DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The instant Office Action is in response to Applicant’s arguments filed on 12/29/2025.
Claims 1-12, 14 and 16-22 are pending. Claims 1, 14 and 18 are the base independent claims.
The IDS submitted on 3/11/2026 is acknowledged.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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/Amendments
Regarding claim 1, Applicant files arguments with respect to the amendment.
--In response, new grounds of rejection are made based on the combination of Kim, Tamura and Kwok for the amended claim limitations. Upon further consideration, Kim and Tamura still apply to a portion of the independent claims because the amendment does not change the scope of this portion. The rest of the arguments have been fully considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the new reference being used in the current rejection.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-12, 14 and 16-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US 2022/0256634, supported by provisional application 62/931952) in view of Tamura et al (US 2017/0289906) further in view of Kwok et al (US 2020/0314729).
Regarding claim 1, Kim discloses a method performed in a user device (UE) capable of operating in dual-mode connectivity (DC) with a master node (MN) and a secondary node (SN) of a radio access network (RAN) (fig. 23 & par 220; e.g. The wireless device may communicate with at least one base station (e.g. two or more base stations in dual-connectivity) via the plurality of cells), the method comprising:
receiving, from the RAN, a configuration related to a DC procedure (par 311; e.g. a base station may send a conditional primary secondary cell group cell (PSCell) configuration) and a network-specified condition to be satisfied (par 311; A UE may start evaluating the execution condition(s) for PS Cell candidate cells upon receiving the conditional PSCell configuration) before the UE applies the configuration (par 311; The UE may execute a PSCell addition/change (SCG) addition) once the condition(s) is met for a PSCell candidate cell).
The reference does not explicitly disclose the negative limitation:
determining whether a single connectivity (SC) condition of the UE is satisfied; and when SC condition is satisfied: inhibiting the UE from applying the configuration (emphasis added).
However, Tamura discloses:
determining whether a single connectivity (SC) condition of the UE is satisfied; and when SC condition is satisfied: inhibiting the UE from applying the configuration (fig. 16 & par 207-208; e.g. The control unit 403 notifies the signals that have been determined as objects, the radio qualities of which are to be measured by the UE; Since the control unit 205 is notified that the use of the SCG 32a is not permitted, the control unit 205 causes the storage unit 203 to store information indicating that the SCG 32a is not used; in other words, it is applying a SC configuration, hence inhibiting or not applying a DC configuration).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Tamura with the electronic system of Kim. One is motivated as such to consider various conditions of the network (Tamura, par 15).
The combination does not explicitly disclose that the UE is autonomously determining the SC condition.
However, it is obvious in view of Kwok. Kwok discloses:
In fig. 5 or par 108-112, also par 127, e.g. one or more device characteristics are determined… a dual or a singular connectivity mode is determined to be established based, at least in part, on the one or more device characteristics; wherein the process 500 is performed by a device (such as any of the first User Equipment (UE) 102, the second UE 104, the device 300, and the UE 302) and/or a Radio Access Network (RAN) (such as any of the RAN 106 and the RAN 402) to which the device is attached, see par 105.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Kwok with the electronic system of Kim and Tamura. One is motivated as such to perform the functions without limit (Kwok, par 104).
Regarding claim 2, Kim discloses:
receiving, from the RAN and prior to checking whether the SC condition is satisfied, an indication that the UE is allowed to apply the SC condition (par 299; A UE-RRC layer may receive an RRC reconfiguration message with reconfiguration sync information element (IE) or mobility control information from a base station; also fig. 23, fig. 24).
Regarding claim 3, Kim discloses:
the indication is a first indication; and the method further comprising: receiving, from the RAN, a second indication that the UE is not allowed to apply a carrier aggregation (CA) condition (par 300; e.g. CA duplication; also par 314; PDCP duplication being not configured).
Regarding claim 4, Tamura discloses:
wherein the SC condition includes one of (examining note: since the claim shows a limitation in an alternative form, the prior art may teach either or both limitations, and this notice applies to subsequent occurrences of claim limitations that are in the alternative form): (i) a low data requirement at the UE, the low data requirement corresponding to a minimum required data rate for the UE being below a threshold level, (ii) a requirement that no applications requiring DC currently are running on the UE, (iii) a requirement that a quality of a carrier of the SN be below a threshold level, (iv) a low-power condition of a battery of the UE, or (v) a hot-temperature condition of the UE (par 206; the radio quality; or par 218; level of the battery).
Regarding claim 5, Kim discloses:
wherein the DC procedure is one of: (i) a conditional SN addition or change (CSAC) procedure, or (ii) a conditional PSCell addition or change (CPAC) procedure (par 311; PSCell addition/change).
Regarding claim 6, Kim discloses:
the receiving of the configuration, the determining of whether the SC condition of the UE is satisfied, and the inhibiting occur in a first instance (par 312; e.g. the UE may evaluate the conditional PSCell addition/change execution conditions at A); the method further comprising, in a second instance: receiving, by UE and from the RAN, a second configuration related to a conditional handover (CHO) procedure and a second network-specified condition to be satisfied before the UE applies the configuration; and when the SC condition is satisfied: allowing, by the UE, the UE to apply the second configuration (par 321; In an example, based on the failure information, the old base station may perform handover (e.g., to change PCell to the cell or the PSCell) by transmitting handover command to the wireless device via the PSCell).
