARQ process ID, according to the HARQ process ID information; and/or sending an uplink data, on a configured grant resource, according to the calculated or selected HARQ process ID (These PDCCH parameters are well-known in the art of 3GPP wireless system. For the sake of prosecution, a prior art is presented. Park [251] “The PDCCH configuration parameters may comprise information of a common ControlResourceSet (CORESET), a common search space, and/or necessary PDCCH parameters.”; [226] “The communication may comprise signals associated with at least one of: … small data transmission (e.g., early data transmission, EDT), a random access process, data or small data reception (e.g., early data transmission, EDT), and/or the like.”. Satisfies “one or more of” criteria).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of KIM to expressly include PDCCH parameters as taught by Park above in order to achieve 3GPP compliance wireless communication.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Applicant Remarks: page 10, lines 11-29; page 11, lines 1-7, filed on 06/16/2026, with respect to claims 1, 18, and 27 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 18-19, 27-28, 31, 33, 44-48, 55 and 62 under USC 112(a) has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed on 06/16/2026, with respect to claims 1 and 27 USC 112(b) rejection, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues in Remarks: page 11 “In addition, Applicant respectfully submits that the present application proposes, for a specific technical scenario, a technical means that is technically contributive and inventive, namely that a UE in an RRC Inactive state can receive an RRC release message. This inventive technical means has been implemented and incorporated into standardization in the subsequent standard development process. Based on such inventive technical means, the terminal may receive configuration information sent by the network side; then, the terminal may perform data sending and/or receiving in an Inactive state, according to the configuration information, in case that the terminal performs a preconfigured uplink data transmission or an early data transmission, thereby improving the reliability of data transmission/reception in the communication system.”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant is using standard based terminology such as “RRC Inactive state”. Therefore, “RRC release message” is interpreted according to standard definition where it is applied in a RRC connected state. Applicant did not expressly define “RRC release message” in the claim to make it interpreted differently.
Moreover, KIM’s teaching in para [450] “The first base station may send an RRC release message comprising first suspend configuration parameters where the first suspend configuration parameters comprises a first NCC value and a first resume identity (ID). Based on receiving the first suspend configuration parameters, the UE may perform the suspending RRC connection based on the first suspend configuration parameters. The UE may transition to an RRC idle state or an RRC inactive state… The UE in an RRC idle state or an RRC inactive state may determine to perform the initiating UP small data transmission based on the UP EDT conditions being met.”, can be interpreted, under Broadest Reasonable Interpretation (BRI), as receiving a RRC release message in RRC inactive state, as UE enters into the inactive state at the instance of receiving the RRC release message.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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