Regarding claim 7, Kim discloses:
wherein the inhibiting includes: in response to determining that the SC condition is satisfied, inhibiting the UE from monitoring the network-specified condition (par 311; The UE may stop evaluating the execution condition for other candidate cells during the PSCell addition/change execution).
Regarding claim 8, Tamura discloses:
subsequently to the inhibiting the UE from monitoring the network-specified condition, determining that the SC condition is no longer satisfied; and resuming, by the UE, the monitoring of the network-specified condition (par 218; when the remaining level of the battery 204 comes to have a margin after the determination of not to permit the use of the SCG 32a, the use of the SCG 32a may be permitted).
Regarding claim 9, Tamura discloses:
wherein the inhibiting includes: in response to determining that the SC condition is satisfied, preventing the UE from applying the configuration, irrespective of whether the network-specified condition is satisfied (fig. 16 & par 205; When, for example, the remaining level of the battery 204 is low, the control unit 403 determines not to permit the UE 2 to use the SCG 32a).
Regarding claim 10, Kim discloses:
the SC condition corresponds to a first threshold value of a parameter associated with the UE; the method further comprising: in response to detecting a second threshold value of the parameter, disabling MN carrier aggregation (CA) (fig. 16 & par 205; When, for example, the remaining level of the battery 204 is low, the control unit 403 determines not to permit the UE 2 to use the SCG 32a).
Regarding claim 11, Kim discloses:
wherein inhibiting the UE from applying the configuration includes disabling DC (fig. 16 & par 205; When, for example, the remaining level of the battery 204 is low, the control unit 403 determines not to permit the UE 2 to use the SCG 32a).
Regarding claim 12, Kim discloses:
wherein the inhibiting of the UE from operating in DC includes at least one of: (i) suspending measurements on a carrier frequency of the SN, or (ii) transmitting a report of the measurements on the carrier frequency of the SN, the report indicating at least one of a low signal strength or a low signal quality (fig. 16 & par 205; This obviates the need to transmit ACK/NACK to both the MeNB 31 and the SeNB 32 and measure radio quality in the MCG 31a and the SCG 32a, thus the power consumption of the UE 2 can be attempted to be reduced).
Regarding claim 14, Kim discloses a method performed in a radio access network (RAN) for configuring a user equipment (UE), (fig. 23 & par 220; e.g. The wireless device may communicate with at least one base station (e.g. two or more base stations in dual-connectivity) via the plurality of cells), the method comprising:
transmitting, to the UE, a configuration related to a DC procedure (par 311; e.g. a base station may send a conditional primary secondary cell group cell (PSCell) configuration) and a network-specified condition to be satisfied (par 311; A UE may start evaluating the execution condition(s) for PS Cell candidate cells upon receiving the conditional PSCell configuration) before the UE applies the configuration (par 311; The UE may execute a PSCell addition/change (SCG) addition) once the condition(s) is met for a PSCell candidate cell).
The reference does not explicitly disclose:
providing, to the UE, an indication of whether the UE is allowed to apply a single connectivity (SC) condition to determine whether the UE is to apply, subject to the network-specified condition, the configuration.
However, Tamura discloses:
providing, to the UE, an indication of whether the UE is allowed to apply a single connectivity (SC) condition to determine whether the UE is to apply, subject to the network-specified condition, the configuration (fig. 16 & par 207-208; e.g. The control unit 403 notifies the signals that have been determined as objects, the radio qualities of which are to be measured by the UE; Since the control unit 205 is notified that the use of the SCG 32a is not permitted, the control unit 205 causes the storage unit 203 to store information indicating that the SCG 32a is not used; in other words, it is applying a SC configuration, hence inhibiting or not applying a DC configuration).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Tamura with the electronic system of Kim. One is motivated as such to consider various conditions of the network (Tamura, par 15).
The combination does not explicitly disclose that the UE is autonomously determining the SC condition.
However, it is obvious in view of Kwok. Kwok discloses:
In fig. 5 or par 108-112, also par 127, e.g. one or more device characteristics are determined… a dual or a singular connectivity mode is determined to be established based, at least in part, on the one or more device characteristics; wherein the process 500 is performed by a device (such as any of the first User Equipment (UE) 102, the second UE 104, the device 300, and the UE 302) and/or a Radio Access Network (RAN) (such as any of the RAN 106 and the RAN 402) to which the device is attached, see par 105.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of communication protocol configured for the electronic system of Kwok with the electronic system of Kim and Tamura. One is motivated as such to perform the functions without limit (Kwok, par 104).
Regarding claim 16, Tamura discloses:
wherein the SC condition includes one of (examining note: since the claim shows a limitation in an alternative form, the prior art may teach either or both limitations, and this notice applies to subsequent occurrences of claim limitations that are in the alternative form): (i) a low data requirement at the UE, the low data requirement corresponding to a minimum required data rate for the UE being below a threshold level, (ii) a requirement that no applications requiring DC currently are running on the UE, (iii) a requirement that a quality of a carrier of the SN be below a threshold level, (iv) a low-power condition of a battery of the UE, or (v) a hot-temperature condition of the UE (par 206; the radio quality; or par 218; level of the battery).
Regarding claim 17, Kim discloses:
the indication is a first indication; and the method further comprising: receiving, from the RAN, a second indication that the UE is not allowed to apply a carrier aggregation (CA) condition (par 300; e.g. CA duplication).
Regarding claims 18-22, the claims are similar to the method claims 1-5, therefore Kim in view of Tamura also discloses the UE based on similar limitation mappings above.
Conclusion
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/YAOTANG WANG/SCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409